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Just curious to see if anyone else out there makes their money via an ad agency? If so, where? What's the industry like in Dubai? How difficult is it to get a gig over there?

Cheers

giggsy, Im in advertising over here. All the major agencies here, mainly based in Media City. There's no shortage of jobs, but its hard work!

Hi DeeDee,

Is there a big demand for web designers in DMC or elsewhere in Dubai?

Online advertising seems to be really slow in the UAE, from what I've heard.

Do you know of any agencies that deal with online advertising??

Thanks Dee Dee. I'm a copywriter. I almost landed a gig at a "big one" in media city about a year and a half ago. The fit wasn't quite right though. I love it in Dubai and would like to ply my trade as a copywriter over there. How difficult is it to land a job as a writer? Here in Ontario, Canada it's like winning the freakin' lottery. Someone has to but chances are it ain't gonna be you! Senior writers are working for high junior money. So it's tough.

mighty.one wrote:Online advertising seems to be really slow in the UAE, from what I've heard.

Do you know of any agencies that deal with online advertising??

U hit the nail right on head, online advertising is very very slow:) had a tough time raking in business when i was there, most of the people want barter deals.

giggsy wrote:Thanks Dee Dee. I'm a copywriter. I almost landed a gig at a "big one" in media city about a year and a half ago. The fit wasn't quite right though. I love it in Dubai and would like to ply my trade as a copywriter over there. How difficult is it to land a job as a writer? Here in Ontario, Canada it's like winning the freakin' lottery. Someone has to but chances are it ain't gonna be you! Senior writers are working for high junior money. So it's tough.

writers are in demand so i dont think u shud face a problem. But fro what i know freelancers makebetter money as compared to the one on jobs. how do i know this? i used to hire freelancers to write for me and used to pay out of the nose to get quality stuff

giggsy wrote:Thanks Dee Dee. I'm a copywriter. I almost landed a gig at a "big one" in media city about a year and a half ago. The fit wasn't quite right though. I love it in Dubai and would like to ply my trade as a copywriter over there. How difficult is it to land a job as a writer? Here in Ontario, Canada it's like winning the freakin' lottery. Someone has to but chances are it ain't gonna be you! Senior writers are working for high junior money. So it's tough.

Perhaps put the local printed media publishing industry in perspective first, and then evaluate it.

There are literally a hundred local magazine publications, some of them last others don't.

One of the oldest/ longest running publications, Emirates Home has a monthly distribution in the region of about 23,000 issues!!!! In the big scheme of international publishing this is not a large number. This means you have a large number of advertising agents literally beating at your door to sell you space; in actual fact because of publication glut there is an excess of space and shortage of advertisers! Many new publications seldom run longer than a year.

Demographically there are approximately 1.4 million people living in Dubai, approximately 80% of which are expatriates (1,120,000) and 280,000 UAE nationals.

Of the 1,120,000 expatriates almost 70% of them are employed as labour (784,000) and cannot really be considered a target audience for the glossy publications that are produced in Dubai (with a few exceptions)!

This leaves 336,000 expatriates and 280,000 UAE nationals (616,000) total, obviously you then have to split male and female into potential target markets, take into account family units (also represented in the total), number of houses etc… Before long your target market (especially for niche publications – health & fitness, motoring etc.) is very small! Note: the figures I have quoted above are about 18 months old.

Obviously this is over simplified and some publications are intended for sale and distribution outside of the “greater Dubai” area, as well as within the GCC area. Still a very small market!

dbxsoul wrote:

giggsy wrote:Thanks Dee Dee. I'm a copywriter. I almost landed a gig at a "big one" in media city about a year and a half ago. The fit wasn't quite right though. I love it in Dubai and would like to ply my trade as a copywriter over there. How difficult is it to land a job as a writer? Here in Ontario, Canada it's like winning the freakin' lottery. Someone has to but chances are it ain't gonna be you! Senior writers are working for high junior money. So it's tough.

Perhaps put the local printed media publishing industry in perspective first, and then evaluate it.

There are literally a hundred local magazine publications, some of them last others don't.

One of the oldest/ longest running publications, Emirates Home has a monthly distribution in the region of about 23,000 issues!!!! In the big scheme of international publishing this is not a large number. This means you have a large number of advertising agents literally beating at your door to sell you space; in actual fact because of publication glut there is an excess of space and shortage of advertisers! Many new publications seldom run longer than a year.

Demographically there are approximately 1.4 million people living in Dubai, approximately 80% of which are expatriates (1,120,000) and 280,000 UAE nationals.

Of the 1,120,000 expatriates almost 70% of them are employed as labour (784,000) and cannot really be considered a target audience for the glossy publications that are produced in Dubai (with a few exceptions)!

This leaves 336,000 expatriates and 280,000 UAE nationals (616,000) total, obviously you then have to split male and female into potential target markets, take into account family units (also represented in the total), number of houses etc… Before long your target market (especially for niche publications – health & fitness, motoring etc.) is very small! Note: the figures I have quoted above are about 18 months old.

Obviously this is over simplified and some publications are intended for sale and distribution outside of the “greater Dubai” area, as well as within the GCC area. Still a very small market!

Correct. What's On advertises itself as the most distributed rag in the country at around 50k copies. Gulf News is top among newspapers at around 100,000.

