This document provides insights from a presentation on digital trends in the Middle East region. It begins with an introduction and outlines the goals of understanding regional digital perspectives and how to improve online offerings. It then presents statistics on internet penetration rates, social media and smartphone usage in various Middle East countries. The remainder of the document involves questions from the audience and responses providing more details on digital behaviors and barriers to online shopping. Overall, the presentation aimed to help businesses better understand their target audiences in the region to design culturally relevant digital experiences and campaigns.

1. Welcome and hello…

2. INSIGHTS:
L O O K B E F O R E YO U L E A P
24TH OCTOBER 2013
Laura Farrant
Insight Director
Laura.farrant@digitaslbi.com
+971555297123

3. Meet Me
Intro
slide
featuring
huge
picture
of
my
face
• 8 years of research experience
• 4 years of research experience
in the region
• Specialisms include user
research.

4. Why we are here today…

5. We want to give you:
• A better idea of the region from a digital perspective
with a round of up of current trends and behaviours.
• T help you understand how you can improve your
o
online offering to truly appeal and engage your
target demographic.

6. We hope you enjoyed the coffee…

8. And remember…

9. Audience participation mandatory!

10. Q. Which country in the region has
the highest Internet penetration
rate?

11. The highest penetration rate in the region can be found
in the United Arab Emirates with 75%, followed by:
Kuwait – 64%
Qatar – 61%
The lowest are in Egypt (26%), Morocco (35%) or Iraq
(23%)

12. Q. What percentage of the Middle
East’s population is currently using
the Internet?

13. In the Middle East there are around 110 million Internet
users, which is 40.2% of the total population.

14. Such is the importance of the Internet in the daily lives
of the region’s residents that it overtakes television and
other traditional forms of media.
80% of consumers in the region would rather live
without a television than live without the internet.

15. Q. What percentage of web content
is currently available in Arabic?

16. Just 2%.
Research proves that Arabic speakers prefer to use
Arabic keywords when starting a search for local
products and services.
It’s crucial for them to see relevant search results in
Arabic but with only 2% of content available in their
language the user journey is often a disappointing one.

17. Q. How digitally social is the Middle
East internet user?

18. Quick answer - very.
As of 2012, social media penetration is the highest
among internet users worldwide with 70.2%.
For 2013, it is predicted that the Middle East will have 71
million social network users.

19. Q. What social networks are used
the most?

20. 58M GCC users
10M GCC users
150M users
285M daily video views

21. Q. Which country in the region has
the highest amount of Smartphone
ownership?

22. KSA.
Saudi Arabia currently leads the Middle East by
smartphone penetration level, achieving a level of
63%, and is closely followed by the UAE with 61%.
In real terms this means that over half the total
population of these two countries are connected to a
smartphone device.

23. Q. With such a high amount of web
users, how many Middle East
businesses are currently online?

24. 15% of businesses in the region have an online presence.
Why is this when the estimated number of internet
users in the region/business reach is 90 million?

25. Q. What age is the average online
shopper in the Middle East?

26. The highest proportions rest in the 35 and up age range
– closely followed by the 26-35 age group.
Men are more likely that women – 46% compared to
32%.
B2C eCommerce sales in the region are predicted to
reach an estimated $15 billion in 2015.

27. Q. What is the biggest barrier to
shopping online in the Middle East?

28. The risk of credit card fraud, closely followed by the fact
that over 1/3 of people are worried about not being
able to return/exchange a product.

29. Nearly finished…

30. Q. Do Middle East based consumers
prefer regional or global brands?

31. The quick answer?
Although Middle East consumers are warming up to
the idea of eCommerce, they still prefer locally focused
sites over the regular international giants.

32. In Saudi Arabia, the top four eCommerce sites are all
local providers; Souq, Sukar, Namshi and Markavip.
In the UAE, Amazon makes it to third place in the top
four (11%); trailing behind local offerings Souq (20%)
and Cobone (13%), but coming ahead of Markavip (9%)

33. So that’s the basics covered…

34. And it’s all very interesting stuff. No doubt. But if you
notice these stats very much group the region as
one.
They are general.

35. And this is the regional challenge.
They are plenty of stats out there to tell us what the
Internet penetration rates are or how many people own
a phone but there is a real lack of information on
tangible behaviour.

