Magazine ArabNet Quarterly Issue 3

Lara Chaaya
Managing Editor
@ChaayaLara
lara@arabnet.me
Slow Is
the
New Fast
I remember when I got my first freelancing job as an online editor. At the time, I was still
a graduate student in the faculty of sciences and thought everything should be validated
by scientific reasoning.The job’s brief requested for 7 blog articles to be delivered within 4
days. Eager to make a few decent bucks—not that it was a hefty amount—I sat diligently
on my desk and began with what I thought was the norm: research. Five hours later, I was
barely done with the first article. Back then, I thought the problem was me; I was a novice
in the area. So I called the client and told her I needed a couple of more days to deliver
the articles because the research was taking time.To my surprise, the client’s response was:
“Why are you wasting time on research? Just write anything that comes to your mind.
People read anything on the web!”
Nine years later, I am writing this letter to say just the opposite.
We live in a fast-paced world where time has become a scarce and valuable resource.
When people go online today, they are bombarded with all sorts of content. Now that
the wonder effect of the web has worn off, people have become very selective and will
only settle for content worth their time. I’m not saying that they suddenly have become
interested in research papers on the latest biomedical discovery. On the contrary, they are
interested in content that relates to them. In his book “Contagious: Why Things Catch
On,” Jonah Berger lists six factors that make content interesting to the audience and more
likely to be shared. And guess what? He used the scientific method to come up with his
conclusions. For content creators to implement any combination of Jonah’s six factors, they
need to invest a lot of effort on generating worthy pieces of content.They need to give that
process its rightful time.The competition is high and content generators can’t afford to
take a shortcut.
In this issue’s cover story, leading online video creators give great insights into the amount
of work needed to create good quality content and memorable characters that people
emotionally connect with. It is not the work of day or two.
The same can be said about the content of The Quarterly. For the past three months, we
have toiled to bring you content worth your while. I hope that after reading our magazine,
you would feel your time was wisely spent. And as always, I’d love to hear from you.
Until next time!

letter from the editor

Useful Apps for Transportation
A Round-Up of Taxi-Booking Apps for Residents in MENA
2 The Quartely November 2014
CONTENT
issue 3
Industry stories
TECHNOLOGY
BUSINESS
4 Industry News 20 Digital Transformation
in Banking
Two ways video is disrupting
retail banking
24 Food Fight
Competition in online food
ordering heats up
26 The Impact of Mobile
on Retail
How mobile usage in stores
influences purchase decisions
30 Why Brick-And-Mortar
Retailers Should Invest
in Tech
Interview with the General
Manager of GS
8 Recent Trends in Web
and Mobile
12 How to Make SEO Matter
Increasing traffic by aligning social
media with SEO
14 Great Apps to Come Out
of the Middle East
18 Maximizing Productivity
Our 5 favorite tools for better
efficiency at work

3November 2014 The Quartely
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
48 What You Need to
Know About Equity
Crowdfunding
52 IPO-Track Investing
The most capital efficient way to
grow wealth and global leadership
54 A Pitch with an Impact
What lessons can we learn from
Arab entrepreneurs
56 How Do You Maintain a
Work/Life Balance?
We ask the entrepreneurs
60 New Middle East Startups
That Should be on
Your Radar
63 Why Elias Ghanem
Left Paypal
Hitting the reset button
34 Smart Government
Initiatives
How to avoid the mistakes
of the 2000s
36 The Business of
Online Video
Beyond the one-hit viral video
42 Interview with
MediaCom’s CEO
Nick Barron
Technology may have changed,
but the fundamentals of great
advertising haven’t
44 The “Now” Moment
How to implement a real-time
marketing strategy on Twitter
46 Digital Arabic Typography
Great Arabic web fonts on web
and mobile screens
DIGITAL MEDIA

Industry stories
Wysada Secures
Series A Round at $5M+
Jordan-based Wysada, the online luxury
retailer of home goods and interior
furnishings in the Middle East, announced
that is has completed a Series A round of
over $5M.This deal represents the largest
Series A round raised by an early-stage
e-commerce startup in the region.The
round was led by Badia Impact Fund, a
global group of venture capital funds based
in New York City and Jordan, and strategic
investors from KSA and the GCC,
alongside existing investors.
Industry News
Telr Raises Series A Round
from iMENA Holdings and
Hatcher
Telr, the multi-currency and multi-
lingual payment gateway for SMEs,
headquartered in Dubai and Singapore,
has just raised a Series A round from Singapore-based Hatcher and Middle East-
based iMENA Holdings.This makes Telr the first online payment gateway in the
region to secure investment in growth funding in the first year of operations.The
round was closed almost two weeks after Telr announced its merger with Innovate
Payments and officially began operations.The amount of the funding is undisclosed,
but iMENA has acquired a significant amount of equity in return.This news brings
the total number of iMENA’s investments to seven, placing Telr alongside Hello
Food, Easy Taxi, Citra Style, Sell Any Car, Open Souq, and Reserve Out.
MEVP Closes the Impact Fund at More than $50M and Approves 5 Investments
MEVP launched the Impact Fund on
December 19, 2013 and was the first venture
capital firm in Lebanon to be approved
by Banque Du Liban (BDL) on July 11,
2014 as compliant with BDL Intermediate
Circular 331. Impact Fund is now the first
fund in Lebanon to close under said circular
on October the 24th, 2014, and already has
investors’ commitments in excess of $50M.
The Impact Fund will invest $1 to $5M
per company in Lebanon’s next generation
knowledge-based startups, with a focus
on ICT and creative industries as primary
sectors.The Impact Fund’s investment
committee approved five investments in
the amount of $12.5M. Four out of these
investments have been closed, and one
is expected to close by the end of 2014. MEVP has invested $3M in Mobinets, a Lebanese telecom software provider; $2M in Fuel
Powered (previously Grantoo), a platform that helps mobile games add multiplayer functionalities instantaneously enabling gamers to
compete with each other; $1.5M in Klangoo, owner of the semantic text analysis technology “Magnet”; $4M in Bookwitty, a global
online book distributor and reseller with large footprint in North America and Europe; and an undisclosed amount in Fadel Partners, a
Lebanese-based IP management software company.
WebTeb Raises $3.2M and Reaches 4M Unique Visitors
Arabic health and lifestyle portal WebTeb closed a $3.2 million Series C funding round led by Sadara
Ventures. Existing WebTeb investors, including the Siraj Palestine Fund, also participated in the round.
The funds will be used to expand WebTeb’s mobile offering, content (especially videos), and marketing.
Dr. Mahmoud Kaiyal, Founder and CEO of WebTeb explains: “Healthcare service providers and
pharmaceutical companies have been increasing demand for native advertising, content and services online.
We’ll see seven digit budgets for campaigns in 2015. Some of the big brands are doubling their online
advertising budgets for 2015.”

Industry stories
UAE Is the First Country to Use Air Drones for Logistics
Age Steel, a large steel trader in Dubai, is among the
first companies in the Middle East to use drones for
logistics purposes. Age Steel approached Exponent,
a logistics solutions company, to make it easier to find
tons of steel in their 10,000 square meter yard. RFID
tags placed on each corresponding bundle of steel were
read by cards placed on drones that flew above the steel
to track the exact locations of every steel bundle.The
general aviation authority had no objection to doing
this as long as they don’t use the drones over any public
areas, and limit the height of the drone to a maximum
of 10 meters in altitude.The drones fly twice a day when
there is no human movement in the yard. Exponent’s
COO explained: “We flew the drone over 10,000 square
meters as a test where we tagged 1,000 bundles, and we
were able to count all of them in just 5 minutes with an
accuracy of 98%.This process usually takes more than
10 people to compelte in 2 hours.”
Zomato Soon to Launch
in Beirut
Zomato, the India-based online
restaurant review that has raised over $50
million in funding since its launch five
years ago, continues its expansion in the
Middle East by entering the Lebanese
market.They are currently in the data
collection phase, and the platform will
be fully operational in the next two
months.This announcement comes after
Zomato launched in UAE in early 2013.
The service is currently available in 16
countries, with plans to expand across
Jordan, Kuwait, KSA, and Oman.
The First Accelerator in Iran Is Launched
Avatech is a new accelerator for seed-stage digital startups launched in Iran by Mohsen
Malayeri.The team behind Avatech are expecting 150 applications out of which 10
startups will be admitted to the acceleration program where they will be offered seed
funding, co-working space, advice from expert European mentors, and outreach from
Avatech’s partners. Some startups applying to Avatech are localized adaptations of
international models like Mehr.ir, Iran’s version of YouTube.
Feelit Secures $100K
from BootstrapLabs
Feelit, the Saudi-based social app that allows users to
communicate their emotions and moods, raised $100K
from BootstrapLabs, the venture investment company
in Silicon Valley, bringing the total cash invested in the
startup to $300K. Feelit has also attracted the attention
of several angel investors from Saudi Arabia and abroad.
They raised $150K from Saudi angels and $15K from Will
Bunker, a Silicon Valley angel investor who created
Match.com. BootstrapLabs will work hands-on with Feelit
for 12 months to relocate them to Silicon Valley.

HP Launches Online B2B
Store in Saudi Arabia
Tech giant HP has launched a Saudi-exclusive B2B
e-commerce platform: www.hpstoreksa.com.The
platform offers HP server, storage and networking
products and services to businesses across the KSA.
HPStoreKSA will merge the services of Ebhar.net
with those of the three giant distributors in Saudi:
Redington, Logicom and Aptec.The deal is that
Ebhar.net will continue to manage the website while
the distributing companies will answer customer
inquiries, in addition to their usual shipping tasks.
AstroLabs Partners with Google
and Looks to Expand Borders
AstroLabs is launching a full-blown startup tech hub in Dubai, in partnership with
Google and DMCC.The co-working space will allow organizations like AstroLabs
and others to help the startups mainly with functional and marketing support.There
will be room for many startups to work and enlist in training programs for various
digital and business skills. Startups will also benefit through mentorship, workshops,
and access to industry connections as well as investment networks. AstroLabs have
helped build many success stories. Some popular ones that come to mind are Lebanon’s
Anghami and Dubai’s Qordoba.
Mobily Ventures Launches
and Invests in Two Big Startups
Mobily is launching its investing arm
“Mobily Ventures” with the goal of
supporting high-growth technology
startups in the MENA through their
investments and synergies. Mobily Ventures are looking for startups who
have already raised their first round of funding, and are now seeking
Series A funding in the growth stage with an investment size of 300,000
USD to 3 million USD.They have already invested in Anghami,
Easy Taxi, and Hellofood—the last two of which also received funding
from iMENA Holdings.

