With more than 100 offices in 67 countries, Starcom MediaVest Group is one of the biggest advertising agencies in the world. Starcom MediaVest Group’s MENA executive vice president Tarek Daouk sat down with Executive on the fringes of the MENA Cristal Awards to offer up an expert’s perspective of the advertising market in the region. E We are in the middle of a financial crisis, with not as much money being thrown around and there have been reports of a substantial number of delayed payments related to campaign completions in the advertising industry. Have you witnessed any of these occurrences as of late? Of course. It has happened and it’s mainly not the multinational clients but more the local clients. The reason is that it [the crisis] was a shock; the whole thing took everyone by surprise. When surprises like this happen, usually people freeze and adopt a wait-and-see attitude.
