Seventies  - Eighties  - Nineties  - 2000

If you are looking for brand loyalty in the Arab Gulf countries, the answer is no different to what it is anywhere else in the world. Cherchez la femme.
This may surprise those who hold the stereotyped view of the Arab woman cloistered at home and totally subservient to her husband. But the stereotype just isn't true in the marketplace for consumer products in the Gulf states (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Oman), according to two experts on advertising and marketing in the Arab world.
"The closer the product is linked to the household, the stronger brand loyalty becomes," says Erwin Guerrovich, president of Intermarkets. And Ramsay Najjar, associate director of Trust Advertising, shows the other side of this coin. "When it comes to the household, she (the Arab housewife) is the decision-maker even if sometimes it is by remote control."
Guerrovich rates brand loyalty in these Arab countries as "very high." Najjar is not so sure. Both agree, however, that the importance that Gulf Arabs afford to tradition can and does play an important role in attitudes toward consumer products and advertising. And despite the outwardly male-oriented nature of Arab tradition, both see women exercising real power within Arab families.
Guerrovich sees the market for products bought by women in the Arab Gulf divided in two. "There are the smaller Gulf states like Kuwait, Bahrain and the UAE where women go to shops and supermarkets. And then there is Saudi Arabia." But even though Saudi women stay at home, and much of their shopping is done by men, he is sure that it is the housewife who chooses what products are purchased.
"Let's say it's the driver who goes to the shops for her," Guerrovich explains. "Many of the drivers are illiterate and are often none too bright. So the housewife will be very specific when she gives him her order: 'I want brand X of this, brand Y of that and brand Z of something else."
The decision-making power of Saudi women does not stop there, Guerrovich insists. "When it comes to choosing large items of furniture or major household appliances, it is quite common these days to see a Saudi husband with his veiled wife come to the shop together."
Brand loyalty does not attach itself to all products bought by women, according to Guerrovich. Their choices in toiletries, cosmetics and perfumes can be "very flexible," he says. And all bets are off, Najjar and Guerrovich say, if a product that is significantly different is introduced into the market.
Does that mean that the Arab Gulf market is much the same as many other markets? No, definitely not. Although their approaches to the question are very different, both Najjar and Guerrovich stress the need to treat the Arab Gulf as a market with its own special problems for those who seek to sell their products there.
Najjar points to the relatively brief time that has elapsed since Arab Gulf countries joined other consumerist societies. Before the 1973-74 oil boom, he notes, Arab Gulf states were not consumerist societies. The next thing the Arabs knew was a flood of new products on which to spend their new wealth. "As consumers, they were infants before the oil boom," Najjar says. "Then all of a sudden they were adults as consumers. Without passing through a consumer adolescence."
This abrupt introduction to consumerism and the vast choice of products meant it was difficult to develop brand loyalty, Najjar says, the more so because most Gulf Arabs knew little about the products they were buying. Even nowadays, he believes, Gulf Arabs are not necessarily influenced by such issues as quality or safety that advertisers emphasise in other markets when they go out to shop. Sometimes, he says, the product will be bought because the customer believes it will enhance social standing or because there is a psychological identification with the product.
Najjar feels the inrush of so many products during the oil boom of the 1970s and the advertising that accompanied it, diluted brand awareness among Gulf Arabs. "There were so many advertising campaigns all at one time," he says. In a calmer atmosphere Najjar believes individual advertising campaigns would have greater impact and do more to promote brand loyalty.
Guerrovich is not so sure. "Yes, there were a lot of new products and people wanted to try everything," he concedes. "But while Gulf Arabs were willing to switch brands for some goods, there were others where brand loyalty meant they stayed with the product they knew because it was already well-established in the market. Products like milk or baby powder."
Guerrovich says some new brands did manage for a while to win market shares from established competitors. Quite frequently, however, consumers gradually returned to their old brand once the novelty of the new product had worn off, Guerrovich says.
Guerrovich rates brand loyalty in the Arab Gulf "slightly higher" than it is in the West.One reason, he says, is that Arab consumers ask fewer questions about products than do their Western counterparts and publications on consumer protection do not circulate widely in the Gulf. Najjar believes Gulf Arabs do share the skepticism of consumers elsewhere that advertisers may not be telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But he agrees that Gulf Arabs are less likely to question advertising. "When they travel to the West they see that advertising is a part of Western life," he says. "So they accept advertising."