TECHNOLOGY
RECENT TRENDS
IN WEB AND MOBILE
Silicon Valley Leaders Discuss What’s Hot
by Wael Nabbout | @FulMtlColumnist

from outside the country.The number of people with connected
smartphones is expected to rise to two billion by the end of
2014. Now, more than ever, you are able to build value with less
resources and capital.
A trend that failed? Well not entirely, at least not yet, but
wearables are having their share of trouble and need help, the
panelists said. People who have bought a wearable device, on
average, drop it three weeks later. Insufficient battery life is the
evil keeping it from becoming mainstream.
Industries That Will Be Disrupted by Smart
Devices or Automation
Home robots fit both of these trends according to Faysal.
They could be small devices that scrub your floor at home for
example, and they’re smart too.They create and save maps of
their environment to better navigate their way. Healthcare, he
continued, is perhaps where wearables might be able to find a
better future.
The healthcare industry is valued between 2.7 and 2.9 trillion
dollars a year, 600 billion of these are in preventative care, and
this is where wearables might take off. Its main competition
could very well be smartphones according to Benjamin. During
WWDC 14, Apple announced a number of features that allow
developers to integrate health readings and build apps around
them. At this point Ben interjected, adding that healthcare
entities take a long time to make decision and as such, they are
slow in adopting these technologies. It’s hard on their budgets,
it’s risky, and there is a lot of regulations.The better route
involves companies or developers that have relations with health
institutions.
This year ArabNet Digital Summit hosted all of Ben Parr,
Cofounder and Managing Partner of Dominate Fund;
Benjamin Levy, Partner at BootstrapLabs; along with Jon
Soberg, Cofounder and General Partner at Expansive Ventures;
and Faysal Sohail, General Partner at CMEA Capital and got
them to weigh in on the subject.
But before we get into that, let’s have a quick recap of what
happened over the past 12 months.Twitter went public. Alibaba,
on the other hand, claimed the title for largest global IPO ever
at a whopping twenty five billion dollar valuation.There was
a few other ten digit valuations in the social space: Facebook’s
acquisition of Instagram for a billion dollars, a $3B bid for
Snapchat, Pinterest got valuated at $5B, and Facebook bought
WhatsApp for $19B. Similar moves for voice over IP companies
included Alibaba’s $215M investment in Tango, and Rakuten
paying just short of a billion for Viber. Google bought Nest,
invested in Uber and released Glass to the public. 3D printers
made further advances into mainstream adoption while following
Google and Apple’s move could soon see wearables become staple
shelf products in electronic stores.
Favorite Startups of Silicon Valley Investors
What better way to gauge what’s hot in Silicon Valley than to
ask four of the most prominent figures in the sector about their
favorite startup. For Faisal Sohail, that would be Luminate,
a leading in-image advertising and related content network.
What’s interesting about Luminate is that it tackles an area
that has been underserved. Google has done a tremendous job
monetizing word search. Luminate is trying to do the same with
pictures. Ben Parr has two favorites: Humin and Connect.They’re
quite similar; both try to give context around your contacts and
friends. Based on where you are, these services can show who
is close by and will auto-load all their social profiles so that you
know what they’ve been up to.This adds a new layer of value on
top of more traditional social networks that merely link profiles
together. Jon Soberg points out applications that handle big data
behind the scenes as an area of interest; in particular, he mentions
an enterprise credit rating service based in Germany called
Kreditech.The company is able to offer micro-loans to customers
based on social and commerce data. Finally, Benjamin Levy’s
favorite is AI company Emospark. What’s special about it is that
it adds a new dimension to artificial intelligence: emotions. Its
system seeks to understand human behavior and map feelings to
data collections. “That’s where we are going, a hint of the future,”
Levy says. So to wrap up: image content, context, big data and
emotions are hot right now.
The Key Trends, and the One That Failed
Following the same format—one question directed to all four
panelists—the discussion moved to address key trends and ones
that fizzled.
The panelists agreed that social will make its way onto devices
other than smartphones, and with the smart home movement,
in particular.
There is disruption in the venture landscape as well. A more
connected world means that venture is going global . 80% of
users of the top twenty five tech companies in the US come

TECHNOLOGY
Chinese, and Spanish that makes scaling easier, explains Ben. All
four have a huge number of speakers, some span continents and
some reach over oceans. Contrast that with Europe, where local
startups usually have a hard time growing beyond their borders.
What Is It Going to Take to Attract the Big VCs?
All the panelists agree: Exits. Big ones. Global early stage
investment, angel investors and small funds have made multiple
entries into the region, but ultimately, the bigger London and
Silicon Valley players won’t move until they see that this part of
the world can produce exits in the next five to seven years.
Big funds are unlikely to move. Local companies will have
to scale and grow beyond their borders to catch their attention.
Having a big hit on your hands helps, too. Hits guarantee
multi-billion dollar exits every couple of years.That money gets
reinvested in the ecosystem and gives birth to new angels, new
funds, and so on.n
What’s Next for Chat Apps
“When you have a 19 billion dollar acquisition, you know it’s
starting to mature in someway!” exclaimed Ben. But why was this
acquisition so critical for Facebook? Because everyone is on the
app, because it’s global, and most importantly, because frequent
one-to-one communication is more valuable and easier to
monetize than one-to-many communication. Is there opportunity
left in the market? Absolutely, the panelists unanimously agreed,
but since it’s maturing, any new entrant hoping for a big break
must present something radically different.The trend suggests
that people right now are using different apps that do the same
thing.They segregate different types of acquaintances to different
chat apps. Big players moving in might change that soon. Apple,
for instance, is baking chat into its own OS, which could in the
long run swallow up more users.
The Curious Case of Snapchat
Why is Snapchat so popular? Benjamin explains: First, the
interface, although somewhat complicated, compared to
something like WhatsApp, is unique and clever.There is an
element of gamification in its video capture button. But a much
bigger factor in Snapchat’s popularity is the fact that it doesn’t
permanently capture images.This makes it Ok to snap bad ones.
On Facebook, pictures are permanent, so each one must be
perfectly executed. On Snapchat, a picture is a means to simply
pass on information. It doesn’t leave a permanent record. “It’s the
non searchable web.”
Opportunities in Emerging Markets
For investors, copycats are a-ok, stresses Jon.They’ve see
hundreds of copies in Silicon Valley, too. Localizing is hard.
The infrastructure that exists in the US is very different from
emerging markets, so investors really value entrepreneurs that are
able to take something that works and apply it somewhere else. It
is definitely nothing to be shy about or looked down upon.
Arabic is one of the four languages, along with English,
Ben Parr, Cofounder and Managing Partner of
Dominate Fund
Jon Soberg, Cofounder and Managing Partner at
Expansive Ventures
Benjamin Levy, Partner at BootstrapLabs
Faysal Sohail, General Partner at CMEA Capital

TECHNOLOGY
Social Media and SEO are like the
yin and yang of the online arena and
one without the other cannot function
adequately. Having your social media
supporting your SEO is especially
important, because its practice has
changed considerably since the birth of
SEO in the mid-1990s. But what made
Google so popular — the ability to rank
websites based on ‘popularity’ by crawling
and weighing in bound links to any
given website — has in a sense remained
the same. What’s different is that the
popularity of a website or brand these
days is not only judged by its in-bound
links, but also by its social media impact
and how well content is entwined with a
brands website.
Search engines do their best to build
a holistic view of several brands before
they present them to some of the 6 billion
searches that are carried out every day.
That’s why it’s really important to ensure
your social media strategy is tangled with
your SEO strategy, and every post should
relate to what you are publishing on your
website and the keywords which you are
targeting. After all, there are several
possible sources of traffic to your
website. So what can be done
to ensure your SEO and social
media work well together?
1. Optimize your hashtags
Hashtags were first
adopted by Twitter and
were used to perform
searches inside. However
due to massive popularity,
they have quickly been
adopted by other social
media platforms like Facebook,
Google+, and Pinterest.
It’s highly advisable to
perform hashtag keyword research
through websites like Hashtatit and
discover what kind of keywords your
target audience could be searching
for or are embedding into their
online posts. Essentially by intelligently
optimizing your hashtags will build
your awareness within a specific group
of people and attract attention to your
brand.
2. Embed social meta tags in
your page templates
Having social Meta tags within your
websites code will automatically optimize
your titles, descriptions, images and more
information which is visible in social
streams.
This ensures that whenever content is
being shared from any given page, it will
automatically be optimized with whatever
keywords you have already targeted on
that page.
3. Optimize your Google properties
(Google+, Google Places, YouTube, etc.)
Google has done whatever could be
done to improve their presence in Social
Media.This is great for SEO, because
as all these platforms feed directly
back to Google and they become an
amazing opportunity to improve your
rank by building relevancy and authority
in search engines.
When you are building a Social
Media strategy with SEO in mind, you
have to make sure all Google entities are
aligned with your SEO strategy.This can
be done by building a content template
which takes into consideration and aligns
SEO keywords, (H1, H2,Title Tag,
URL,), #tags, author link, descriptions
and anchor text which will be embedded
into Google entities and link back to your
website.
These are just some of the techniques
you can apply to your own brand. But
the truth is the list is much longer than
this and you have to be active on all
prominent Social Media platforms at
all times. If your website has a blog, a
good idea will be to automatically link
your blog posts with all your Social
Media accounts, so that every
time you publish a new article
it can be automatically shared
with your social audience and
keep the stream of posts active
and consistent.
4. Reach out to bloggers
when you devise a
content marketing
strategy
You need to do the
research and discover
opportunities to spread new
content. One of the many ways
of doing this is to perform
blogger outreach. Bloggers
are like judges in a popularity
contest.The more links and
relevant content you have
streaming back to your website and
social media channels, the better it will be
for your brand and ranking chances for
your target keywords.n
How to Make SEO Matter
Increasing Traffic by Aligning Social Media with SEO
by Ozal Ergen
Ozal Ergen is the SEO Manager
at iProspect MENA
Op-Ed

