Branding the United Arab Emirates

Interview with Charles Wrench

Emirates Business 24/7
March 2009
Branding the
United Arab Emirates
Interview with
Charles Wrench
In these uncertain times with companies going
out of business everywhere, standing out to be
noticed by consumers and the target audience
is more important than ever. The same goes for
countries that are trying to attract investment;
the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is no exception.
Charles Wrench, CEO of Landor Associates, talks to
Reena Amos Dyes of Emirates Business 24/7 about
the importance of country branding and the UAE’s
branding of itself.
How important is country branding in these
trying times?
In this ever flatter and intensely competitive world,
where access to capital, talent, ideas, and consum-
ers gets ever easier, the need for countries to
proactively organize themselves to compete for
their share of the market becomes more evident by
the day, especially in the current economic scenario.
One other thing I would stress: As the world gets
busier, the brandscape more populated, and the
level of information that surrounds us increases
exponentially, we increasingly advise our clients
2
Branding the UAE
Charles Wrench
Emirates Business 24/7
March 2009
to focus hard on finding or creating a few truly Charles Wrench is chief executive officer
powerful stories that will cut through the clutter of Landor Associates.
and impose a clear understanding of what is special
and different about their brands on the wider © 2009 Arab Media Group. All rights reserved.
consciousness of any given market.
This interview was first published under the
Where do you place the UAE branding wise? title “Aggressive promotion to further boost
The first thing I would say is that we need to be UAE brands” in Emirates Business 24/7
clear about what we mean when we talk about (13 January 2009). business24-7.ae
perceptions of the UAE brand.
We tend to think of brands as single entities.
In practice, this is rarely the case. The company
behind the brand might be one entity. That company
might own the trademark. And the brand promise
that the company seeks to deliver will be written
by the company. But when we talk about a brand’s
perception or reputation, that is not actually
something the company owns at all. It exists in
the hearts and minds of millions of individuals.
And this is more true of destination brands than
most brands. And maybe even more true of the
UAE brand. Because the standing of the UAE brand
depends entirely on where you are viewing the brand
from. An individual’s perception of the UAE will owe