Funnily enough, websites make a fraction of the money that rags make, even if it has much more readers and a more targeted audience than those gossip rags. Also, websites aren't valued enough either. A site about cats with 500,000 visitors would have ads from real estate agents, rent-a-cars and computer companies easily from the ad agencies. But a site about computers with 100,000 visitors gets nothing for being "too small." Amateur-league players here.

gtmash wrote:Amateur-league players here.

I couldn't have put it better myself. But I really don't understand why?!
Online Advertising is the way forward. The U.S and the UK etc illustrate this fact very well with sites like facebook, myspace etc.

On the other hand, a site like 7days.ae have quite a lot of related uae advertising but how do you get in touch with such companies to advertise on a site that it would be worth them advertising on.

I just don't understand it. And as for barter deals (Jeevan), I know exactly what you mean. Please don't get me started.

"No I dont want a lifetime supply of toothbrushes in exchange for hits from my site" lol

Do you think an affiliate network for the UAE would work to help things on a little?

**And sorry giggsy for hijacking the thread.

No worries mate! It's still related. It's still of interest. It's still a good discussion so all is well & good!

Hmmm...dont know why you all say online advertising is dead. Its growing! I used to manage an online marketing company here, and we were definitely growing. What you don't understand is that agencies here don't just service the UAE. This is a tiny market compared to KSA, Levant, Egypt etc. Most Dubai-based ad agencies will manage middle east/pan arab-wide accounts, in same cases Europe and Africa & even subcontinent as well. So there is never any shortage of work, including online.

Copywriters are in demand, as well as creative/art director folk. There are a lot of web designers here though, so its competitive. Maybe freelancing is an option?

Jeevan - dont know what you mean by barter deals, this is rare in ad agency world, and probably not a good indication of what the overall online ad industry is like here. Having worked on both agency & client side, there is ALOT of advertising dollars flying around from the likes of huge, blue chip, MNC companies based in Dubai looking to take advantage of everyone's high disposable incomes here.

Okay deedee you seem to know what you are talking about due to your wealth of experience.

Ill pose a scenario to you and you tell me what you would do:

You have a site that has a large amount of traffic. <approx 4000 unique visits each day, 84% from the UAE>

You know lots of large companies that would be interested in advertising but unfortunately they all are extremely large and don't deal directly with publishers.

What would you do?

mighty.one wrote:Okay deedee you seem to know what you are talking about due to your wealth of experience.

Ill pose a scenario to you and you tell me what you would do:

You have a site that has a large amount of traffic. <approx 4000 unique visits each day, 84% from the UAE>

You know lots of large companies that would be interested in advertising but unfortunately they all are extremely large and don't deal directly with publishers.

What would you do?

Firstly, 4,000 UVs is not relatively high traffic - compared to a Maktoob/MSNArabia/Gulf News etc - obvisously the reason why companies won't deal with you is that you don't have a repuation in the market, you don't have the traffic, and probably don't have the expertise to implement and deploy an online campaign. But the first thing I would do is find ways of increasing your traffic volumes (search engine marketing is the easiest way).

Next, you need to approach one of the network publishers in this region - these are people who represent and sell lots of little sites such as yours to ad agencies and companies. They are established in the market, and all have relationships with the agencies, and will sell your website traffic for you. This is very common globally, and, if the network publisher sells you right (and providing you have a good website), you could make some decent dosh by doing nothing (as the network publisher does all the 'selling' work - note they do get a % of the sale). You just have to be flexible to the needs of advertisers and have a very good website that caters to a niche/specialist audience (so whilst the likes of Maktoob/MSN/Gulf have mass audiences and huge traffic volumes, you will have smaller traffic BUT targeted users). Start off this way, get your name exposed to the ad agencies and companies for a couple of years, grow your website traffic (so you can sell more) and if you have decent revenues coming in, you can remove yourself from the network publisher and sell it yourself. I can give you some contacts if you like - PM me.

Hehe, the funny part is Maktoob is purely junk traffic. I know this from a major ad agency manager (and it is rather obvious from browsing their site). Selling property and cars to people who simply log on to check their email, chat with young men/women and read about sports? As I hear it, they continue to get ads because the naive local advertisers (clients) want to support an Arabic website.

Get on a plane.... do the research on the ground!

Masses of opportunity, for sure..... if you get off ya arse and network like a crazy animal!! hehehehe

Wow, deedee that was one detailed and concise reply. I appreciate it.

As for networking. Im going to an AmeInfo Networking Evening later this month. Hopefully, that should help me in the right direction.

Anyone been before and have any comments?

mighty.one wrote:Wow, deedee that was one detailed and concise reply. I appreciate it.

As for networking. Im going to an AmeInfo Networking Evening later this month. Hopefully, that should help me in the right direction.

Anyone been before and have any comments?

I've been to this mighty.one, gets an ok turn-out, lots of different people to meet, mostly not all in advertising, but have fun fyi you have to pay for your own drinks.

Quick question,

do you need to register in advance or is it a "just turn" up event.

mighty.one wrote:Quick question,

do you need to register in advance or is it a "just turn" up event.

Just turn up.

Do you think it would be easier to go directly through ad agencies or a head hunter?

giggsy wrote:Do you think it would be easier to go directly through ad agencies or a head hunter?

Definitely go directly through the ad agencies - recruiters here are hopeless.

Cheers. Which one do you work at? Do you know of any that would be looking? You can pm that stuff if you want to keep it private. Or if it's too personal don't feel obligated.

Thanks!