TECHNOLOGY
Great Apps to Come Out of the Middle East
We often reproach ourselves, us MENA dwellers, not being innovative
enough Even when we do create, it is often adaptations of international
versions. The story goes that a large part of our online entrepreneurial
endeavor resembles a localization gold rush. We rarely innovate, if at
all. We’re here to refute that claim by listing ten of our favorite apps
that have come out of the region.
App Mahal
Perhaps the app that best encapsulates
this transformation is App Mahal. Not
only is it produced locally by Palestinian
entrepreneur Khaled Swilat but it’s also
truly original. A social network for apps,
App Mahal serves to communicate useful
and rated apps among acquaintances. Its
core value is adding the human element
to app discovery. So rather than relying
on broad download numbers to gauge
popularity, its smarter algorithm looks at
your friends and users in your vicinity to
figure out what apps you could find handy.
What’s more, it’s impeccably designed
with beautiful Arabesque elements. It is
exclusive to Android and completely free.
WebTeb
WebTeb recently launched a free
comprehensive health mobile app for iOS.
WebTeb’s online portal initially launched
in Amman and Ramallah in early 2012
and was very well received in the Middle
East, particularly in the GCC, gathering
about 3 million unique monthly visitors.
The app integrates WebTeb’s physician
backed information (the TebChecker), a
symptom checker that helps patients learn
about their condition, a doctors’ directory
that lists doctors according to the users’
location, industry leading indexes, and
tests index, in addition to the only Arabic
language drug interaction tool.
Mapture
Mapture was born out of a heated
political debate around the June 30, 2013
protests in Egypt.The cofounders, Bahaa
Hashem, Zeyad Salloum, and Belal
Eid, scrambled to find graphic evidence
online of the incident, but realized that
whatever they found couldn’t be verified.
And so they came up with Mapture, an
online mobile community where people
anonymously share photos. Location is
captured from the device’s GPS while the
date and time are pulled from the web.
This ensures the information cannot be
altered. Fiddling around with the phone’s
time and date setting will not affect the
timestamp. All users remain anonymous.
This rids photographers of any fear of
reprisal. It also delivers content in its
purest form.The app is available on the
App Store for free.

Ymdi
Ymdi is a new iPhone app that helps
residents in Saudi Arabia manage their
shopping around prayer times. In the
Kingdom, businesses must be closed five
times a day for prayer, so Ymdi offers
a number of features that helps users
navigate through their day seamlessly.
Primarily, the app locates your position
to determine whether you can make
it to a certain shop before closing.
Additional features include venue
recommendations based on Foursquare
and easy one-click access to navigation
apps.The app was developed by a
Riyadh-based SAP consultant Ahmed
Alawaji and programmer Sultan
Alharbi.The app is free and available for
all iOS devices.
Smart Document Scanner
As far as office productivity regional apps
go, it doesn’t get any better than Smart
Document Scanner. Built by Alexandria-
based software development company
Softxpert, the app boasts a formidable
myriad of features aimed at managing any
sort of document. It can scan, enhance,
and convert documents to PDF. Optical
character recognition (OCR) makes it
possible to convert scans into editable text
formats. It syncs and files notes, receipts,
invoices, meeting minutes, contracts,
bank statements, and whiteboards. All of
that and more, and it’s free. Available for
download on Google Play.

TaskSpotting
TaskSpotting is an inventive Fiverr meets
marketing research solution. Operating in
Dubai, the company seeks to tap into the
world’s most mobile connected market and
create a network of amateur marketing
intel recruits for companies.Through the
mobile app, any person can complete a
mission—which typically involves a simple
task like seeing if a product is in stock at
his local supermarket, checking prices,
or answering a few survey questions—
in exchange for a small monetary
compensation.The app is available for both
iOS and Android.
1:0 ‫صفر‬ ‫واحد‬
If you’re looking for a good football live
score application, you are treated to a
myriad of apps to pick from. If you’re
looking for one that takes the experience
to the next level and offers a platform for
fans to engage with one another, then look
no further than ( 1:0 ‫صفر‬ ‫)واحد‬ created
by talented Saudi developers. In addition
to tracking scores, the app lets users
compete by predicting the outcome of
the game, collecting points, and featuring
the results on a leaderboard. After the
game is done, users can share views and
analysis of the result. It includes all major
European clubs, national competitions, and
the world cup, in addition to footballing
competitions from the KSA and the UAE.
The app is free and available for iOS,
Android, and Windows Phone.
Yamsafer Express
The hotel booking website headquartered
in Ramallah recently released a mobile
booking app, Yamsafer Express.Through
the app you can book a hotel room as late
as 5 nights ahead of your stay with up to
70% price discount.Think of it as flash
sales of hotel vacancies.The whole process
can be done with just three clicks: search,
book, and confirm. You can opt out of
providing your credit card payment.The
app can be found on iTunes and Google
Play.
Applixya iApproval
iApproval is a Jordanian enterprise mobile
technology solutions and platforms
provider. Its iApproval iPad app is an
innovative application that provides
an intuitive approach for corporate
executives to review and approve their
correspondence on the go. Users can
embed markup notes, comments, recipient
list and action instructions.The supporting
material can be anything from office
documents to videos and audio material.
Users can also sign documents using a
specially designed pen or directly with
their fingers.The app allows for sending
and receiving of text messages. It’s available
for iPad free of charge.
Escape from Paradise
A lot of games have come out this year
from the Middle East, but we’re tipping
our hat to Game Cooks’ Escape from
Paradise.The game is an adventure
platform that follows a bouncy ball-like
protagonist trying to make his way out
of paradise. Gameplay is nothing out
of the ordinary; you avoid obstacles
and collect points within a time limit.
Graphics, however, is where the game
stands out among the crowd. With
spectacularly crisp high definition
backgrounds and silky smooth scrolling
and movement, the Beirut-based
game studio has taken design and,
more importantly, execution the extra
mile.The game is available for free on
Android, iOS, and Facebook.There are
in-game purchases for upgrades.

TECHNOLOGY
maximize your
productivity
Our 5 Favorite Tools for Better Efficiency at Work
by Romeo Chalfoun | @RomeoChl
After much trial and error, we bring you a list of our favorite tools that have helped us at
ArabNet become more productive, efficient, and ergo happier.

Asana
Asana isn’t at all new, but it’s come a
long way since it was first released back
in 2011. It’s a great tool to organize
and follow up on personal as well as
business tasks.The free version allows
you to organize tasks involving teams
of up to 15 people. It has an interactive
HTML5 interface with smooth on-
screen movement and has several in-app
integrations that makes task management
a breeze. It does, however, have a couple
of downsides: it can only be used when
you are online, and it is probably not
the best choice for people working on
graphics-related projects. It also has no
chat options. Moreover, while it allows
you to organize tasks by date, it does not
support scheduling tasks for specific times
during the day. So depending on your
needs, this web and mobile app may be a
great addition to your business operation
management. It’s one of our personal
favorites at ArabNet.
Rapportive
Rapportive brings contextual information
to email. It is a browser extension that
works in Safari, Firefox, Chrome, and
Mailplane. When reading a Gmail
message in your inbox, you can hover
the cursor over a certain email address,
and Rapportive will display the person’s
social media profile, namely LinkedIn,
Twitter, and Google accounts. Retrieving
your contacts’ full name, profession,
company, and even their profile picture
has never been easier. You can also
connect with them on LinkedIn directly
from Rapportive. It doesn’t end here: You
can also see your contacts’ recent tweets
in the Gmail inbox, and follow, reply,
and retweet on Rapportive’s Twitter box.
And it only takes a click to end up on any
of their social media profiles displayed.
Rapportive isn’t the newest kid in the
block, but if you use Gmail consistently,
you’ll surely come to appreciate this
plugin.
Boomerang for Gmail
I can’t recount the number of times I have
received an email, read it, and then got
so busy that I forgot all about it. I’m sure
anyone reading this piece could relate
to my experience. Enter Boomerang.
Boomerang can schedule emails you send
and bounce ingoing emails back to the
top of your inbox at a time when you
are less busy and can give the email the
attention it needs. It also allows you to
schedule the time a certain email goes
out of your outbox. You can always find
messages you postponed and edit them.
Perhaps its only downside is that it only
works with Mozilla Firefox and Google
Chrome. Boomerang for Gmail runs a
“freemium model,” but the free version is
both powerful and practical and allows up
to 10 (+5 bonus) scheduled emails.The
paid version comes with a mobile app as
well as other benefits.
Streak for Gmail
Streak is a CRM-app created for
integration with Gmail. We think
it’s the best tool out there to handle
customer processes via email. It helps
you organize your inbox into 8 default
business processes called “pipelines.”
Some of the standard pipelines available
are the Sales/CRM pipeline and the
Journalism pipeline. Streak can help you
break down the linear process of sales
into manageable steps that you can share
with the rest of the team. You can also
group emails together and move them
from one “step” to the other.That’s what
we really like about Streak: it’s very
fluid. And it’s loaded with helpful tools
such as the “send later” option that saves
scheduled emails in your draft folder,
similarly to Boomerang. However, if you
are working with processes that cruise
through all the steps of the pipeline in
one day, then Streak might seem too
cumbersome to use.
Any.Do
With the abundance of to-do apps in
the Android and Apple store, you would
probably find it easier to shop for clothes
than to shop for the best task manager
app. After several “tryouts,” we chose Any.
Do as our champion. It is a sharp and
good-looking Android and iOS to-do
list app that also comes with a Chrome
extension to sync the data on your mobile
devices with your web browser. What
we like most about the app is that it can
integrate with your Gmail, and spot tasks
directly from your emails, such as “follow
up with Mike” or “send the revised
document to John,” allowing you to
schedule tasks with less than two clicks.
It can handle recurring tasks, although
these options are somehow limited, and
timed and location-based reminders.The
Android version also allows you to add
attachments to your tasks, streamlining
your daily tasks even further. n