Guerrovich, however, saw a less confused market in the 1970s. The oil boom, he notes, brought, with it a huge influx of expatriates who served as trend-setters for the Gulf Arabs. Products favoured by expatriates became popular in the Arab Gulf. Most influential of all, Guerrovich says, was ARAMCO, the giant oil consortium in Saudi Arabia. ARAMCO's impact on consumer choices spread beyond the Kingdom to neighbouring states, he adds.
One reason, according to Guerrovich, was that the city in Saudi Arabia built by ARAMCO for its expatriate employees was a compact market and so manufacturers had no difficulty in spotting which products sold well there, giving them a better chance of breaking into the Arab market. But Guerrovich warned there was a down side to this form of trend-setting, especially now that the oil boom is over and many expatriates have returned home.
"We've had to fight with some clients about their advertising targets because they were putting more emphasis on expatriates than upon Arabs," Guerrovich says. Initially, in his view, advertisers such as airlines were correct in focussing attention on expatriates because they travelled a great deal and because they were trend-setters for the Arabs. "But concepts have changed," he says, "It's difficult to get advertisers to spend the right proportion of their budgets on Arabs."
Guerrovich and Najjar concur that distinctive packaging plays a significant part in brand loyalty in the Arab Gulf. "A lot of Gulf Arabs identify brands by the colours of their packages," Najjar explains. "For example, when they are buying cigarettes they will ask for 'the blue ones' (a Rothmans brand)." Guerrovich cites Craven A as a brand of cigarettes that capitalised successfully on its distinctive packaging. Gulf Arabs call Craven A "Abu Biss" (The father of the cat) because of the black cat on the packet.
Najjar does not think that this reliance on package colours is due to the difficulties Gulf Arabs might have reading brand names in an unfamiliar Roman script. Guerrovich stresses, however, the need for a brand name that transliterated easily into Arabic script and did not translate in Arabic into an offensive or unpleasant word.
Brand names that are offensive to Arabs, Guerrovich concedes, are not usually a problem for multinational firms accustomed to worldwide sales. They take care that their brand names can pass muster in a multitude of tongues - or else they are renamed for specific markets. Some products, he points out, sell under as many as six different brand names around the world.
Getting the right brand name for the Arab Gulf can be a headache, Guerrovich says, for smaller companies trying to develop exports markets for the first time. "Usually, they are companies which have been successful in selling a single product in their home market," he says.
Brand loyalty cannot be taken for granted in the Arab Gulf once it is acquired. On that point both Guerrovich and Najjar are emphatic. And while Guerrovich cites powdered milk as a product unlikely to be subject to brand disloyalty, Najjar recalls how Nestle's Nido brand of powdered milk knocked Klim off its preeminent perch in the region. Najjar also points to the way Procter & Gamble grabbed market shares for its products away from Unilever, once the market leader in the Arab Gulf.
Guerrovich warns, however, that an advertiser who hopes to blitz competing products off supermarket shelves with a saturation campaign is unlikely to succeed all at once in the Arab Gulf.
"In most cases it doesn't work," Guerrovich says. "Entering markets in the Gulf is a comparatively long process which requires steady but not undue advertising expenditure and a strong marketing backup."
There is, nonetheless, one very important exception to this general rule. "If it is obvious that your product comes into the market with a definite plus, then it is an entirely different story," Guerrovich says.
But finding out whether a product really has a plus factor when it reaches the Arab Gulf is not always easy. Najjar notes that Arabs paid next to no notice of aspects of new products that were central to massive advertising campaigns in other markets. Whether, for example, detergents were low-sudsing or did not concern Arab consumers, Najjar says. It was not an issue that affected sales.
Market research was much easier before the oil boom. It is the accepted wisdom that Lebanon was the pilot market for the Arab world's variegated markets until the 1975-76 war and the following years of turmoil meant that the only market in which Lebanon was a pilot was that of munitions dealers of dubious repute.
"We could take a street in Ras Beirut and use it to simulate the market in Egypt," Najjar recalls. Other Arab markets could be tested in microcosm elsewhere in Lebanon. This was doubly convenient because Beirut was the undisputed advertising capital for the Arab world and home base for the region's main advertising agencies. Market research could be undertaken on their own doorstep.