36. A further challenge is that this is not a region made up
of one type of person.
There are huge variations in demographics.

37. Consider this…

38. 19%
81%
25%
75%

39. Geographic
Demographic
Psychographic
Behavioral

40. So when it comes to designing for your business we
need to be much more specific about target audience
and their actual behaviours.
You can’t design for the region. You have to design for
your audience.

41. Some organisations are well aware
of this and have tested and adapted
an offering to work for their target

42. The end result of being able to craft interfaces to meet
your end user?
Being better able to deliver specific messages to
specific types of people.
Moving from just selling to conversing

43. How we get there…

44. Research

45. The barriers…

46. A question for you…

47. What objections/concerns does your
organisation have when it comes to
conducting research?

48. Some common ones we come across:
Statistically significant?
Expensive?
Time consuming?
Artificial?
Logistical nightmares?

49. But are these really valid?

50. Some common ones we come across:
Statistically significant?
Expensive?
Time consuming?
Artificial?
Logistical nightmares?

51. For example…

52. The Traditional Approaches
The Focus Group

53. The one-to-one

54. The online survey

55. And there are other research
techniques to consider as well…

56. What did we learn at the beginning of the
session?
A. The high degree of social engagement
that defines the behaviour of users in this
region.

57. This behaviour creates a great
opportunity for us all…

58. We can target specific groups and really
get to the heart of who they are, what
they are talking about and how they
engage in their natural environment.

59. This is social listening.

60. Meet Me
• Ex-DigitasLBi Belgium
• Social addict
• 5 years professionally
& Brand Advocate for my clients ;-)

61. Social usage is growing fast in MENA
+20%
70M users
More than 50% of all social traffic and activity
in the GCC comes from Mobile Phones.
58M GCC users
50%
285M daily
video views
Drivers to eCom
+100%
~10M GCC users
76% Arabic
+66%
150M users

62. Who is using social media?
Approximately 41% of the total MENA
population has internet access
Female
35%
41%
88% of the MENA online population use
social media sites regularly
65%
Male
80% of GCC
social users
35
30
16 - 17
25
18 - 24
20
25 - 34
15
88%
10
35 - 44
45+
5
0
Avg. age of a social media
users in MENA

63. What do they do?
The average person in MENA
“LIKES” 5 brands on Facebook.
These are the reasons why:
From brands I “LIKE”, I will engage with the
following content types:
I am registered and I contribute
more than once a week to:
58%
15%
“I’m a
customer”
26%
“I want to be
first to know
about the new
offerings”
3%
23%
Of people who are online:
ª 85% have at least 1 social media account
“I want the
insider
knowledge”
ª 61% have 2+ accounts
ª 60% visit a social network daily
“I like to read
the brand
posts”
ª 34% are very active and post often
ª 41% search in both Arabic and English
ª 21% post to social in both languages
Average time spent on Social Media
14.3 hours/week

64. KEY FINDINGS: Facebook
A traditional audience will not post photos of themselves.
This is changing with some
audiences now willing to engage.
These audiences will often also
comment in both English & Arabic
and sometimes uses Arabizi.
Arab expats are often bi-lingual
or even trilingual. Photos of
new purchases or looks they
are proud of are common

65. KEY FINDINGS: Instagram
Kuwait has been tagged in over 9 Million photos. More than the USA with only 7.7 Million.
Dubai has about 6 Million tags. This indicates a very high degree of usage of this platform in
the Middle East.

66. KEY FINDINGS: Instagram
‘Pinkfudgegirls’ are two BFF's who sell authentic High-End designer pieces via Instagram.

67. KEY FINDINGS: Twitter
•
Twitter is the fastest growing Social
Network in the MENA region.
•
The estimated number of tweets
produced by Twitter users in the Arab
world in March 2013 was 335,792,000
tweets or 10,832,000 tweets per day.
•
76% of all tweets in the MENA region
are in Arabic.
•
21% of tweets in ‘Arabizi’
•
#hashtags will be in both Arabic and
English regardless of the language used
for body text.

68. OPPORTUNITIES OF
LISTENING

69. Why listen?
Analyse & track
discussions
Understand
brand sentiment
Identify trends &
key conversation
topics
Compare
competitors
and campaigns
Discover
priority channels
Identify online
influencers and
advocates

70. Listening helps you understand how
consumers are using digital media
as part of their decision journey,
and enables us to engage in a
relevant and appropriate manner.

