Farrukh Naeem, an award winning copwriter and top ad blogger from the UAE, speaks to mediaME on challenges to creativity in the region and the exciting talents of creative staff forming in the Middle East.

Q1. Kindly give us a brief intro about yourself.
I’m a journalist, ad blogger and copywriter based in Abu Dhabi, UAE.
In the last 10 years that have been spent between coffee-guzzling and copywriting, I’ve been trusted (to my surprise) with some of the hottest brands in the world from HP, Microsoft and Sheraton to Thomas Cook, Jaguar and Rodeo Drive.
My quest for a dream agency (does it really exist?) has taken me from Asia to the Middle East, with stints in global agency networks like Y&R, Wunderman and TBWA. I’ve also had a healthy dose of working as an independent creative for clients in the Middle East, Asia and Europe.

Q2. To begin with, what in general is your view on the levels of creativity in the Middle East compared to our counterparts worldwide?
I don’t think creativity should be measured or judged in terms of regions or countries. Or wins at award shows alone. It is a universal trait – everyone has it.
For me advertising creativity sometimes needs to be looked at in the cultural context. What might be creative and effective in the Middle East or Asia might not necessarily be an award-winning creative in, say, the USA. I think Barbican advertising and its level of engagement with Arab youth is a good example of that. It might not win international awards, but in its target region, it works!
I think we copywriters and art directors in the Middle East are as creative as our counterparts anywhere else. The GCC in fact has a very unique creative talent pool, hand-picked from all parts of the world. While most countries in the world have local creatives only, countries like the UAE and Qatar are attracting young and ambitious talent from top agencies around the world. I personally have been contacted by creative people and organizations eager to work in the Middle East.
Of course, we all know that creatives from the region have not only been bringing home bigger awards every year, but accomplished creative directors like Shehzad Yunus of Pirana and Kerry Platts of Wunderman ME have been on international award jury panels as well. And this list is going to get longer.
Although we have more and more international creatives doing international-looking work (yeah, the kind of stuff you’d find in award books) in the region, the fun for me will really begin when we see lots of local creatives, like Emiratis in the UAE, or Saudis in the KSA, joining the creative ranks and using local insights to craft memorable and original advertising.
A good example of local insights would be advertising done for Viagra in Arabic in the KSA (using a traditional Arabic saying that means ‘Making a mountain out of a molehill.’). Who says you have to keep your creativity locked up in the closet when you work in the Middle East?

Q3. What, in your opinion, is the single biggest impediment to creative copywriting, and creativity in general, in regional agencies?
The single biggest challenge for copywriters in this region is the need to kill too many birds with one stone. In a country like the UAE, or Qatar, or Bahrain, we can’t use colloquial language and cultural nuances when trying to talk to target audience that comprises over 100 nationalities. Unless you’re only making an ad for a very specific ethnicity like Indian, or Filipinos.
An English writer has to write to an audience most of whom have English as their second language. An Arabic copywriter has his hands tied because writing in one dialect will not work for people who use another.
So, you end up with either very little or no copy sometimes (which I don’t think is the answer to this challenge). Or copy that is plain English. Or ‘fus-haa’ Arabic that reads like a text book. So many times, I’ve seen Arabic copywriter friends getting frustrated when the client prefers a dialect different from the copywriter’s recommended one.
Although I personally have never liked double-meaning puns and excessive word-play when I write copy, I do miss the freedom to write to a person in his own language and dialect which is hard to do when writing to cover the entire expat population.
Yet, I wouldn’t let this challenge hold a copywriter back or be a cause for no-copy advertising. Good copy never draws attention to itself anyway. It evokes emotion, feelings, response. And sometimes simple but well chosen words can do just that.

Q4. As a top regional blogger, what kind of impact have websites and blogs had on spreading creative output across the region and encouraging an exchange of ideas?
Blogs have democratised the flow of information and conversation. While we still see dead, static agency sites with tabs like ‘About us’ and ‘Our work’, blogs are really encouraging the exchange of ideas and opinion.
Take my ad blog, www.copywriterjournalist.com, which is currently one of the most popular advertising blogs in the region and one of the UAE’s pioneer ad blogs. A large part of my readers are from the UK and the USA. The blog has been cited by the Guardian, UK. My views on advertising in the Middle East have been published in Forbes Arabia. A regional ad posted on my blog started quite a heated discussion online, even on Digg!
My inbox is usually flooded with emails from copywriters and art directors from around the world who want to know more about ad life in the UAE, advertising agencies looking for creative professionals, students looking for career advice, even global clients seeking opinion on which agency to partner with. Just because I write a simple, honest blog when I have a little time, and try my best to respond to my readers promptly and in a helpful manner.
All of this adds up to the global exposure that advertising and creative opinion from this region eventually gets through a blog like mine. That is the power of blogs and citizen journalism.
We need more blogs and online presence of regional agencies, I’d say. Agencies that are using the web actively include Tonic and Flip with their blogs. More should be taking it up.

Q5. Obviously, creativity coming out of the UAE gets exposure, but what about creativity originating from elsewhere, like Cairo and Beirut. How does it compare?
UAE is great at promoting and marketing itself. And our advertising fraternity represents top global talent and agency networks. Plus, we have the Cannes-organised Dubai Lynx which is getting bigger by the year, as you must have read on my blog. Our IAA chapter is the biggest in the world if I remember correctly, and we have had the IAA’s presidency form the UAE too.
On comparisons, like I said earlier, I don’t think creativity is something that can be tagged to a region or country. But if you ask me what I think of ads in the region apart from UAE, Beirut I think is doing pretty well. And I simply love many of the TV spots I’ve seen from Egypt because of the casting and the humour. They know how to laugh at themselves and not mind it. Very much like us Indians. What are Egyptian creatives mixing in their coffee I keep wondering? I’d like some too. 

Q6. Any comments or views you wish to add?
It’s sad that many advertising agencies in the region still have outdated websites. If you are a hot creative wanting to get in touch, you’ll most likely have to fill a standard form on an agency website without knowing who’s going to read it. If you are a client looking for the contacts of an agency on its website – hard luck again – write to a guy called ‘admin’.
I think more agencies and agency people need to get active online, read blogs, write comments, be accessible and share the agency life with others. It’s a great way to be spotted by talented creatives as well as clients looking for something more than the ‘official’ agency website.
As digital media assumes increasing importance in people’s everyday lives from what they watch and listen to how they socialise, I think agencies will greatly benefit more from creatives who are also online wizards and know how to work the web, not just write clever headlines and think up visual puns.