No longer. Even though Lebanese are still the driving force behind Arab advertising and the strategy underlying many major advertising campaigns in the Arab Gulf are still plotted in Beirut. Najjar pointed out that more than over 40 percent of all television commercials for Arab markets are produced in Lebanon and that many others are made elsewhere by Lebanese who have left their own country because of war and insecurity.
"In terms of modern equipment, Lebanon cannot be compared with studios in the Gulf," Najjar says. "They can bring in the latest machines without having to worry about what might happen to it. But what we Lebanese have is flair and knowhow."
Another reason, Najjar says, is that Lebanese have long experience of both the Western World from whence come the goods that are advertised and the Arab World and its age-old traditions. Many Lebanese, he notes, can move effortlessly from one to the other because their own lives are an amalgam of modernity and consumerism together with their own traditional Lebanese way of life.
This cultural ambivalence is far less marked in the Arab Gulf states, according to Najjar. The Arab Gulf wants the West's consumer goods, he says, but not at the price Gulf Arabs fear they may have to pay through the loss of their traditions and their cultural identity. Najjar believes this explains why wealthy Gulf Arabs will leave luxurious homes in the city from time to time to seek peace of mind in a tent in the desert.
On a less exalted level, Guerrovich feels this fierce defence of tradition helps to foster brand loyalty among Gulf Arabs once a product is accepted by them. He agrees that some of this brand loyalty might be termed inertial loyalty.
Guerrovich and Najjar are, however, of one mind that the tradition of Gulf Arabs and the role of Gulf Arab women in particular do serve as some what of a barrier when advertisers seek to discover what products they will buy and to probe Gulf Arab tastes. There are times, Najjar says, when launching a new product in the region can be a leap in the dark. But Guerrovich does not believe tradition is an insurmountable bar to market research among Gulf Arab women.
Women in Saudi Arabia, he notes, often have a great deal of free time on their hands. "That means they welcome a visit by a woman of some standing - not a princess, but a member of the bourgeoisie - who is doing market research. They are often willing to discuss a product in much greater depth than other women would be prepared to do."
Another important way of hurdling the barrier of tradition, according to Najjar, is by moving the weight of advertising agencies into Gulf Arab markets by setting up offices in the region's main cities. The shift away from Beirut towards the Gulf was dictated in part by the disappearance of Lebanon's role as a pilot market and partly by pressure from the agencies' big international clients who wanted their advertising to be created close to the point of sale. Yet another reason for this decentralisation, Najjar saysjs the acceptance and growing use of marketing techniques from the West such as point-of-sale promotion and mailings which can best be organised on the spot.
Because companies from outside the Arab World cannot sell their products directly to Gulf Arabs but must use the services of a local importing agent, success or failure of sales promotion can often depend on the agent's willingness or ability to get behind the campaign with sufficient drive and resources, Najjar says."We do have problems explaining to agents that advertising is not a form of tax on their profits but rather something that they need," he explains, adding that this form of resistance to advertising is receding as importing agents recognise the impact advertising is having on sales.
Paradoxically perhaps, the bars of Gulf Arab tradition that hinder market research for a new product line make it easier rather than harder to reach women with advertising once the product line has been launched. The reason, Guerrovich points out, is that many Gulf Arab women live lives of enforced leisure and watching television is one of the main ways they pass their time. Until quite recently, television advertising was not accepted by the authorities in Saudi Arabia and Oman but nowadays advertising on TV reaches the entire Arab Gulf.
But the Saudi Arabian housewife did not have to wait for the authorities to act before seeing advertising on the family's television screen. Video cassettes have become a very popular form of home entertainment in the Arab Gulf and both Guerrovich and Najjar point to the thriving minor industry that has developed of splicing advertising spots into rented video cassettes. Both see this as an effective medium for advertising but Guerrovich admits that some clients are yet to be convinced this is so.
Brand awareness, the essential prerequisite for brand loyalty, has on occasion backfired in the Arab Gulf, Najjar says. He cites Sohat, the Lebanese mineral water, and Kleenex paper handkerchiefs as examples of brands that have become generic names for these products in the region thanks to advertising. But although these brand names have become a part of the everyday language of the Arab Gulf, Najjar says that will not prevent customers from walking out of the supermarket with competitors' products in their shopping bags.
You can't win 'em all.
(ArabAd)