CMO Council Inaugurates New Advisory Board and Member Chapter in the Middle East & North Africa

DUBAI, UAE, Nov 02 (MARKET WIRE) --
The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council -- a global group of 5,000
senior executives controlling more than $125 billion in marketing spend
-- is expanding its reach and presence in the Middle East and North
Africa with a new advisory board and assessment of marketing credibility
and effectiveness in the region. The geography includes more than 20
Arab-speaking countries and some 200 different nationalities across
diverse countries, cultures and population groups.

CMO Council Advisory Board members include senior marketing decision
makers from 3SC Technologies, Al-Futtaim Automotive Division, Almarai
Company, Bloom Properties, Citibank, Etihad Airways, GBS Group Holding,
HSBC Bank, Jumeirah Hotel Group, MTN, One97 Communications, Saudi Telecom,
Schlumberger Information Solutions, Sony Ericsson, and Western Union.
Chairing the MENA advisory board will be Mohammed Al-Tajer, Vice President
& Cluster Marketing Head for the Global Consumer Group of Citibank in the
MENA region.

"We have assembled a highly experienced group of senior practitioners in
the MENA region," noted Al-Tajer. "We plan to have a very active and
engaged team that will help develop CMO Council program initiatives,
authority leadership platforms and advocacy positions. In particular, our
group will forge close links with the academic community so we can
influence and shape the marketing curriculum to better prepare students
for a more digital, analytical and multi-channel marketing environment,"
he added.

The first meeting of the MENA Advisory Board was hosted by CYVIZ in Media
City, Dubai on October 12. A number of important initiatives were mapped
out for implementation in 2010:

-- Address key issues facing marketers in the region; leverage the
knowledge and expertise of veteran marketers to advance insights and
competencies.
-- Work with universities on creating programs that will improve the
quality of marketing/business graduates.
-- Improve thought leadership in the region through the encouragement of
the marketing professionals to produce related studies.
-- Reach out to business schools and enroll as many marketing professors
as possible in the CMO Council Academic Liaison Board.
-- Create opportunities for board members to speak and represent the CMO
Council on university and college campuses, as well as at professional
conferences and summits.

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have long been considered a
region of opportunity, but one that is challenged by cultural and
religious complexity, volatility, and political uncertainty. With a gross
domestic product approaching $1 trillion, an expected GDP growth rate of
just under six percent, and a population of over 313 million, there are
bright prospects for growth and market development, reports The World
Bank Group.

The 16 countries in the Middle East have nearly 42 million Internet users
and Arab-speaking countries in North Africa, including Egypt, Morocco,
Algeria, Sudan and Tunisia, already make up half the top 10 digitally
connected markets in Africa with over 27 million Internet users.

The CMO Council is conducting a benchmark Rate the State of Marketing in
the Middle East audit to gain insights and views from senior managers at
MENA companies. It has already surveyed more than 200 multi-nationals on
their Perceptions & Intentions in the region. Initial findings have been
shared with advisory board members and are attached.

Discussions and interactions at the inaugural board meeting included:

-- Putting the MENA region on the global marketing map; growing knowledge
and understanding of the region's enormous potential, sensitivities and
nuances.
-- Addressing and satisfying the diversity of nationalities (over 200 in
Dubai, alone), ethnic groups, and religious norms in the region.
-- Accommodating the huge disparity between different socio-economic
groups, plus migrant worker and multi-lingual considerations.
-- Finding good regional marketing partners and sourcing, cultivating and
keeping new talent.
-- Need for a rigorous training program in tandem with local universities
to produce marketers that have relevant skills and the right strategic and
business mindset.
-- Deficiencies in media reporting and lack of accurate and available
audience numbers and circulation figures in the region.
-- More effective use of market data and customer analytics for decision
support and marketing effectiveness.
-- Better integration of people, process and technology; addressing big
gaps between business requirements and IT capacity to address it.
-- Need for better interaction and integration between IT and marketing
groups; oil and gas companies tend to be the best at this.
-- Trust as an essential ingredient in doing business in MENA. Personal
credibility tends to be more important than company credibility, which, in
turn, is more vital than product credibility.
-- Relationship marketing requirements in the region require longer go-to-
market cycles and more patience in gaining momentum and uptake.
-- Strategies for penetrating closed and conflicted markets in the region
- Sudan, Iran, Afghanistan, Tunisia, etc.
-- Understanding how governments and para-statals work is vital. The big
concentration of market power with large holding companies and
conglomerates.
-- New marketing technologies and new ways of doing business are being
embraced, but more slowly in the region.
-- Censorship and regulation are factors that have to be accommodated and
understood, as well as factored in to business and marketing practices.
-- The need to adapt and customize products for the varying requirements
of the region; too few multi-nationals have products developed exclusively
for the localized market.
-- Strong areas of competence in the region include experiential, event-
driven marketing, mobile messaging and multi-cultural communications.

About the CMO Council

The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council is dedicated to high-level
knowledge exchange, thought leadership and personal relationship building
among senior corporate marketing leaders and brand decision-makers across
a wide-range of global industries. The CMO Council's 5,000 members control
more than $125 billion in aggregated annual marketing expenditures and run
complex, distributed marketing and sales operations worldwide. In total,
the CMO Council and its strategic interest communities include over 12,000
global executives across 90 countries in multiple industries, segments and
markets. Regional chapters and advisory boards are active in the Americas,
Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa. The Council's strategic
interest groups include the Coalition to Leverage and Optimize Sales
Effectiveness (CLOSE), Brand Management Institute, and the Forum to
Advance the Mobile Experience (FAME).

www.cmocouncil.org

Select Findings from CMO Council's Middle East Perceptions & Intentions
Survey of Multi-National Marketers

Nearly 200 respondents from companies represented across all
industry
sectors:

-- 52 percent do business in MENA
-- 49 percent expect to enter the market in the next three years
-- 65 percent of those doing business in MENA entered the market more
than five years ago
-- 34 percent entered within the past three years

Most successful and receptive markets are seen to be:

-- Dubai
-- Saudi Arabia
-- Abu Dhabi
-- Egypt
-- Qatar
-- Bahrain & Kuwait (tied)

Top 10 markets in which multi-nationals sell:

-- Dubai
-- Abu Dhabi
-- Egypt
-- Saudi Arabia
-- Qatar
-- Oman
-- Kuwait
-- Bahrain
-- Morocco
-- Jordan

The Good News:

-- 57 percent of marketers expect to increase marketing budgets in MENA
and 36 percent see no change in their spend.

The Bad News:

-- 72 percent spend less than $1 million annually on marketing in MENA.

Compared to the ROW, marketing spend in MENA over next three years
will be higher or on a par with investments in sub-Sahara Africa and
South America.

What are some of the impressions?

-- Volatile market, payback questionable.
-- Promising market to do business in.
-- Difficult to enter and risky from an HR perspective.
-- Levels of quality and efficiency questionable...and price
competitiveness.
-- Interesting market for certain products and services.
-- Strong potential; would like to visit opportunities in the region.
-- Requires an insider approach.
-- Still very immature, yet fast growing.
-- Very important, can turn into a high-value market within a short span
of time.
-- This part of the world is very important to the overall global
economy.

Media Contact:
Jessica Choi
Email Contact
650-433-4159

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