Can the UAE be a world leading creative industries hub?

The UAE in general and both Dubai & Abu Dhabi are making an attempt to create a centre for the creative industries but the question to ask is whether the emirates have what it takes to encourage creativity and creative talents and excellence.
Pumping money into large scale projects of creative nature will obviously help in this quest but is enough being done to lay the foundation for all the support services and infrastructure that will ensure that the UAE creative industries can last for the next 2-3 decades.
Commissioners for television, theatres, galleries, film producers and advertising and media industries must be predominantly Arab and from the region or who have taken home in the region. This will ensure that the industry will be here long after the expats pack up their bags and go home.
There is a need for a strategy group tasked to draw plans for the development and sustenance of this important sector. This group needs to look at plans to draft more Arab talents into the industry as a matter of urgency.
The creative industries can generate more than 22% of the UAE GDP and the growth will be comparable to the financial services or the property boom that is sweeping the region in general and the UAE in particular. Taking a look at the UK you can see that they have the largest creative sector in the EU and accounts for 7.9% of the economy comparable to the financial services industries. The industry employs 1.8 million people who depend on this sector continual growth.
In the past decade there has been a major shift and emphasis on creativity and the creative industries has been equal to the task. As a result hundreds of companies are active in this field and are contributing to the growth of products and services.
The overlap between creativity and innovation has led to successful exploitation of new ideas, which has led to the emergence of new products and services such as the iPOD etc.
Today the UK has and still is in a strong position but faces strong challenges from overseas.
Knowledge and creativity have played a key role in the economy. High tech manufacturing plays a vital element in the success. The consumer is well educated, well informed, and affluent and demands better quality products.
The relationship between consumer and producer ensures the knowledge offering is constantly being improved and changed b input from the consumer.
While incomes and productivity increased over the past decade, the price of manufactured goods has fallen in price. Moreover increasingly affluent consumers have not needed to spend a much on food, transport, clothing as it becomes cheaper to acquire brown and white goods.
An indicator of the growth of the knowledge economy has been the investment in R&D, computer software, design, brand organisational system, which is equivalent in size to investments in plants.
The creative industries have benefited from the growth of affluence along with the growth of creative and cultural tastes. People have a tendency to express their emotional feelings in whatever cultural form, such as music, art, and theatre. There are 5 million active musicians in the UK, 250 thousands play in bands. There are thousands of live events around the UK. Musicians are some of the early exploiters of interactive websites to express themselves and gain international fame and recognition. Ethnic minorities have contributed a lot in this field with talents in music, entertainment and the digital fields.
The UAE can grow substantially due to the freedom, diversity and pluralism it enjoys over other Arab countries, English language being spoken by most of the people as well as Arabic and Hindi.
Dubai society developed the value of openness, tolerance that distinguishes it from other Arab societies.
In my experience working in the creative industries for the past 20 years I have found a lack of initiative and a coherent strategy to address these issues within the government and the creative industries. There are just a handful of small initiatives, which happens as an afterthought.
Saad Saraf (CEO)
Media Reach Advertising
www.mediareach.co.uk

UK Creative Industries – a white wash!

I went to Iraq for the opportunity of winning a communications contract. I knew there had been uproar that American companies had won majority of the construction contracts in Iraq following the war. Out of those that lost out, I did wonder, how many of them stopped to realise the real reason for this. What I observed was that the American government had recognised the need to have key personal that were representative of the Iraqi market. They sent over American Iraqis, who understood not only the work that needed to be carried out but also the culture. They realised the need and the advantage of having representatives with localised understanding in a global market place and have benefited from the strength of having a diverse workforce.

The same cannot be said for creative industries in the UK. The Creative Industries are a significant contributor to the UK economy – accounting for 7.9% of GDP, and growing significantly faster than the economy as a whole. UK creative industries deservedly enjoy a global reputation for excellence, creativity and innovation. British design, advertising, music and interactive leisure software companies are considered to be world-class. The question is, will it last?

Many people have spoken about how broadcasting is “hideously white, male and middle class”. This statement is also true for other sectors that fall under the creative industries banner. The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising’s report on Ethnic Diversity in the UK revealed, unsurprisingly, that ethnic minorities make up 4% of the advertising workforce – with most being positions of support services, such as IT and finance.

