Dubai’s Top Marketing Trends

While its history dates back thousands of years, Dubai’s unprecedented development and expansion really only started to occur in the past 50 or so years, in large part thanks to the discovery of oil. Despite these origins, Dubai’s economy today has evolved to be far more robust and diversified than ever before, with the city cementing itself as the premier business hub in the Middle East, something that attracts a vast amount of attention from marketers. However, with its huge expat population, blend of cultures and religions, and high standard of living, Dubai also stands alone as one of the most unique cities in the global marketplace, with its diversity becoming something that marketers often struggle to adapt to when localising campaigns for the market. Thankfully, today’s article is going to strip back this promotional complexity by focusing on three of the top marketing trends dominating Dubai’s marketing landscape in 2019 in order to give your business a leg up when it comes time to create your next campaign.

Video Marketing

Online marketing has traditionally been dominated by text-based content—email blast, newsletters, and blog posts have been used to draw attention, improve engagement, and drive conversions. However, as video marketing becomes cheaper, more accessible, and quicker to produce, it is increasingly becoming an important replacement of the written word. While its global reach is still limited by the internet speeds and data caps of various regions, it has quickly taken hold in Dubai thanks not only to its cutting-edge internet grid but also a young, tech-savvy population that is extremely receptive to the medium—recent surveys of the local population have revealed that more than three-quarters of consumers prefer video to text.

It is important, however, that you exercise both caution and creativity when presenting promotional materials through a video format. In the case of the former, ensuring that your content treads a fine line between informative and promotional can make your video more engaging and less likely to be viewed by consumers as nothing more than a traditional commercial. When it comes to the latter, consider varying up the delivery of your content. Uploading and sharing a wide variety of pre-recorded videos will quickly tire out even the most dedicated of viewers. Instead, try to also broadcast regular live feeds at convenient times to demonstrate a more raw, human element of your business that lets you connect to viewers in a much more personal way.

Voice Marketing

While voice marketing has begun to make inroads globally over the past few years, it’s poised to truly explode in Dubai due not only to the reliability and speed of the city’s wireless communications network but also some impressive mobile adoption rates. With the ability of consumers to communicate with their devices anywhere and at any time, voice marketing represents a way for innovative marketers to tap into their desired demographic around the clock, filling in the discoverability gaps inherent to other digital marketing strategies. Regardless of implementation strategy, connecting with individuals via their voice-enabled mobile devices makes it much easier for businesses to take advantage of increasingly important micro-moments, greatly improving the likelihood of generating conversions.

Artificial and Augmented Intelligence

It’s no surprise that AI is on this list, as its impact is being felt across industries and departments. What gives Dubai an edge in the push for widespread AI adoption in marketing, however, is its technological infrastructure. With a wealth of local firms committed exclusively to the development of artificial intelligence solutions and data analysis, Dubai presents a lucrative opportunity for enterprising marketers to leverage the power of AI in their campaigns.

Regardless of their in-house ability to implement the technology or glean the correct insights, the agglomeration of tech-focused companies in the region provides local businesses with a huge competitive advantage over their peers. It’s for these reasons that marketers in Dubai have been leading the global charge in AI adoption. Regardless of whether it’s through customer segmentation, content personalisation or marketing automation, artificial intelligence augments the capabilities of your human teams in order to render every other aspect of your marketing more efficient, flexible, and profitable. Moreover, tapping into this trend early will provide you with a significant edge as the technology continues to develop—rather than be forced to play catch-up, being an early adopter will enable your operations to snowball and always be one step ahead of everyone else.

Unique in the global marketplace, Dubai offers every business a chance to find success. However, doing so requires that you leverage the competitive advantages that the city offers in order take advantage of cutting-edge marketing trends. By arming yourself with the knowledge provided in this article, integrating yourself fully into Dubai’s business environment and infrastructure, and leveraging the trends and technologies most popular among local consumers, you’ll be assured of prosperous campaigns that deliver an unprecedented ROI. So, what are you waiting for?