BUSINESS
BUSINESS
Today the banking industry is
buzzing with innovations
that are driving the industry into
the digital age.The evolution
of mobile banking, payments,
mCommerce and the branch,
is pushing banks to reinvent
themselves and think about how
they can better connect with an
increasingly tech savvy customer. In
the midst of all the disruptive turmoil
faced by banks is the impressive growth of
video consumption over the web.
Most bankers are still not aware that YouTube
now ranks second, only after Google, when it comes
to searching the internet.This little known fact
is important because it indicates the mindset of
consumers nowadays, and illustrates that people
want to ‘see and hear’ about products and services
before they make the decision to acquire them. Given the
ignorance of this fact, it is therefore not surprising to see how
most banks are not exploiting this medium to differentiate
themselves in such a competitive industry. In this article, I will
talk about two key areas of ‘video’ that banks must focus on if they
are to remain relevant in an ever connected world.
Video Chat for Engaging with Existing Customers
The branch has long been the cornerstone of the retail
distribution model, and continues to be a prominent factor in the
operating costs of most banks. It is no surprise that banks often
debate the need for the branch and the role it will play in the
future. Branches are currently going through a digital shakeup;
Digital
Transformation
in Banking
Two Ways Digital Is Transforming
Retail Banking
By David Horton | @DavidMashreq
OP-ED

prospective customers. It is a well-documented fact that video
increases interest and engagement with consumers by more than
20X that of traditional text and images on websites, and is now
accessed on smartphones more than any other content on the net.
A quick look at the rise of YouTubers who provide video-based
advice gives valuable insight into the potential for banks.
Modern day celebrities like PewdiePie have captured
enormous subscriber bases on YouTube, and now consistently
outperform viewing numbers from traditional providers like
CNN.The loyalty that these celebrities have attained from their
subscriber base reiterates the power of trust in what they say and
the importance of advocacy on social media.
Many banks today still dedicate very little of their marketing
budget to digital channels, and even less on video content
production. Historically, the challenge of video content has been
the cost associated with its production, and the time and effort
required to develop professional grade videos.This industry
challenge is fast becoming another disrupted market, and we
are at the early stages of seeing video production become very
affordable. New websites like Wooshii and MakeWebVideo are
already offering solutions to businesses for producing affordable,
high quality video content.The result over the next few years
will be that banks can now begin to
produce video product ands catalogues
which can be used on their websites,
on smartphones and tablets, and
in their digital branches to better
communicate with consumers.
Furthermore, the use of simple
video content can be used to aid in
the migration to digital channels for
common transaction services. Banks
can begin to build a ‘Video FAQ’ that
explains how you might pay your bills
online, or how to transfer money to your friends via Mobile P2P
through Facebook.
The possibilities for video-based marketing content are
numerous. When banks begin to realize the advantage it can play
in making a consumer choose Bank A over Bank B, it will get the
importance it needs. Whilst such a statement will almost certainly
have its skeptics amongst banking traditionalists, I would ask
you to consider that if you don’t think video is important to
your business now, it is the equivalent of saying in 2004 that the
internet isn’t important to banking.n
we often hear of new branch designs and interactive technologies
that are helping to reinforce the customer relationship and move
away from transactional services. As consumers have adopted
internet and mobile banking to execute their everyday banking
needs, they have needed the branch less and less (on average, once
or twice a year!), and it is no surprise that many banks are actively
looking to rightsize their branch network. With less direct
contact with their customers, banks are faced with the challenge
of maintaining the ‘relationship’ with the customer and not
become commoditized.
The problem is further exacerbated when you consider that
the diversity and nature of visits to the branch mean that banks
are struggling to provide skilled staff who are able to deal with
such a broad range of advisory services. For instance, a branch
staff member may be very capable of helping a customer with an
account enquiry, or applying for a personal loan, but will typically
not have the knowledge to give advice on investments, or provide
a detailed understanding of a whole life insurance plan. It is when
such specialist advice is needed that video comes into its own, and
allows the branch to service a customer through personal video
chat with a qualified advisor.
Although video conferencing is widely available to the
general public, and most are familiar
with the likes of services such as
Skype or FaceTime, it is still slow in
being adopted by banks as a means
to centralizeg skilled resources across
a wide geographic branch network.
The services of the ITM (Interactive
Teller Machine) and dedicated Video
Chat booths in branches should be
slowly making their way into everyday
banking near you.
Banks like Mashreq, have made
video chat booths available in their branches, and in particular
the ATM area outside of the branch in a bid to make themselves
available to customers 24/7. Not content with just making this
service available at a physical branch location, Mashreq has even
gone so far as to enable video chat facilities through its online
banking website so that customers have the service from the
comfort of their own home. Much like the MAYDAY button
launched by Amazon, the ability to video chat with the bank is
transforming the ‘face to face’ engagement that the bank offers its
customers.The result: customers who are not happy to frequently
visit the branch still feel engaged and valued by the bank, and
take comfort in knowing that a voice (and a face too) is always
available when they need it.
Elsewhere, we see the approach taken one step further.The
evolution of video-based advice has taken shape in banks like
ASB bank, who offer video chat facilities through their Virtual
Branch available on their Facebook site.The long and short of it is
that if you are a bank and you’re not at least experimenting with a
video chat service channel, you should be.
Video Chat for Engaging with Prospective Customers
So whilst video chat can help banks in engaging and servicing
existing customers, we now turn to how it can help with
“If you are a bank and you’re not
at least experimenting with a
video chat service channel, you
should be.”
David Horton is a C-suite executive who leads innovation
and delivers digital transformation of new and traditional
businesses. He is currently the Chief Transformation Officer
at Mashreq bank.This was a new role created in the bank in
2012 to focus on ideation, execution and migration of a digital
business model.

BUSINESS
Online food ordering/delivery has
been a reality around the world for
quite a while now.There are countless
local, regional and global platforms for
the service. Like many other services
and products, online food ordering had
found its way to our region.The simple
additional infrastructure the service needs
created an abundance in platforms.
HelloFood, for instance, facilitates
online food ordering in over 40 countries,
including four countries in the MENA
region—KSA, Qatar, Jordan, and
Lebanon. In KSA, there are several local
platforms, including HungerStation,
with over 600 restaurants; Easy2Eat;
and WJBTY, which delivers
“homemade” meals.
However, there seems to be more
regional platforms.The list includes
Talabt.com, operating in the GCC;
Food Fight
Competition in Online Food
Ordering Heats Up
by Ghassan Zakaria | @ghassanzakaria

they are focused on the local market;
sometimes, a global platform gains lots of
credibility, just for being global.
While Beschir Hussain sees
HelloFood’s competitive edge in being
“the most global company, present in
nearly 50 countries;” he raises a very
interesting point: “Our main competition
is phone ordering. I do believe that online
ordering will replace phone ordering to a
great extent in the future.”
Ordering food by phone is, indeed,
still the dominant method in our region,
and KSA is not an exception. Perhaps
that’s the reason why we don’t see ‘wars’
among platforms, and it probably is the
reason that none of the executives of these
platforms is worried about the decision of
Zomato—the vast restaurant reviewing
platform—to enter the market as an
online food ordering platform as well.
The market of online food ordering is
huge, and it seems to have room for each
and every sort of platform in the next year
or two.The competitors in the race are
still warming up.That is probably why we
haven’t seen any remarkable innovation,
like we saw in other sectors, such as
wearables for example.
But that will not be the case for
long.The growth of every web sector in
our region is astoundingly rapid. We’ve
seen many services/products providers
that could not keep up with the market,
because the speed of the increase in
demand was unpredictable. Participants
in this race should seek a head-start that
would prove very useful in the near future.
Commercial operations, such as
acquisitions and mergers, expansion
of partnerships and areas of service,
enhancing customer service and sales, and
constant updates to apps and websites
would definitely be useful to all parties
involved—restaurants, customers and
platforms. But the key to any competitive
advantage, as the history of business tells
us, has always been innovation.
A funny lady in New Jersey once
tweeted, “I won’t be impressed with
technology until I can download food.”
Who knows? With 3D printing, that
doesn’t seem so farfetched.
Food downloading or not, one fact
remains true: those who innovate will
always be at the top of any market.
Online food ordering is no exception!.n
or the other? Or is it more complicated
than that?
“At first glance, people often make the
mistaken assumption that our business
only takes a fancy website with a list of
restaurants to succeed,” said Arkac. “In
reality, success hinges on our ability to
provide a smooth customer experience
while generating a sufficient quantity of
orders for our partner restaurants.”
Al Jassim regards their “user-friendly
app and devoted customer service team”
as the strongest factor in their position
in the market. He thinks that being the
only Saudi CEO in the local market
is irrelevant. “This is not a matter of
nationality; it is a matter of passion,” he
said.
Apparently, it’s all in the details!
Factors like the number of partner
restaurants, responsiveness of websites
and apps, diversity of cuisines, etc. seem
to be the main elements of competition.
When it comes to local markets, it
does not necessarily mean that bigger
platforms are stronger. Foodonclick, for
instance, has partnerships with over 2,000
restaurants, overall; while HungerStation
is limited to 600, so far. But, on the other
hand, Foodonclick operates in two Saudi
cities—Riyadh and Jeddah—only, while
HungerStation provides the service to 18
Saudi cities! HelloFood covers 9 cities
and Otlob.com covers 5.
That could lead us to say that
HungerStation is the leader of the KSA
market. But that doesn’t mean that local
platforms are always stronger, because
Otlob.com, operating in Egypt and
KSA; Hunger Quenchers, operating in
India and the GCC; and FoodOnClick,
operating in UAE, KSA, Lebanon, Oman
and Qatar; to name a few.
Factors of Success
Food ordering might seem like the
simplest process in the world; you order
food, and it gets delivered.That is, simply,
not true. In a world where you can eat
Chinese food in New York and Turkish
food in Sweden, the service has gone a
long way in sophistication, with huge
steps still ahead.
Naturally, online food ordering should
make things easier for both customers and
restaurants. But that means more work on
the ordering platform end to make it so. It
all comes down to “passionate, innovative
developers and salesmen,” according to
Ebrahim Al Jassim, CEO at the Saudi
local platform HungerStation. Beschir
Hussain, Managing Director Middle
East at the global platform HelloFood,
identifies the key success factor as having
“marketplace efficiency.”
Foodonclick, the regional platform,
agrees. It takes “a capable sales team and
marketing know-how and budget to
attract both [customers and restaurants].
This is a difficult task to master,” said
Kivanc Arkac, CEO at Foodonclick. In
other words, the level of success relies on
how well you provide the basics: customer
service, sales and marketing.
The thing is, though, that all major
online food ordering platforms are doing
that.They all have beautifully designed
websites where users create accounts
quickly and customize their orders; apps
for iOS and Android. Some even have
apps for BlackBerry and Windows Phone
and provide the service in major cities
and areas.They use social media to “listen
to our customer’s voice [and] reflect
our brand’s image and to attend to our
user’s concerns and suggestions in our
conversational tone,” according to Arkac.
The Competition
Having many platforms with the
same business model poses important
questions: How do they compete? What
would be a company’s competitive
edge over another? Can the market
accommodate all those platforms, one way
According to Hunger Station,
the estimated online food
delivery market in KSA is not
less than 10M orders. The
total GCC market could reach
18M-25M orders a year.
According to HelloFood,
the food delivery and
take-away market in KSA
is around $1.6B of which
online food delivery makes
approximately 0.3% or
$5.1M. By 2020 it is expected
to grow 41 times.