The UK creative industries workforce does not reflect the Ethnic diversity of the market they are targeting, largely due to the lack of realisation of the benefits diversity brings. There have been half-hearted attempts relating to recruiting a more ethnically diverse workforce, which can be summed up as reactive, knee-jerk reactions. It therefore comes as no surprise that the UK creative industries are facing a challenge from overseas. Countries such as America, India & China  are continuing to enter this market and are meeting the needs of British consumers & businesses which UK based companies are overlooking. There needs to be a more strategic approach, which is not even existent on a government level.

So what should creative industries do to remain world class?
•    WAKE UP
•    Embrace multiculturalism by recruiting from a wider talent pool
•    Engage, harness and train talent in the UK from Ethnic communities be that Indian or Polish
•    Enjoy multiculturalism and highlight key role models from ethnic backgrounds

Today Bollywood is a multi-billion-pound industry outstripping Hollywood in ticket sales. Bollywood realised the marketing potential for their movies to both the British Asians and the wider UK community and stepped up their activity here in the UK. That’s not all, they have taken British born talent like, Upen Patel from Wembley and made him one of the top Bollywood stars and a household name in most Asian homes in the UK. Why then, can we not do the same? Why can’t we embrace, engage and enjoy the great pool of talent we have here, to achieve success both locally and globally!

And for those of you who are wondering what happened to the contract that my company went for in Iraq. Well I can tell you that, yes we won the account for our knowledge and experience but also for the fact that as a British Iraqi I had cultural understanding.

Saad Saraf, CEO, Media Reach Advertising
www.mediareach.co.uk

MRA Sets up a new eastern European Division

The multicultural communications specialist agency MRA has added anther feather in their cap by launching a new Eastern European section to target the growing population of people arriving in the UK from the A8 accession states.
The agency, which has been targeting Britain’s diverse multicultural groups for the past 21 years as, been involved in targeting this new wave of migrants who are changing the UK’s landscape forever.
(MRA’s CEO Saad Saraf said)
The agency has run 4 campaigns so far aimed at audiences from Poland, Lithuania, Hungry, Slovakia and Russian.
MRA has adopted an integrated approach in their campaigns deploying non-conventional mediums to reach diverse audiences.
The campaigns involved Press, Radio, Posters, Outdoor, Online marketing and specialist cultural teams visiting churches, bars, catchment areas and events and interact with the audiences attending these venues each week.
The media scene is witnessing a boom and has developed very quickly across all the Eastern European groups and is reflective f the need for language specialist mediums to reach a hard to reach communities.
Online marketing innovation has been adopted by MRA sister agency mradigital which has brought in a number of ne media techniques to target these diverse groups with SMS campaigns, mobile marketing
The campaigns proved a great success for the clients and the take up of services has gone up gradually.
Amongst the Eastern European population in the UK, Polish are the by far the largest group numbering some 2 million people and the total Eastern European universe is estimated to be 3.5 million and increasing.
The majority of Eastern Europeans tend to be of younger age profile (24-45 years old), and for many of them the UK is becoming their second home or they are choosing to live and work in London permanently
The Eastern European communities have access to mother tongue schools, community centres in various regions and churches and they are ideal channel of communications.
The disposable spending power is estimated to be worth 7 billion pounds, financial research suggests that the Polish community in the UK transfers some £2Billion pounds back to their families in Poland.
A number of companies have waken up to the disposable spending power these migrants are bringing and have started tailor made campaigns t attract them as clients.
www.mediareach.co.uk

