Jad Hindy, vice-president of marketing communications, brand and communication at the UAE telco explains how new media fits in to his marketing plans
How are your 2010 marketing plans different from 2009?
There’s a shift in budgets from traditional media to new media, and we’re focused on digital. So there’s significant growth on the digital side. We experimented with digital in 2009, and 2010 is where we’re implementing what we learned. We’ve done extremely well on the digital front in the first three months of this year. And we plan on taking this much further; we have lots of surprises coming that are related to activation and to digital. This is what will be different from a communications point of view.
Is du shifting its advertising focus to digital?
We still use everything, as we cannot alienate one medium. I am against what people are saying today, that now that we’re shifting to digital, traditional is dead. I don’t even like the terms traditional, digital, or new. We’re still going to use magazines, newspapers, radio, outdoor, and television. They’re all part of the communication mix.
The beauty of digital is that it facilitates integration more and delivers on engagement. That’s the added value, but it cannot work by itself. Before, any idea was taken and implemented on digital as a banner or a micro-site, never as the actual medium that can really initiate an idea that goes into different channels. Today we’re using digital as a platform that can enable communications and engagement, and as a channel that delivers a message.
You’ve been praised for your work with social media. How do you approach that aspect of marketing?
We engaged with people who already knew the medium, and we learned from them, shared our ideas, and from there we kept on taking baby steps up to the point where today we’re the leading brand on Twitter in the region. We do customer care on Twitter, when many brands are still not communicating on Twitter.
We knew this was an important channel, we didn’t know how much, but we knew we had to use it, in some shape or form. Today, it’s a total success that is shifting the mindset of a lot of people.
Digital advertising spend has been minimal; can we expect more this year?
It’s been small throughout the region. But more companies have started realizing the importance of digital. On our side we have increased the budgets of digital, as most companies have, I’m sure. And agencies have helped by bringing the right talent, because it wasn’t there before. So agencies and clients are working in the same direction; this is what will really push the digital arena further in the UAE and in the region.