BUSINESS
On Device Research, a mobile market
research company, recently released a
report on how mobile influences in-store
shopping behavior for shoppers in the
Middle East.The survey was conducted
in September 2014 with a representative
sample of 1500 mobile users in Egypt,
Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.
In Egypt, 70% of the respondents were
using feature phones. Egypt also has
lower smartphone adoption rates, data
speeds and income levels than the other
two countries, but its smartphone users
share similar behavior to those in Saudi
Arabia and the UAE.
The Impact of
Mobile on Retail
How Mobile Usage in Stores Influences Purchase Decisions

advertisers who can reach out to people in
real time while they are in the store.
Where Can Brands Reach
Shoppers on Mobile?
Non-shopping activities done while
in shopping centers present a great
opportunity for retailers. Nearly one-
third of respondents plays a game while
line with the figures from Saudi Arabia
(36%) and UAE (44%).
Other activities include checking
prices and reviews, as well as non-
shopping related activities, like
entertainment (57%), which is broken
down into playing games (28%), taking
photos (24%), and visiting social networks
(22%).These numbers show people use
mobile for entertainment purposes more
than for direct shopping-related activities.
Mobile Prevents and Shifts Purchases
Using mobile for shopping-related
activities has a significant impact on
purchase decision: 90% of shoppers in
Saudi Arabia, 88% in UAE, and 74%
in Egypt have stopped a purchase as a
result of using their phone to assess their
shopping decision. 33% said they found
a better price online, 18% found a better
product and 16% followed a trusted
friend’s opinion and stopped
the purchase.
This has huge implications for
retailers and advertisers. Price comparison
and product reviews are right in the
consumers’ pockets, which makes it
impossible for brands to hide product
flaws or price unfairly. On the other
hand, this presents new opportunities for
Brick-and-Mortar Shopping
in KSA, UAE, and Egypt
The report describes Saudi Arabia and
UAE “as places where shopping is a
national sport.” In fact, some of the
world’s largest shopping malls are found
there.The Dubai Mall for instance, the
world’s largest shopping mall at 1.12
million square meters and housing 1200
stores, attracted over 65 million shoppers
in 2012—that’s more than visited New
York that same year. Egypt in particular
has been catching up to the other two
countries.Traditionally associated with
market stalls and small local shops, it has
attracted lately big brands such as Marks
& Spencer, Ikea, and Zara and houses
shopping centers including the 882
thousand square foot Mall of Arabia.
Phones versus Tablets
40% of the respondents went online
on their phone in the last 12 months.
Cheaper handsets and data plans
combined with growing network
coverage are influencing mobile internet
penetration, with almost 60% of
respondents reporting that they started
using mobile internet during the last 2
years.
Meanwhile, tablet ownership is on
the rise. While all respondents said that
they have an internet connected phone, a
high ownership of tablets, particularly in
Egypt, “was a real surprise!”
Seeking Assurance Is the Most
Popular Shopping-Related Mobile
Activity
Almost 90% of mobile internet users in
Saudi Arabia and the UAE have used
their phone in stores to check prices and
product reviews or ask friends for advice.
That rate drops to 60% in Egypt.This
drop is due to the high rate of feature
phones in the country. Among the
smartphone users in Egypt, this figure
rises to 86%, bringing it in line with the
numbers in the other two countries.
According to the study, using the
phone to ask friends or family for advice
by sending them a photo of the product
or calling them is the most popular
shopping-related activity at 35%. In
Egypt, only 20% of feature phone owners
do this. Among the smartphone users, the
figure increases to 43%, which is again in
Research Report
Q. Have you ever stopped a
purchase in store as a result
of using your mobile phone?
74%
26%
90%
10%
88%
12%
Egypt
Saudi Arabia
UAE
YES NO
Source: On Device Research, September 2014
Countries: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, N=1208
Nader Kobeissi, MD MENA at On
Device Research

BUSINESS
networks, reading news or watching video
clips while in the store can be targeted
with timely and relevant offers through
mobile ad networks,” says Nader Kobeissi,
MD MENA at On Device Research.
The two most significant platforms
that brans should consider for reaching
shoppers is Facebook and YouTube.
Retailers and brands should also look
for advertising opportunities with local
players like Souq.com and Dubizzle
in UAE.
On a final note, Nader Kobeissi told
ArabNet: “We are very happy to see
that brands in the region realize that
their consumers spend more and more
time on their smartphones and other
mobile devices and are doing all they
can to better understand this medium to
strengthen the consumer’s engagement
and relationship with their brands.”n
in store.This means that advertising
in the right games could be a winning
formula using various technologies
such as like beacons, geo-fencing and
real-time bidding platforms.The report
recommends App Annie for such
purposes. It provides app ranking data
and high quality mobile analytics, and
“tracks the movers and shakers (and
money makers) in the app ecosystem”
according to the report.
Chat apps are exceptionally popular
on mobile. One obvious hindrance is that
most chat apps do not offer traditional
advertising solutions.This doesn’t mean
that brands shouldn’t use them to engage
fans and offer deals and discounts.The
most popular apps are WhatsApp and
Facebook Messenger, followed by Skype
and Viber.
“Anyone playing games, using social
Egypt
Internet penetration 25%
Mobile penetration 120%
Smartphone penetration 23%
Saudi Arabia
United Arab Emirates
Countries: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, N=1500
Q. Have you used your phone when shopping in store in the past 3 months?
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
Check prices Call a friend/
family for advice
Send a photo of
product to friend/
family
Check product
reviews
Egypt Saudi Arabia UAE
Check opening
times
Show shop
assistant the item
you're looking for
Fill time at the
checkout
Countries: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, N=1500
Q. Which of the following devices do you have at home that are connected to the internet?
Egypt Saudi Arabia UAE Average
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
50%
Tablet Laptop computer Desktop computer Gaming console EBook reader

Found a better price Found a better
product online
Someone I asked
for advice didn't
like the item
Saw a negative review Bought a similar
item online
Couldn't ﬁnd info
about product online
Q. Have you ever stopped a purchase in store as a result of using your mobile phone?
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
Q. Have you used your phone in store for non-shopping related activities?
Played a game Taken photos Used social
networks
Called friends/
family
Read news Watched video
clips
Sent emails Sent instant
messages
Q. Which of the following services do you use regularly on your phone (at least once a week)?
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
Facebook Youtube Google+ Twitter Instagram Souq Wikipedia Dubizzle
Research Report
About On Device Research:
It was founded in 2009. It uses proprietary technology to recruit a large base of profiled global respondents using mobile internet to gain access to
consumer opinions at any time and place.The company has delivered over 20 million mobile surveys in 74 countries.

BUSINESS
Many of the local brick-and-mortar
retailers are grappling with digital
technology as they try to remain relevant
in an ever-increasing competitive market.
GS (Grand Stores) acknowledged the
importance of technology and has taken
the first steps to embed it in its retail
operations. Just recently, GS has released
its new iOS and Android application
on the occasion of its 40th
anniversary.
ArabNet sat with Jamil Rayess, General
Manager at GS, to learn more about
the app and how it fits with the overall
strategy of GS.
What can you tell us about GS’s digital
strategy?
Our digital strategy consists of
many different aspects. For example,
maintaining a strong presence on a variety
of social media platforms allows us to
listen to our fans’ comments and feedback
while also keeping them informed
on the latest GS news. We’re strong
advocates of harnessing the power of new
technologies, as they are a great way of
strengthening the link between GS and
our customers.
Can you tell us more about the features
of the app?
We launched the app with the aim of
making it easier and more convenient
for our customers to check the latest
collections present at GS Stores, benefit
from the latest activities and promotions,
access our GS magazine, follow their
reward points, and get the location of all
our GS Stores, in addition to many other
exciting features.
For starters, the “Now in Stores”
section displays selections that provide an
overview of our collections. Users can also
check the newest items from their favorite
clothing lines and browse our collections
per brand in the “Brands” section.These
two sections are updated on a daily basis
in order to keep our customers up to
date. Another interesting feature is the
“Rewards Program”, where users simply
log in using their credentials to check
their HST Co. Rewards Card information
and points balance online. They can also
use their phones to scan their purchase
barcode and add points without having to
actually use the card. GS is one of the first
brands in Lebanon to incorporate such an
important feature.
Do you see the retail industry being
disrupted in the next few years due to
technology?
I don’t see the retail industry being
disrupted at all. On the contrary, GS
believes that technology is a positive
force in the retail industry as it opens
the door to a wealth of new purchase
possibilities while also strengthening the
bond between consumers and the brand.
If anything, technology facilitates and
enhances consumers’ shopping experience,
which can only be good news for the
retail industry.
What are some of the key challenges
that you face as a retailer trying to build
a solid and sustainable online strategy?
The online world is constantly evolving,
so one of our biggest challenges is staying
on top of those changes and adjusting
our strategy accordingly. Some online
platforms may fall while new ones emerge;
that’s why the key to success is flexibility
and a real desire to embrace change.
What in your opinion are the challenges
that are slowing down the regional
retailers’ shift to online?
As we have seen during the last couple
of years, customers need time to adjust
to new trends.That’s why brands often
need to be patient and realize that a major
change such as e-shopping requires time
to instigate.
How are you leveraging online
platforms?
We believe that the key is to avoid
focusing on a specific online platform at
the expense of other ones. It’s all well and
good to have an active Facebook page that
fosters engagement, but you are depriving
yourself of the many benefits that other
mediums provide. For example, some
users love to browse Instagram instead
of Facebook, since it’s a purely visual
medium.That’s why we try to maintain a
strong presence across a variety of social
media platforms, including Facebook,
Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and
YouTube.
What are your future plans?
Moving forward, it is a question of
improving what has already been
established while staying on the lookout
for new channels to embrace and new ways
to enhance our customers’retail experience.
We’re constantly releasing updates to the
app and we’ve already reached version
1.2. We’re also working on establishing a
successful e-shopping platform.n
WHY BRICK-AND-MORTAR retailers
SHOULD INVEST IN TECH
“The key to success
is flexibility and
a real desire to
embrace change.”
Jamil Rayess, General Manager at GS