Ethnicity and Media in the UK

Well basically, before we speak about the subject, I just wanted us to have an insight of the ethnic communities in the UK. Do we understand who the ethnic communities are? Where do they come from? Where do they live? What diversity do we have? I think if we do not understand, then we are unable to communicate effectively and that’s probably, for me, the main issue. People talk about, you know – millions of people are here; there’s, you know, been more than 1.4m Eastern Europeans come in so far, and more than 1.2m Bulgarians and Romanians and other Eastern Europeans are expected within the next year and a half. Do we know where these people – I mean, what makes them tick, do we know the triggers? And hence, you know, we need to understand the
diversity and the issues we have here. And that’s where I’m amazed at the lack of understanding that broadcasters have; agencies, where I come from, have. In fact, I’m amazed that for example, if you look at London, where it’s said 36% to 40% of the people are of difference diverse background, yet advertisers either choose to ignore, or choose to spend 100% of their budgets targeting 60% of the audience, which is amazing by any standards. I think if I work in a company and I waste 40% I’ll be booted out straight away, but there are lots of people doing some mediocre jobs out there, but I think there needs to be some re-think there, you know; we need to be a bit more
radical and that’s the commercial aspect here.
Are we represented and how well are we represented? Let’s look at film, drama, game shows, the output that comes out every day – how are we represented there? And I think, rightly so, the ethnic communities always see themselves in a secondary role, they’re not a part of the plot and it always feels like the token faith in there and that ought to change. I think the numbers are there and if we really need to make an impact, we need to effect some change there and that’s where the representation fails. I mean, in sport and music, we are represented well, because we do quite well in there, but in other subjects, we don’t seem to feature at all, or hardly. And the representation
tends to be bad news – we are well represented in terms of bad news, you know, if it comes to issues, and even the issues I’ve discussed are one-sided as well, if you look at the issues of niqab, and stop and search, and terrorism, immigration, faith schools, Islam, fundamentalism and this will go on and on. I think there needs to be a balance in there between bad news and good news, because lack of understanding creates a disconnect, as we have seen up in Oldham and Bradford. And I think editors who in the whole – I mean, apart from Aaqil – tend to be white, middle class and people in the newsroom ought to promote some people into senior positions who come from
16 different ethnic backgrounds, so that those issues such as terrorism or fundamentalism, or whatever issues that are boiling beneath the surface at least are on the radar and then we can discuss them and we can deal with them. And so these big issues don’t suddenly come out, you know. And broadcasters need to be sensitive to people’s feeling and I don’t need to say those two words, Big Brother, but that actually showed, you know, a mild manner; as we were told, the Indian community coming up in arms to re-address that imbalance.
What do we need to do in the future? I think we need to obviously employ more people in senior positions in the newsrooms and in ad agencies as well. We need to listen, we need to understand, we need to make an effort to understand. It’s okay to make mistakes while we’re trying to do something about it, people wouldn’t mind that, but sitting on our hands and doing nothing, it’s not a solution. And then programmes and ad campaigns need to move away from tokenism, you know, we don’t want just a black face and brown face in the ad, we need to have sort of radical solutions there and people ought to be part of that process, part of the script. And I guess – and maybe this is a bit more radical – but we should have, we should insist on maybe 15% of the output coming from, I don’t know, minority ethnic businesses, or it should have some diverse
people in the plot and this will conclude my four minutes.

Saad Saraf
CEO and Head of New Business
Media Reach Advertising

www.mediareach.co.uk

Media Consumption & the multicultural communities in the UK.

Cultural groups and migrants usually turn to their own media for information and entertainment when they are in foreign countries.

Ethnic groups consumption of their own specialist media is high as it offers;

 

•           Cultural familiarity – whereby ethnic minority people could see their culture reflected on screen and in the press

•           Access to news and entertainment in mother tongue languages for non-English speakers

•           Coverage of news from ‘home’

•           An ‘ethnic’ perspective on the UK news

•           Discussion and coverage of issues relevant to particular ethnic minority communities

 

On the other hand Consumption of mainstream media is low due to lack of relevant programming coupled with language barriers facing any new group or community. (e.g. Asian, Polish, Chinese, Arab..etc).

 

The other point of contention is that representation of ethnic people in mainstream media is low especially and even when they appear they are given stereo typical roles or secondary roles (they hardly appear in a primary or central role).

 

Ethnic communities in the UK pay an estimated £140 million Pounds in license fees to the BBC, and feel short changed as they do not get value for the money they are forced to pay. Ethnic communities feel that the BBC are not listening to them and hence there are a stronger currents and support for empowering the public and especially the ethnic communities and enable them to use their money to subscribe to their own channels of choice. The lack of adequate programming has led to the explosion of the ethnic television phenomenon.

 

A recent Ofcom report into the ethnic communities found that

in terms of usage and general competence, ethnic minority groups have higher levels of media literacy compared to UK as a whole

They are also are more likely to own the various media platforms than UK adults as a whole and that satellite penetration is higher than the UK average.

