Marketing Profile: Arab World (Part 1)
The Middle East, er.... Western Asia, is leaving a mark on marketing
This is the first in a series about the national marketing strategies currently being undertaken by countries in the Arab World. There is very little actual marketing in this segment, but I felt the need to get the back story first so we would have a framework to hang the other stories on.
Over Here, Over There
Like all points on a compass, east is a direction. Equipped with a compass, a person can say, “that is east.” The idea is simple until someone tries to make it a place by putting a circle on a map and labeling it “the east”. Another person can be standing somewhere else, reference their compass, and while pointing at the same place say, “that is west.”
Those of us on the west coast of the US commonly refer to the other side of the country as “back east”. And our countrymates back east commonly refer to the place we live as “out west”. The relative nature of direction has been jumbled up with absolute place names on a map.
Like everything else, it’s the fault of the British. There was a time when the Brits were so sure everything revolved around them, that they routinely named places by their relationship to Great Britain. And so, the Far East got its name: a place about as far to the east as the subjects of Queen Victoria could imagine.
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA)
The Brits had their map centered on their great island, the Far East was on the edge, and halfway between here and there, became the middle. The region is often still called The Middle East. Since many of the nations of the Arab World lie across the top of the African continent, the name of the region was expanded to include North Africa. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA)
Post Colonial Period
At the end of World War Two, the British could barely feed themselves, and had no capacity, resources, or interest available for their many colonies and protectorates.
Un colonizing was harder in some places than others. In 1947, Lord Louis Mountbatten had the hardest job of all. After the British had spent 200 years controlling India by pitting the Hindus against the Muslims, he had just eight months to figure out how to get out of India with minimum blame for the death and destruction.
In 1956, the long decline and fall of the British Empire was center of the world stage when Egyptian president Nasser seized the Suez Canal from British and French shareholders and Eisenhower decided not to fight a third war for the Brits.
Kept the Maps, Lost the Time, the Middle East becomes West Asia and North Africa (WANA or NAWA)
Someday all nations could agree to move the prime meridian (0 degrees longitude) to somewhere neutral. Until then, it will continue to run through Greenwich, England. Getting the Brits out of time references proved a bit easier and Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) was renamed Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) in 1960.
Right about then, the post-colonial period was further marked by renaming the Middle East as West Asia. The Queen Victoria centered perspective was replaced by a regional/continental perspective consistent with other continental references like South Asia, Eastern Europe, Central America, and so on.
Not long after that, in 1971, the British were so broke and exhausted, they abruptly pulled out of Bahrain, Qatar, and what were called the Trucial states. Since the end of the Ottoman empire, the British had protected these nine sheikdoms from others and from each other. And need protecting they did because Iran attacked before the Qatari’s even declared their independence and occupied land they still control to this day.
Arab League
The Arab League, which had been formed in by eight Arab states in 1945 because the Arab countries in West Asia and North Africa did not want to be run over by any more non-Arab countries. The founding members were Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Egypt, and North Yemen. The membership has since growth to 22 member states. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is listed as one of the 22 members. There are seven members of the UAE, the largest two of which are Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
Demographics
The Arab World has 22 members with a total population of 428 million (about one third bigger than the US), and combined GDP of $7.5 trillion (about one third of the US). The three biggest economies are Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE. The three biggest by population are Egypt, Algeria, and Iraq. The three richest by GDP per capita are Qatar, Kuwait, and UAE.
Marketing
In the next instalment we will get into the big players in marketing in the Arab World. Until then, see the link below for a profile of Emirates Airlines and the UAE or just think about how the Saudi backers of LIV Golf plan to spend $1 billion in 2023.
Links and Resources
My write up about Emirates Airline:
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