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AI in Marketing: How Strong Leadership is Guiding The United Arab Emirates

Marketing

25 September 2024

Paylaş

The adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) for marketing is rapidly advancing around the world, and the Middle East is no exception. In many ways, trends here are aligned with global trends—but there are also some unique challenges and opportunities in the region. For this series of articles, I have spoken to senior marketers around the region, to find out how they are using AI within their organisations, and their perceptions of what is happening in their country. Having been inspired by the podcast series Decoding AI for Marketing by MMA Global - which delves into the intricate dance between artificial intelligence and its opportunity to radically change the world of marketing, let me kick off our Middle East reflection series.

AI in the United Arab Emirates (UAE)

Dr. Alya Al Fardan is the Vice President, CB Marketing Business Partnerships – lending, Islamic and National Housing Loans at First Abu Dhabi Bank. She describes her role as being about business performance-driven marketing. She therefore spends a considerable amount of time looking at the adoption of AI across the region as well as within the bank. Her view is that the situation is rapidly evolving, but that it is helped by a clear vision from the country’s leadership.

“In the UAE, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum have a very clear vision for AI, and we have a minister who focuses on technology. The concept is therefore being strongly driven from the top in this country. However, it is up to the leaders within different organisations to implement AI across relevant departments and functions, and basically upskill their employees so that they can use AI tools effectively.”

The purpose behind adopting AI in the UAE is explicit: to simplify employees’ lives and give them time to develop other skills that will benefit their industries. This drive has made it very easy to assess potential use cases and decide whether they are worthwhile.

“AI in marketing has been evolving over the past couple of years. For example, media modeling in the old days used to be a bit of a black box. Only a few people from international media agencies really knew how it worked. Whereas some individuals on the client side didn’t have enough background to understand what happened in terms of campaign bidding mechanism and ad set up. Now, however, more information is available and is easy to access about AI algorithms like Google Ads, where the level of understating has been proficient.”

Alya noted that work that used to be done by agencies only is now done hand in hand with employees with a digital marketing understanding. Employees collaborate with the agencies to review and validate media driven campaigns. She adds that this has not happened by chance.

“A lot of organizations in this region invest to upskill their employees working in marketing, enabling them to freely and confidently negotiate and debate media AI and algorithm best practices within their organization's cross-functions, their agencies and external vendors, plus work out collective approaches to optimize end user journeys. The tools of media strategies didn’t change as much as the algorithms did, where algorithms are constantly changing, whether you’re talking about Facebook, paid advertising, Google or whatever. The targeting mechanism has changed.”

Regulation, digitalisation and geography

Alya notes that data protection is crucial for her organisation, because of the sensitive nature of financial information.

“There are strong data protection rules in the GCC in general and the UAE in particular. We have a lot of authority to protect data as a bank. We therefore have to govern how we target marketing, and how we collect data.”

She adds that the government is actively involved in deciding what tools can and should be used. For example, some AI tools must be government authorised before they can be used for sensitive purposes.

“You can use most AI apps and tools once they have been only signed off. That’s good, because if you use something that has not been signed off for data protection purposes, there might be a data breach. This way, corporates and customers are protected. AI is speeding everything up, though.

Beyond content creation

Alya is alive to the possibilities of using AI for content creation, but sees other more valuable use cases.

“It’s still very much work in progress on the content front, but I’m really interested in how we analyse the reaction to ads and other content. Before, we could only really look at click through rates or views. Now you can use heat maps to see what people actually look at in the ad.”

She adds that she believes her organisation is among the ‘early adopters’ where the market is moving in a positive and promising direction yet its a long way for us all to unleash the true potentials of AI as there is still much more to be unlocked.

Alya ascribes the gradual speed at certain areas to cautious stand about how to manage and mitigate the risks of utilizing different AI tools and enablement. “Every organisation has its own rules. I go back to data protection, and also education. Organisations see the potential, but they also want to understand the risks of using AI tools—and more importantly, how to mitigate them., especially if there is a high risk of a data breach or very sensitive data. You can’t just integrate AI without understanding the risks and how to overcome them.”

Alya adds that she sees AI as a supplement to traditional marketing, rather than a substitute.

“Traditional marketing shouldn’t disappear. Instead, it should be boosted and complemented by digital marketing. For instance, let’s talk about PR and reputational management. We’ve always done it, but now we can create more interactive content and measure it using digital tools. We can automate, customize and personalize everything to fit the audience, behaviour and life cycle—and above all we can measure performance. That’s where I think the real potential of AI lies. We have to integrate measurement within our infrastructure so that you can measure the customer journey end-to-end, and really understand what your customers want. That way, the business will be able to deliver—and that’s what really matters.”

So, as Alya stated, the adoption of AI is on top of the agenda in for Middle east marketeers across different well established organizations. . However there are some legal measurements to boost this adoption. That’s why my next article will cover the regulation aspects with Laura Reynaud Esq., Associate Director, Legal Middle East at Cognizant and my fellow board member at MMA MENA.

Reach out to me if you want to provide insights for my next articles.

Nurcan Bicakci Arcan

MMA MENA Board Member

Nurcan Bıçakçı Arcan

MMA MENA Board Member

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