The ethnic communities are slightly more interested in the digital features of the media platforms than UK adults overall,

 and the adoption of  newer technologies are more prevalent in the homes of younger adults

Access to media devices is generally higher overall amongst adults from minority ethnic groups than for UK adults as a whole  according to research conducted by Ofcom in 2006

 

 

The Media Scene:

A recent study by Media Reach Advertising-www.mediareach.co.uk (Ethnic Advertising and Communications Agency) pointed to the following findings;

 

Press

 

•           There are at least 180 Ethnic titles at present, and the numbers continue to rise with the arrivals of the Eastern European migrants

•           Language titles more popular with the 1^st and 2^nd generation

•           Regional titles are adapting to the changing demography with introductions of language pages

•           59% of people from ethnic groups use newspapers to keep up with national news, as opposed to 75% of UK adults

 

Radio

 

•           Penetration of digital radio services is higher among minority ethnic groups (54%) than the UK population overall (44%)

•           Usage of digital radio is more prevalent amongst Middle Eastern, Polish, Black Africans and Black Caribbean target groups

•           Dedicated radio stations in areas of high propensity of ethnic minority groups (Offering regional strength)

•           Most Asian populated cities have their own radio stations (personal medium for locals)

•           Radio is an important and indispensable source of news rivalling press and TV (ITC research 2002)

 

Due to the nature of Asian businesses (retail, chemists, food), exposure to radio during the day is very high

 

 

 

Television

 

•           There is higher ownership of digital TV among minority ethnic groups (70%) than for the overall population (62%) 

•           Very strong viewing patterns amongst (Asians, Arabs, Chinese and Eastern Europeans)

•           Television has seen by far the fastest growth in the past 6 years

- 38 channels have been introduced over the last 2 years

- Channels targeting specific genres and communities

•           Coverage of Cricket Indian Summer, Mela and specialist programmes brought C4 new and diverse audience

•           The newer channels have a young and vibrant image catering to the taste of the young British Asians (Music, Youth, Films, Sports)

•           Home access to the Internet is higher among minority ethnic groups (64%) than the UK population overall (54%)

 

Internet

 

•           Minority ethnic groups use the Internet more frequently (14.5 hours per week compared to 9.9 for the overall UK population)

•           There are several web sites targeting individual communities E.g. Bollywood film sites, news sites, leisure sites, matrimonial sites, etc

•           Internet advertising is good value for money and useful for targeting specific audiences

 

Broadband take-up stand at 61% of those with Internet access at home, and 39% of all adults from minority ethnic groups

 

Cinema

 

•           Asians are five times more likely to go to the cinema than white mainstream audiences

•           Asian and Chinese cinemas have seen tremendous revival with more youth audiences

•           The modern Asian films have an equally glossy image

      and good story lines as mainstream

•           Advertising with Asian cinemas is a  growing phenomenon,

     thus offering the advertiser excellent exposure

•           In 2003 Bollywood films accounted for 5 of the Top 10 foreign language films

•           The UK is the biggest market for Asian films outside India; Bollywood films regularly make the Top 10 at the weekly UK box-office

•           Asians are big cinema consumers, 83% of Asians  go to the cinema, 42% of them go once a month or more. They are more likely to go with groups of friends or family 

 

Advertising with blockbusters can be combined with BLT activity, giving the client access at a grass root level

 

 

Targeted Outdoor

 

•           Generically provide immense value for branding

•           Targeting the ethnic community requires detailed knowledge of the ethnic geographical distribution

•           Ethnic language posters are extremely striking and highly memorable

•           Ethnic Minority Communities relate and react more positively to posters addressing them in their language

•           Increase in use of targeted poster sites in communications

•           The use of ambient sites such as lamp posts & prime sites

 

Utilise hoarding and banners during events and melas

 

Events & Festivals

 

•           Festivals like Diwali (Indian festival of lights), Ramadan  (Muslim month of fasting), Eid (Muslim festival following Ramadan), Baisakhi (Indian harvest festival),Notting Hill Carnival are ideal occasions for celebrations and interaction

•           Events are very popular with the ethnic communities (ideal social opportunity)

•           Events provide the perfect environment to personally speak to the ethnic consumer

•           Over the years, sizes of ethnic events have grown, and many current events see a turnaround of more than 100,000 people

•           Though local, large ethnic events (Melas) attract visitors from nearby cities

 

 

Saad Saraf

CEO

Media Reach Advertising

www.mediareach.co.uk

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