BUSINESS TRENDS
MENA REGION VS.THE WORLD.
2012, 2013, MENA VS. INTERNATIONAL, %
MENA
100% 20%
INTERNATIONAL
SHIPMENTS WITHIN MENA HAVE
SEEN 100% GROWTH FROM 2012
TO 2013
INTERNATIONAL SHIPMENTS
HAVE SEEN 20% GROWTH
FROM 2012 TO 2013.
INTERNATIONAL
ECOMMERCE IS
MORE MATURE
MENA
THE ECOMMERCE MARKETPLACE IS STILL FAIRLY
UNDERDEVELOPED AND THE AMOUNT OF
REGIONAL ONLINE RETAILERS IS STILL LIMITED
THE AVERAGE VALUE OF
GOODS PURCHASED IN THE
MENA WAS $110 IN 2013
(This figure has stayed consistent
over the last 3 years)
THE AVERAGE VALUE OF
GOODS PURCHASED
INTERNATIONALLY IS $75
(The figure has dropped compared
to last year)
CASH (COD) CARD
2012 71% 29%
74% 26%2013
ON DELIVERY
E-COMMERCE TRENDS
SAUDI ARABIA
38%
UAE
28%
EGYPT
10%
LARGEST MARKETS
% BY DESTINATION COUNTRY, 2013
APPAREL SHOESELECTRONICS APPARELBOOKS ENTE RTAINMENT BEAUTY SUPPLIES BOOKS/BAGS
WHAT ARE PEOPLE BUYING (SNS)
PAYMENTS
COD VS. CREDIT CARD PAYMENT 2012, 2013, %
THE MENA ECOMMERCE MARKET IS A COD ONE!
THE FUTURE? MORE OF THE SAME WITH AN INTERNATIONAL TWIST

70%
90%
17% 20% 18%
TOP REASONS:
201320122011
CASH ON DELIVERY (COD) CARD
24% 7%2012
21%2013 7%
SAUDI BUYERS
2012, 2012, 2013
PAYMENTS
WHY SAUDI CUSTOMERS PREFER CASH?
RETURNS BY PAYMENT TYPERETURNS
UNDELIVERABLE RETURNS 2011, 2012, 2013, %
AVERAGE # OF DELIVERY ATTEMPTS, 2013, %
MENA SHIPMENTS TO KSA:
TO MAJOR CITIES
INTERNATIONAL SHIPMENTS TO KSA:
TO MAJOR CITIES
35% NO CARD
18% NO TRUST IN
ONLINE PAYMENTS
25% CASH EASIER
4% OTHERS
18% PREFERS CASH
CUSTOMERS REFUSED
THE PACKAGES
CUSTOMERS ARE
UNREACHABLE
CASH ON DELIVERY (COD) CARD
1.88 1
AVERAGE NUMBER
OF DELIVERIES
AVERAGE NUMBER OF
DELIVERY ATTEMPTS

BUSINESS
Useful Apps for TransportationSmart Government Initiatives
How to Avoid the Mistakes of the 2000s
by Ibrahim Elbabawi | @iBadawi
and society, and to consider many
non-technological issues. As the World
Economic Forum puts it: “Technology
on its own is not enough to build smart,
modern governments.” Edmonton city in
Alberta, Canada is a very good example
of this, as it uses technology as an enabler
for its six strategic plans contained in its
City Vision 2040 effort to design and
achieve the city’s long-term economic
strategy. We shouldn’t forget that Arab
societies vary greatly in their political and
socio-economic situations.The illiteracy
rate, for example, reaches 40% in some of
these societies.
2. Engage the citizens: More than 50%
of our population is under 25. Despite
unemployment and other related issues,
these young people are highly energetic,
and a significant percentage of them are
well educated and innovative by world-
class standards.Today’s smart initiatives
should be seen by our government
and society leaders as opportunities to
engage the young citizens and spark
their innovative capabilities. Openness
and collaboration are among the key
features of today’s digital world. As
we witness an increasing gap between
Not too long ago, many headlines
with the word “smart” flooded the
news. One story was how the Saudi
authorities planned to transform the city
of Arafat into a “smart city,” which was
published on our (01government.com)
portal at the relevant time in the year’s
hajj season. Elsewhere around the world,
headlines with “smart” were for stories
about the Dubai Police launching smart
applications for Google Glass, the Dubai
Municipality using drones to carry out
aerial surveys, and India’s government
announcing ambitious plans to launch
100 (yes, you read it right!) smart cities,
amongst other countless stories from
London, San Francisco, Melbourne, Rio
de Janeiro and Cape Town.
As a consequence, every time I
come across a new smart initiative, the
following question pops into my mind:
How can we avoid repeating the mistakes
of the “e” era and maximize the success
of these smart initiatives? I’d love to
spark a discussion with you by presenting
the following four recommendations
that cover some of the technology and
policy issues related to any typical smart
initiative:
1. It’s not only about the technology! It’s
true that technology is the key enabler for
all these initiatives, but it may well be very
risky to focus on technology alone and
overlook other factors such as the ones
related to the organizational structure,
human capital, culture and citizen trust,
and operation processes.The case of the
Obamacare website and the National
Health Service (NHS) information
technology program in the UK are only
examples, the latter was described by a
Member of the Parliament and the Public
Accounts Committee (PAC) as “one of
the worst and most expensive contracting
fiascos in the history of the public sector.”
Such failures have taught us to put smart
projects in context within the wider
continuous transformation of government
citizens’ expectations and the actual
level of government performance
around the world, engaging citizens
in government decision-making has
proven to be effective and efficient in
designing government policies and
services that meet or at least come
close to these high expectations.There
is no better and more fitting example
than #UAEBrainStormingSession,
the nationwide brainstorming session,
which was launched by a tweet sent by
His Highness Sheikh Mohammed, Vice
President and Prime Minister of the
UAE and Ruler of Dubai. A post on his
Facebook page in December 2013 invited
“all of UAE society to think collectively of
creative solutions” to “find new ideas for
health and education”. Within a few days,
more than 82,000 ideas and suggestions
had been submitted by citizens via social
media and other electronic means and
actual government decisions and policies
were announced based on them.
3. Data! Data! Data! Neelie Kroes, Vice-
President of the European Commission
responsible for the Digital Agenda,
has labelled data as “the new oil for our
economy” when commenting on an
estimation that data could stimulate a
market worth 70 billion Euros a year.
Sharing government data with the public
can – in addition to the economic value –
enable citizen engagement (as mentioned
in the point above) and help governments
tap into the innovative capabilities of its
citizens through collaboration to find
solutions to various challenges. Solutions
can emerge as smart applications or
data-driven policy recommendations.
The smart London Plan is an excellent
example of this, where “open data” is
considered a key pillar of the plan.
4. Invest in Research: Our gross
domestic expenditure on research and
development (GERD) as a percentage
of GDP is much lower than the world
average and varies from 0.1% to 1.0% of
GDP, whereas advanced countries spend
over 2.5% of their GDP on R&D. Most
of the giant technology companies that
operate in our region (e.g. Google and
Facebook), dedicate this regional presence
to sales, not R&D.This situation has to
change and today we have an excellent
opportunity to do so.n
Ibrahim ElBadawi is the Founder of
Exantium and 01 Government. He
was the Former Strategy Advisor for
Dubai Smart Government and UAE
mGovernment

DIGITAL MEDIA
DIGITAL MEDIA
Two years ago, Saudi Arabia captured
the headlines of technology news
when Google revealed that the Kingdom
ranked first globally in YouTube views per
capita.The Middle East as a whole, with
its 285 million video views per day, came
second only to the United States. Over 90
million views are from KSA alone.
People in most countries in the
region have access to various forms of
entertainment. However, that is not the
case in Saudi Arabia, where theatre and
cinema are non-existing, and television
shows are mostly not locally relevant and
lack original content for youth. With the
lack of competition to attract the young
population’s attention, YouTube became
particularly popular in the Kingdom, and
high internet and mobile penetration
significantly catalyzed online video
consumption among Saudis. “They watch
four to five hours of video online,” says
Kaswara Al Khatib, Chairman and CEO
at UTURN Entertainment, a multi-
channel network (MCN).
The demand is definitely there,
and content creators jumped at the
opportunity. It didn’t require much: a
camera, a laptop, and access to YouTube.
As a result, huge amounts of content
was uploaded on the platform, mostly by
amateurs. Initially, these videos received
high numbers of views, but over the past
The
Business
of Online
Video
Beyond the One-Hit Viral
by Lara Chaaya | @ChaayaLara

