The rebuilding of Egypt’s political structure will likely take longer than the recovery of its economy. With a population of almost 80 million, it was set to be a major source of growth for most advertising agency networks in 2011. ZenithOptimedia research put the overall advertising spend in Egypt at $1.24 billion at the end of 2010 with projections that it would grow to $1.32 billion in 2011, reaching almost $1.5 billion by 2013. But these were predictions made in December 2010. After the protests and power shifts, all bets are not completely off, but much of that forecasted investment is in flux. Executive asked the advertising industry’s luminaries to gauge what effect recent events will have on Egypt’s future as a powerhouse market for the industry.
“The first reaction certainly was [to ensure] that the people within DDB were safe. We have quite a substantial business in Egypt and the number of our employees there is quite big. We wanted to make sure that everybody was safe and fortunately they have been. We still have yet to see what those events represent when it comes to commerce, whether business, as it is starting up again, will come back to where it was or perhaps even be better, depending on where this thing ends up.”
Chuck Brymer, DDB Worldwide Communications, chairman and CEO
“I have no long-term worry regarding Egypt. It is very positive what is happening. Luckily, for us, it happened in the first quarter. The first quarter will be slightly hit; it will not be dramatically hit, because we are back to normal levels now. A month was lost and I think we will catch up during the rest of the year. Overall, the year will look the same… [In the] long-term, adspend in Egypt has the potential to quadruple in size in about four to five years. Egypt’s [domestic advertising market] can become as large as Turkey; Turkey is about five or six times larger than Egypt today, so we are looking at this as an opportunity. It will not happen overnight; it depends on the speed of facilitation and improvements in the economy.”
Elie Khouri, Omnicom Media Group MENA, regional managing director
“Egypt tends to be a stand-alone as a hub for multinational clients and I think that Egypt is separate from the rest of the region. I don’t think that from a business perspective in the Levant and in the Gulf it will have an immediate impact.”
Roy Haddad, JWT MENA, chairman and CEO
“If anybody doubted digital in the Arab world, this should put things to rest. If you knew any Egyptians, I am sure that many of these guys wanted to say the same things five or 10 years ago. Digital [consolidated their voices] for them. I think the hard part is yet to come.”
Philip Jabbour, Starcom MediaVest Group, CEO MENA
“What has happened in Egypt has told us a lot about the power of the Internet and the power of online communication. People are enjoying the power of participation. I was there two hours before things blew up. I knew it would blow up and changed my flight from the afternoon to the morning, because the day before somebody I was sitting with got a [BlackBerry Message] giving the list of places where people should meet and saying what they should bring. [On the business side], if you had asked me a week ago about our most dynamic market in 2011, I would have said Egypt. Egypt will bounce back and I don’t think it will take an extraordinary amount of time. I am not thinking about if we will be affected [financially]. I am thinking I hope [the people] are ok. We live in a volatile world, we have to be able to find a way.”
Tarek Miknas, Promoseven Group, CEO
“In our plans for 2011, Egypt was to feature as the key growth market, because [it] has developed in 2010 as the largest advertising market in the Arab world. It overtook the [United Arab Emirates] and it overtook Lebanon, which was for many years the key market because the media was in Lebanon. Egypt was the promising market. I expect a quick comeback. I hope it will happen. Our growth in Egypt was to a large extent based on government spending. In fact, the whole market surged because of government spending. We were behind some pivotal campaigns, [such as] the launch of the new real estate tax law. We had in the pipeline all the materials for a campaign to teach Egyptians the use of coins and then came the revolution. We don’t know how the government is going to [end up] but for sure it is going to be a conservative step-by-step move. The hope is that the private sector will reactivate the market.”
Ramzi Raad, TBWA RAAD, chairman and CEO
“With the political situation in Egypt, oil price is starting to increase but that is not enough. If Egypt does not stabilize, the whole market could be dragged down, including the Gulf. We cannot make conclusive decisions now. It is still immature. There is positivity. When you talk with Egyptians today, they are all proud about this moment and this achievement and unanimously say they want to drive the country forward. With such a positive attitude, we would like to adopt a similarly positive [one] and say we will work hand-in-hand with our team in the local market and see how we can further drive this positivity.”
Firas el-Zein, ZenithOptimedia, CEO
“What is happening in Egypt will not just affect North Africa; it will have an impact on the whole region and it will have a spillover beyond the region itself. I have been talking with my colleagues in the other networks and we are all preparing our budgets. Our forecasts are important and affect the shareholders and we are all still kind of in the dark in terms of Egypt. We are a region and we are working hard at compensating possible losses in Egypt through growth in other markets but today’s priority is the safety of our people. The secondary objective is ensuring that we are very ready to quickly get on with business and bounce back to help Egypt, to help that market quickly recover. We have to let the dust settle and see what the people of Egypt really want. Once they have defined where they want to take their country, creative people that are Egyptian will play a great role in portraying it to the world as the new Egypt.”
Dani Richa, Impact BBDO, CEO MENA