Bahrain
United Arab Emirates
■ Abu Dhabi
■ Dubai
■ Sharjah
Qatar ■ Ajman
■ Umm al-Quwain
■ Ras al-Khaimah
■ Fujairah
Saudi
Arabia
much to how the brand is experienced: from afar,
in Dubai, in Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, as a businessperson
or traveler, or through the pages of American or
Arab newspapers.
We should also not forget that the UAE brand is still
relatively new. The awareness of the United Arab
Emirates is very low all across the globe, though
obviously much higher in the region. In many
respects this is an opportunity, as its identity in
the eyes of much of the world is still there to be
managed and shaped to the UAE’s advantage.
Will it be more beneficial for the UAE to
market itself as a whole country or as
individual emirates?
The question of the relationship between the UAE
brand and the individual emirate brands themselves
is an interesting one. In many ways, I see this as
a classic “parent and product” brand relationship
(think Procter & Gamble and its product brands)
where the parent brand’s role is to afford its product
brands stature and esteem, and the role of the
product brands is to instill in the parent a sense
of relevance and differentiation. In the UAE case,
the parent brand is actually quite recessive, and
the product brands tend to be more visible.
In pure brand terms, this works well: The individual
emirate brands are potentially quite differentiated
from each other, and thus have the capacity to be
relevant to a broader segment of potential custom-
ers. They effectively maximize the potential market
for the “UAE portfolio.” The role of the UAE itself
should then be to underpin the individual emirate
brands with a sense of economic, political, and
cultural stability.
3
Iran
Branding the UAE
Charles Wrench
Persian Gulf of Emirates Business 24/7
Gulf Oman March 2009
United
Arab
Emirates
left The UAE must define what is special
about each emirate and celebrate seven
Oman different and polarized offers.
below Artist’s rendering of the Burj Dubai
tower in the city of Dubai; it will be the
▲N 0 100km
tallest building in the world when complete.
How can the emirates market themselves more
aggressively now?
The most important step is to recognize that the
emirates are real brands and should be managed
as such. They need to be actively managed against
a clearly defined sense of what they each stand for.
I would like to see each emirate appoint a “brand
daddy” or chief brand officer.1 And the role of this
chief brand officer should be to define what is
special and different about its emirate, both in
the competitive context of the other emirates and
the wider world. These individual emirate position-
ings should make sense independently and also
as a portfolio.
The emirates should then physically map the myriad
ways in which their brands can be experienced and
prioritize the experiential touchpoints. By building
short-, middle-, and long-term plans, they can
manage the delivery of their specific brand promises
at each of those touchpoints and measure how well
they are performing against them.
Of course, this will involve marshalling a great
number of players in any given emirate as the
touchpoints may each have different “owners.”
However, the power structure of the UAE and the
emirates is pretty unique in the degree to which
power is centralized, making brand management
potentially much easier than elsewhere in the
world—and potentially allowing for much stronger
brands to emerge over time.
The emirates also need to focus on cut-through 1 Andrew Welch, “Who is the brand daddy? Adding a chief
stories (their Power Apps) to put across in brand officer to your c-suite,” Brand Strategy (March 2008),
landor.com/index.cfm?do=thinking.article&storyid=570.
a powerful way what is different about them.
The need for countries to
proactively organize themselves
to compete for their share of the
market becomes more evident
by the day, especially in the
current economic scenario.
To some extent, I see this happening here already,
and on a truly grand scale. Take Dubai: Its brand
promise has been aggressively projected over the
last decade by the creation of a series of truly
powerful and differentiating experiences, such as
sporting events, the Burj, the ski slopes, and the
likes, which have substantially determined how the
world now views the Dubai brand. The issue that
Dubai and Abu Dhabi in particular may have to
contend with is that the speed and extravagance
of their respective developments may make them
vulnerable to a sort of Las Vegas image—a “great
for a weekend only” brand reputation. Evolving this
into a more sustainable and grounded proposition
may well be their biggest challenge.
That said, I think an opportunity to do just this may
present itself in the way the emirates respond to the
climate debate. If they can establish themselves as
leaders in sustainability, which is perhaps the world's
biggest common issue, I believe they could quite
significantly transform their image to something
more statesman-like. For example, Abu Dhabi
with Masdar City, the world's first 100 percent
carbon-free city.
What can the UAE do to market itself as
a tourist hub?
The UAE plan is pretty aggressive: 15 million tourists
in 2010 for a population of 1.8 million people. By
comparison, France welcomes 80 million tourists
every year and its population is 64 million people.
To achieve this, it must define what is special and
different about each emirate and progressively
celebrate seven different and polarized offers. For
instance, Dubai is about entertainment, Abu Dhabi
about culture, Sharjah is about heritage and tradition,
4
Branding the UAE
Charles Wrench
Emirates Business 24/7
March 2009
and so on. This will allow the seven emirates to
appeal to the widest possible customer base.
What advice do you recommend for UAE firms?
UAE companies are becoming increasingly brand
savvy. They know what branding means, and how
it can help transform their businesses.
But—and this is pretty typical of markets still
relatively new to the disciplines of brand manage-
ment—there is still what I would describe as a lack
of “branding courage” in the region.
Ultimately, strong brands need to offer something
that is both relevant and different in the marketplace
and, as yet, too many companies in the Middle East
derive comfort from being like—rather than unlike—
the leading brands in their respective fields.
Let me illustrate this: Look at Apple. Apple is not
a globally revered brand because it was good at
mimicking IBM—it is powerful because it offered
the market an alternative to IBM. It defined itself in
a way that was differentiated on almost every level:
philosophy, design, experience, purpose, language,
and more. Companies in the Middle East tend to
start building their brands with far more rigor than
they bring to the process of maintaining them.
Clearly, brand building is not just about defining
what is special and different about your brand—
it is about delivering that special difference
religiously, consistently, everywhere, all the time.
Too often, we see rather more energy going
into defining the brand experience than goes
into the consistent delivery of it. The consistent
delivery of the brand is very important, especially
in today’s context. ■
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