Multi-channel networks
(MCNs)
are entities that affiliate
with multiple YouTube
channels, often to offer
assistance in areas such
as product, programming,
funding, cross-promotion,
partner management,
digital rights management,
monetization/sales, and/
or audience development, in
exchange for a percentage of
the advertising revenue from
the channel.
http://www.youtube.com/yt/creators/
mcns.html
does not only publish its content on
YouTube. It has a presence on all major
social media platforms. Last year, it
launched its iOS and Android app, and
in March 2014, it announced a strategic
partnership with Yahoo! Maktoob.
According to UTURN, the total number
of views across all platforms recently
reached a whopping 755,737,457.
Jordan-based Kharabeesh is also
experiencing steady growth. “We used to
have 21 million views a month,” says Firas
Al Otaibi, Chief Business Development
Officer at Kharabeesh. “This year we
reached 43 million views per month.”
Kharabeesh is currently developing its
own mobile application and provides
licensing for TVs to broadcast selective
pieces of its content.
C3 Films, who is experiencing 100%
growth in viewership on its Telfaz11
channel according to its Business
Developer Abulaziz Al Shalan, is shifting
from solely focusing on entertainment
comedy shows to other areas, namely
music. “We became an MCN to go
into different content areas, not just
entertainment,” says Abulaziz. C3 Films
will be looking more into premium
models and has just soft launched
Indiemaj, a network for musicians
that has a different model than Telfaz.
“Music is going to be big from 2015 to
2017,” states Abdulaziz. “Music has no
boundaries. If you are not a Saudi, you
might not understand something from
a Saudi comedy show, but music doesn’t
have this limitation as everyone can relate
to it.”

Can MCNs Keep Up?
As the audience becomes increasingly
selective, MCNs face a variety of
challenges. Finding and attracting the
talent needed to drive traffic is not an
easy task. Moreover, the nature of many
incumbent MCNs limits their ability to
incur high production costs. “We are not
a TV, and we are bound by the economics
of YouTube,” says Firas.
When MCNs initially launched, their
primary cost was centered on content
creation as a platform for technology-to-
scale and entry-level monetization. “We
had to be smart as to how we monetize,
using the advertising knowledge that
we have,” says Kaswara. When YouTube
see more interesting shows; however, less
frequently.”
The Multi-Channel Network Boom
The online video landscape worldwide
slowly but steadily began to shift from
a plethora of random pieces of content
into a flourishing network of highly-
structured valuable content.This shift
coincided with YouTube’s changes in
layout made in late 2012, which amplified
subscriptions and viewer retention rates
on channels, allowing YouTube creators to
reach a wider audience and secure higher
advertising revenue.
In MENA, the local YouTube MCNs
began to migrate into view with a strong,
professional digital offering. “We wanted
UTURN to have a business aspect,
with structured, regular shows,” says
Kaswara. “These shows have an intro, a
logo, a name, and a channel.That was the
beginning of the online content pipe in
Saudi Arabia.”
Leading MCNs in the region
engaged professional script writers,
content creators, directors, camera-
men, and social media teams to create
quality content that tackled local
issues in a format that appealed to a
millennial demographic. People like
Ali Al Kalthami, Malik Nejer, and Alaa
Wardi raised the bar of local online
video content and drove subscriptions to
regional MCNs by the millions.
“The market is still not mature, but
it is regulated, and it is going to continue
to grow,” says Kaswara. “The numbers
might appear like they are decreasing, but
if you sum up viewership, subscriptions,
and monthly consumption, you will notice
the overall numbers are actually growing
exponentially. [UTURN] started with
around 2 million views per month.Today,
we are at 25 million.”
To reach a wider audience, UTURN
12 months, the number of new shows
began to drop and viewership has become
dispersed across many channels.The
‘novelty’ effect wore off, and users became
picky about what they watch. “What
happened is that YouTube got saturated
with content, and a lot of this content
isn’t necessarily of good quality,” says
Malik Nejer, Animator at Lumink. “So,
a lot of people who created this kind of
content pulled out. Now, we are going to
Saudi Arabia Fact Box
Median age: 25 years
Internet penetration: 60%
Mobile penetration: 176%
Smartphone penetration: 76%

DIGITAL MEDIA
According to Malik, what makes
content good for someone going to
YouTube is “if it’s viral or not, even if it
doesn’t fit the criteria of an art academy
graduate who considers it as not good.”
The animator explains that for a video to
go viral, it first has to be novel; second,
it has to have some kind of music; and
third, it has to be short. Ziad concurs
with Malik’s three criteria, only he names
them as “originality, high production
values, and efficient delivery system
(limited buffering, etc.).” Abdulaziz adds
“relevancy” to the list.
Novelty is definitely a criteria for
quality content, how come most of the
content that goes viral is about cats? Just
think of the ‘I Can Has Cheezburgr’
blog created in 2007.The website only
publishes images of lolcats, yet it received
1.5M hits per day right around its release.
“The way humans behave online is
very interesting to me,” remarks Malik.
“Quality is not synonymous with online
video, that’s a fact.”
It appears that people are tired from
the mainstream and are looking for
something more casual and that requires
less of a commitment than watching, for
instance, Game of Thrones.
changed its policies and allowed channels
to monetize, MCNs had to convince
advertisers to move online so that their
business models continue to make
economic sense.Thus began the on-going
debate of branded content versus TVCs
(television commercials).
“After three years, brands now believe
that investing in online content is better,”
says Abdulaziz. In fact, it all goes down to
measuring ROI. Abdulaziz argues that a
single TVC might cost $3M, but if brands
channeled those $3M online, they could
create tremendous amounts of content for
a very high ROI. “Some brands are still
reluctant to go online.They think online
is weak. Eventually, they will, because
the market is changing. But the longer it
takes them to realize this, the bigger their
loss,” states Abdulaziz.
All major players in online video
agree that online ad spending in the
region is increasing, yet it is still minimal
compared to other places in the world.
“It is still not sufficient for sustaining the
business,” claims Firas. As MCNs grow
in size and become more mature, their
responsibilities expand: they get bigger
ambitions and face increasing pressures
from investors as well as brands who want
more than the basic pre-roll and product
placement models.They also strive to gain
direct access to their own audience.
“Are we making a lot of money now?
No,” acknowledges Kaswara. “But we are
betting on the content we have online and
the number of people watching them to
make us more money in the future.”
According to Ziad Khammar,
Strategy and Development Director at
DMS, the online video advertising market
is growing now that advertisers are
discovering that video advertising is much
more than just YouTube videos. “They are
allocating higher budgets to safe, original
content-driven video environments like
Shahid.net and OLN.tv,” says Ziad.This
raises the question whether brands prefer
traditional TV content online or are they
willing to take a risk of newer videos
specifically developed for the web.

What Makes Content ‘Good’
To make more money, MCNs need
to produce content that appeals to a
highly selective audience. But here’s the
dilemma: if people only want to watch
Abdelaziz Al Shalan, Business Developer at C3
Films/Telfaz11
Malik Nejer, Animator at Lumink
Overview of 3 Leading MCNs in the Region
C3 Films/Telfaz11
Headquarters: KSA
Number of views on network (based on YouTube): 16,112,067
Number of channels: 30
Most famous show: Al Temsa7
Kharabeesh
Headquarters: UAE
Most famous shows: Kharabeesh Toons, N2O Comedy, 3ala Rasi
UTURN
Headquarters: KSA
Most famous show: EshElly

DIGITAL MEDIA
the user watching the video, providing
feedback on how to improve branded
content creation,” explains Ziad. “Science
can now tell us exactly which moments
create the emotions we want.”
The Myth of the One-Hit Viral Video
Many advertisers and content producers
are trying to figure out how to create
a one-hit viral video. However, most
videos only go viral when brands spend
huge amounts of money, launching them
in the hopes that they will catch fire.
“The dilemma here is that you get views,
but your product lifecycle will be much
shorter,” comments Abdulaziz.
“We believe that instead of trying
to go for a one-hit wonder, most brands
will have greater success with a 'branded
video content' strategy, where they create
a string of 'shareable' content, under a
content platform umbrella,” says Ziad.
‘good’ content that is more likely to
be shared. According to Carlos Tibi,
Founder and CEO at ICFlix, one of their
most popular films on social media was
HIV, originally produced by ICFlix. “It
was something new and trending that
people could relate to and wanted to
discuss and share with their friends.”
Kaswara joins his peers in advocating
novelty as a driver of good content. “Viral
videos are the ones that happen when
you have something new and interesting,
something that you definitely want to
share because it’s amazing,” he says.
The Ice Bucket Challenge is a good
case in point. It was an unheard of
trend that evoked challenge, sympathy,
and a need to be part of a social wave.
Another example is the Saudi First Kiss
Parody produced by UTURN. It shows a
hilarious video where 20 male strangers
are grouped in twos and taught how
to greet each other the Saudi way: by
pressing the noses together. Published
in March of this year, the video has
reached over 1 million views to date. It is
different, unique, and surprising—a recipe
for shareable content.
“The aim is to generate as many
‘strong’ emotions as one can within every
video,” says Ziad. For this purpose, DMS
recently worked with Real Eyes—a
company which can measure emotions
throughout a whole video via the users’
webcam and using a mix of 2D and
3D modelling. “Real Eyes highlighted
feelings such as happiness, disgust,
surprise and many more experienced by
Carlos Tibi, Founder and CEO at ICFlix Kaswara Al Khatib, Chairman and CEO at
UTURN Entertainment
Firas Al Otaibi, Chief Business Development
Officer at Kharabeesh
He explains that through the creation
of many 'shareable' videos, a brand can
benefit from longer term campaigns,
resulting in much deeper connections
with attributable returns versus a high
risk, short term hit, which may or may
not work out.
“A successful branded content
platform doesn't only rely on ‘viral’ type
content, but should also include other
shareable content, such as a combination
of both, news or recent type content, plus
evergreen content, that doesn’t date and is
ever lasting,” continues Ziad.
To create “evergreen” content, not
only should it be relevant to the culture,
but it should also have great memorable
characters, something that Telfaz11
masters.Take Al Temsa7 for example. It
is a very consistent product that requires
very low budgets, and even though it has
been in the market for over two years,
people still find it funny because they
have built an emotional connection with
it. Likewise, La Yekthar gained steady
traction as the people got used to—and
waited for—Fahad Al Butairi and his
Harry Potter eyeglasses to appear on the
screen. “We created a demand. We did
not fill a demand,” says Abdulaziz. “It’s
very tough. You need to be ahead in the
market” instead of focusing on obvious
market opportunities. Other examples
include Ibrahim Saleh from the Broadcast
Show, whose episodes attract millions of
viewers, and Badr Saleh from EshElly,
which has over 2 million subscribers and
reached over 222 million views.n
Ziad Khammar, Strategy and Development
Director at DMS