71. ...an encounter of my own
They were listening!

72. Another example
Douwe Egberts’ response
Me vs Nespresso advocacy

73. Brand Advocate identification

74. Customer listening & engagement journey
Stage 5
Fully Engaged
Stage 1
Traditional
Stage 2
Experimental
• Dabbling in social
listening occurs
• Customer understanding
occurs via focus groups,
quantitative surveys, or
phone channel/support
• No concerted effort
around social listening;
possible skepticism about
the benefits
• Initial understanding of
conversation landscape:
what/where/who/why
• Perceive potential
benefits of listening
• Still disconnected to
business operations
Stage 3
Operational
• Share learnings/insights
broadly
• Key players/responders
identified (i.e. product,
marketing, support)
• Develop initial response
process & start engaging
• Listening becomes more
embedded in business
operations
• Executive sponsorship
Stage 4
Impactful
• Social listening and
engagement drives real
business results
• Cross-functional teams
partner to listen, engage,
take consistent and timely
action, and make changes
based on insight
• Listening data matched
with traditional data to
provide real-time overall
health of the brand

76. TOOLS: Free(mium)

77. TOOLS: Paid

78. What this looks like

79. Channel overview

80. Detailed channel insights

81. So there are options for data
gathering…

82. Explicit data + Implicit data = Strong insight

83. What do we do once we have the
data?

84. Formalise it within documentation

85. …and when we say documentation we don’t
mean producing insight reports

86. We mean bringing your target
customer types to life…

87. …as a persona

88. What is it?

89. Persona
A model of current human behaviour that is:
•
•
•
•
Derived from contextual research data
Described as if it were a real person
Used to promote shared understanding
Used in stories to envision the future

90. How do you sell that internally…?

91. It’s probably best to describe it
another way…

92. Personas are not the same as market segmentation

93. Age
Income
Gender

94. Behaviours
Goals
Attitudes

95. Think of it like this:
If I was to describe myself as a type for an e-commerce
proposition would it be..?
•
•
•
•
White female
30-35
University educated
Household income of $xxx

96. It would be more along the lines of the following:
Motivated by:
• Being able to find a great deal
• Getting access to exclusive products
Goals:
• Search according to specific designers
• Seeing what’s new
• White female
• 30-35,
• University educated
Frustrations:
• Sites that don’t allow her to filter results
• Being forced to register for an account before
purchase

97. It’s about understanding needs and
behaviours in order to design
something that is going to engage
me

98. So to get to this point…

99. We have to do some targeted research

100. And we have to ask the right questions

101. EXERCISE TIME

102. How many people have seen or
used Dubizzle?

103. Let’s imagine that Dubizzle are redesigning their
site.
They need to research with target users to
understand the needs and wants their audience
has so that they can craft a new design that will
really work and engage.

104. Work with the person sitting next to you – assuming they
fall into the target audience – and each take turns to act
as participant and researcher.
Each write down and ask the type of questions that you
think would be important to ask when trying to conduct
persona research.
Then once you have each written your list, work together
to formulate a final question list that you think would
allow Dubizzle to get to the heart of their user’s needs.

105. You have 10 minutes
You have 10 minutes to discuss.

106. Lets discuss.

107. Good questions to ask would include:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
What does a day in their life look like?
What are their pain points?
What do they value the most?
What are their goals?
Where do they go for information?
What other sites of a similar nature do they use and why?
What kind of experiences are they looking for?
What are their common objections to Dubizzle?

108. So where does that leave us?

109. At DigitasLBi we spend a significant amount of our
time going direct to the user and wading in with them
in their online experiences and behavior to allow our
clients to make well-informed decisions.
It’s the right thing to do and you will benefit in the long
run.

110. The insights gained from following
this process will give you…

111. 1. Focus
2. Empathy
3. Consensus
4. Efficiency
5. Decisions

112. Before I go, I’ll leave you with one
question…

113. How many questions do you have about your
customers and how confident are you that you have
the answers to them?

114. And if your are in any doubt, it’s not too late.

115. Research is the
answer.

116. Thank you.

117. T H A N K YO U
W H AT ’ S N E X T ?
M E D I A : C R O S S D I G I TA L C A M PA I G N S
APRIL 10TH