DIGITAL MEDIA
Technology May Have Changed
But the Fundamentals of Great Advertising Haven’t
In your experience, what are the
challenges facing the traditional agency
in the Middle East?
Economic and commercial factors
aside, I believe we have a huge
opportunity to set new standards and
systems in the region. Rather than
holding a mirror up to other countries
and trying to translate or improve we
need to be at the vanguard of the new
How do these challenges compare with
the challenges in other international
markets?
We have real growth opportunities here
so our challenge is to make that growth
successful not just dramatic. Larger, more
mature markets have to manage
minimal growth so inertia can be their
biggest issue
How are digital ad platforms changing
the traditional structure of the agency?
The relationships between publishers,
agencies, and clients have always been
Nick Barron, CEO MENA MediaCom,
talks about the current state of advertising
in agencies.
How can agencies create advertisement
that people will remember the next day,
knowing that the clients today have
small budgets?
Creative work that resonates with an
audience or target group works because
it’s based on a great insight not necessarily
because it has a big budget.The
advertising landscape is littered with poor
as well as excellent expensive ads, just as
it is with poor as well as excellent low
budget ads, so the correlation between
budget and success is not direct. Great
insights power great Communications
Strategic Planning that in turn leads to
fantastic, sticky creative ideas. A great
insight can come from anywhere, be it
sourced from a cultural dynamic, category
reality, product, brand, or consumer truth.
Real insights are instantly recognizable to
experienced strategists and are the core
principle around which creative ideas
are developed and executed. Of course,
expensive technology can change the look
of the creative and might well add to the
message but it’s not the start point.
What are the best practices for
designing campaigns that engage
customers across multiple platforms?
I don’t think that consumers think of the
world in channels of delivery.They look
at the world as an experience and set of
challenges. Great marketers and brands fit
into their customers lives. As the number
of communication channels increases and
become real-time, the chances to miss
your customer increases. So it’s the role
of great media agencies to help clients
make the right decisions. Insights—not
just information—that help in the
understanding of the consumer journey
and the understanding of the medium
as a message and as a vehicle have
to be at the core of that process.
somewhat fluid in their nature.There is a
debate that has been running in circles for
several years now around how technology
and automation will allow clients to
potentially bypass their agency partners
and rely on publisher data partnerships
and even crowd sourced creative solutions
to drive their communications forward.
There are many counter arguments that
need to be considered, especially for
sophisticated marketeers. Fundamentally,
agencies play a core role in defining
communications strategies, are platform
agnostic, and bring their client partners
the benefit of a macro and micro
understanding of overall communications
sourced from horizontal, multi category
experiences.This allows agencies to
become the arbiters of channel and
message performance without preference
or favor to any specific channel, vehicle,
or platform.
In order for agencies to continue to
thrive, they need to continue to evolve
to not only meet the needs created by
new technology, but also partner with
key players, startups or idea merchants
to ensure they are part of the community
shaping these emerging ecosystems. By
partnering and pioneering, agencies,
technology providers, publishers (content
producers), and clients can all benefit,
and importantly so will consumers
as their experiences of brands and
communications become more relevant
and more immersive.
What do you think agencies should
do to survive and thrive amidst these
changes?
Be courageous, be challenging, and
listen.The answers are pout there, but
sometimes we are too busy talking to
hear.
What is your favorite technology/
platform used today in media agencies?
Video conferencing—nothing beat people
talking to each other and working in
teams.n
Nick Barron, CEO MENA MediaCom

DIGITAL MEDIA
“Iwant to feel connected. I want to feel relevant. I want to
feel like a participant.”These words were the foundation
to Parminder Singh’s talk at the ArabNet Digital Summit in
Dubai in June of this year. A former Google executive and
now Twitter Managing Director for South East Asia, MENA,
and India, Singh offered insightful advice into the platform that
has become an indispensable part of the life of more than 3.7
million users in the Middle East alone.
“Mediums like Twitter, which are live, public, and
conversational, allow brands to be in the moment now,” says
Singh. “Its real-time and it has no concept of boundaries.”
Here we have summarized the 5 key elements courtesy of
Parminder Singh that make up a solid framework on how to
implement a real-time marketing strategy on Twitter and be “in
the moment.”
1. It’s good when people connect to a brand, but it’s even better
when they connect through the brand
Develop your brand into a social glue through which people
connect, exchange information, and bond. A UAE-focused
research shows that an average Twitter user researches for
products more than anything else; therefore, as a marketer it’s
important to ensure that all your products have a footprint on
Twitter.This footprint will act as a campfire—a talking point—
around which people will connect and engage.
Plan your moments for a social media takeover through
events-based management. For instance, if you’re launching
a promotional campaign for your new product, make sure to
interact with your audience on social media throughout this
period. Have a new popping shade of lipstick and your audience is
tweeting their love for it? Retweet them! Reply to them! Engage
in friendly banter and conversation that will keep you at the front
of their mind, as well as at the top of the
social media radar.
2. Brands don’t have target markets, they have target moments
These are the moments that are always on and are not restricted
to product placement. Simply follow the day-to-day conversations
of your target audience, and this is where you can strike gold.
In UAE, the second most popular activity of Twitter users is
commenting on their activities—the first being uploading and
sharing photos. As a marketer, it is crucial to understand which
of these daily activities people are talking about and be part of
the moments relevant to your brand. When the #StripforJackie
campaign went on fire on social media in support of the Lebanese
skier Jackie Chamoun in February, brands like Almaza, Alrifai,
and Absolut Vodka wittingly latched their products onto the
conversation.
Targeting a moment ensures a continuous conversation. So
plug your anti-allergy tablets to an audience tweeting about their
dribbling noses with the start of the hay-fever season, and hey
presto you have a sale and have engaged with a customer.
3. People want daily conversation not time-bound campaigns
Laura Ellen may not be the most followed Twitter user, but
when she referenced her love for chocolate in a simple tweet, she
unknowingly created an opportunity for her brands to engage
with her: “Can tell I like chocolate a bit too much when I’m
following @kitkat and @oreo hahahahahah” Kitkat responded to
The “Now” Moment
How to Implement a Real-Time Marketing Strategy on Twitter
by Naila Missous | @N_MissousKadry

5. Real-time is a mindset that requires empowerment and
authenticity
In order to be in the moment, you need a real-time mindset.This
mandates that the social media team have enough empowerment to
execute in real-time. Imagine if the team members had to send long
threads of emails to get approval on each engagement with a user.
Authenticity is the second crucial component of real-time.
You need to find the voice of your brand.To do so, think what
figure you want to personify your brand: a father figure? A friend?
Once you find your voice, use it for genuine communication.
After all, authenticity in real-time marketing comes before
perfection.n
her by challenging Oreo to a game of tic-tac-toe and inserted an
image of their chocolate bar.
Oreo’s response was genius.
The unplanned moments are always happening, and people love
it when brands respond to them. Authenticity in these cases are
more important than the perfection that brands seek when they
are planning an offline campaign.
4. Brands use the cultural moments’ calendar to plan in
advance when to “strike in the moment”
Twitter is full of moments that are culturally important and that
trend regularly, whether it be Ramadan, Easter, World Cup, or
Mother’s Day.
Brands should identify the hashtags of cultural moments relevant
to their product and ride along with them. Placing your product
amidst this means that you’re part of a global gathering, and this
will make your brand visible in the long run.The key here is to
strike in the moment by
planning in advance. Spread out a cultural moments’
calendar that spans across the year, match those moments
that are aligned with your brands attributes, and plan
on engaging around these moments.
Parminder Singh, Managing
Director Southeast Asia/
India/MENA at Twitter

DIGITAL MEDIA
DIGITAL MEDIA
Hundreds of years ago, when Arabic script
was in its heyday, there existed nearly
80 Arabic calligraphy styles that had an elegance
so appealing that even non-Arabic scripts used
them.Today, there are more than 500 Arabic fonts
available for use, but more than 90% are unsuitable
for reading Arabic text on web and mobile.
For this purpose, and from my experience as the
Founder and CEO at Typestage, I have compiled
a list of Arabic fonts that are highly recommended
for web and mobile use. Each font is designed
for a specific purpose; there is no one-size-fits-all
solution when it comes to typography. Fonts are
a mix of Naskh style (for text) and Kufi Style (for
headings and short paragraphs). Some are hybrid
fonts, which merge the two styles together. The
fonts in this list are for text use, and hence, most
are Naskh style fonts, with a few exceptions.
Digital Arabic Typography
Great Arabic Web Fonts
on Web and Mobile Screens
by Otba Mushaweh | @LogosGuide
Neue Helvetica Arabic (hybrid of Kufi and Naskh styles): designed by Nadine Chahine
Colvert Arabic (Naskh style):
designed by Kristyan Sarkis
Abdo Line Font (Naskh style):
designed by Abdulsamie Rajab
Nazanin Font (Naskh style):
designed by Haghighi

Nassim Font (Naskh style):
designed by Titus Nemeth
Droob7 Font (Naskh style):
designed by Sultan Maqtari
Hasan Enas Font (Naskh style):
designed by Hasan Abu Afash
Neen Font (modern Naskh style):
designed by Otba Mushaweh
Greta Font (Naskh style):
designed by Kristyan Sarkis
Nososs Font (Naskh style):
designed by Otba Mushaweh
47June 2014 The Quartely

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