Ziad Khammar is the trailblazing CEO of AME Info, and a long-serving pioneer in the region's online market. We spoke to him about the Digital Marketing 2008 conference which AME Info is organizing.

Q1. Kindly give us a brief introduction about yourself and your current position.
I have been living in Dubai for a little less than 2 decades. Over a year go, shortly after AME Info was acquired by EMAP for over $25 million, I joined as the General Manager.
I oversee the operation with the key aim of growing the business and maintaining our position as the leading business online resource in the Middle East.

Q2. Would you say that online media and services now available in the Middle East are capable of delivering the requirements of marketers, and are on par with international Internet media tools? 
I would somewhat agree with that statement, as there is a part of the media and services market that has moved at the pace driven by requirements of advertisers. The savvy and more experienced advertisers have pushed their own organisation and agencies to raise standards and on some occasions, be ahead of the game in comparison to international standards. There are some agencies and websites who have done a great job at offering internationally accepted ad serving technology and traffic measurement tools.
The industry is moving along at a fair pace and the reality is that there are many marketers who have not gone online yet, especially the major large advertisers from KSA, and we cant expect them all to jump immediately and practice the latest and most innovative digital marketing techniques before going through traditional methods and learning what works and what doesn’t work for their brand. I, as many others, want the market to move faster but in reality we are moving at the right pace for the majority of marketers.
 

Q3. What, in your opinion, are the main obstacles to more rapid growth in online advertising expenditure in the Middle East and how's 2008 looking so far?
1) Auditing and transparency: Clients have been demanding audits to be done across all media for years but I still see large multinationals still heavily spending with a large number of non audited media. I think a major obstacle to rapid growth is larger marketers not putting their foot down and saying NO to non audited media, print or digital.
Our last ABCe audit during Oct 2007, reported that we attracted 883,994 business readers to our website. To my knowledge, there isn’t a single regional magazine or newspaper that even comes to attracting this large an audience of business readers. Majority of these titles are non audited and still command larger pieces of advertising budgets.
We have some forward looking clients who spend a majority of their budget with audited media and are taking full advantage of reaching a huge business audience.  For the market to grow faster, clients need to take the initiative to stop spending on questionable media and invest in those who are aiming to be transparent. Such initiatives will force all media to get audited, marketers to spend their budgets more confidently and thus take the whole market up to a new level.
2) Lack of expertise: A major concern is the lack of digital expertise in the market including digital media planners, designers, account handlers and marketing managers. The high staff turnover rates occurring in the region and the huge lack of digital marketing experienced or passionate people should impact growth.

Q4. AME Info is an ideal example of a leading portal aimed at business users. How mature is the online business media scene in the Middle East, and is there a substantial and growing number of advertisers targeting such users/readers?
Online business media continues to mature as most marketers are aware that the highest reaching media in the office place is the computer/internet. I don’t have exact statistics, but the one common element between all business people during working hours is that they are working on a computer/laptop and can be reached through business websites or email. AME Info’s audited traffic peaks during working hours and with just under a million business readers, is enough justification that if the net is not included in the media mix, marketers will not be reaching this audience during the important decision making working hours.
Advertisers are growing as we have built an extremely strong brand, are regularly audited and currently the largest audited business media in the region. Our business is healthy, we are growing year on year and we are confident that we will continue to see high growth in the next few years

Q5. In 2006, EMAP acquired AME Info. How does AME Info's business integrate into EMAPs other activities in the region?
EMAP have been in the region for several years as the owners of MEED, the premium business intelligence provider and more lately with the successful launch of the Dubai Lynx Advertising Festival.  AME Info provides broad coverage of a wide range of sectors for business executives whilst MEED’s portfolio includes the well known magazine Middle East Economic Digest, specialist conferences and events as well as a website. These brands are all very strong and well known in their own right.  The products compliment each other and so we all work closely together to benefit from shared learning and experience at both a local and international level. This gives us a strong competitive advantage.

Q6. The Digital Marketing 2008 Conference is a pioneering initiative, what are the goals that you as organizers look towards achieving, and what kind of impact can you see it having on the industry as a whole?
After hearing for years that no one is taking the initiative to educate the market, conduct research and share ideas, we decided to do it ourselves. It is our first event and we hope to get industry professionals within an environment to learn and share their experiences. Our research showed that the lack of market data was a key tool needed to convince upper management to spend more online. In addition, marketers wanted to hear other companies’ success stories and how they got their organisations to move from traditional to digital.
The highlight of the event this March 24-27 will be the opportunity to be the first to receive exclusive Middle East research commissioned specifically for this event on business people in the region, Arab women and young Arab teens conducted by 2 highly respected research consultancies; You Gov and Real Opinions. We hope this event will be able to contribute to educating and raising awareness on how digital marketing can impact their business, and provide tools that marketers and agencies alike can take away and implement within their organisation that will positively impact campaign results.

Q7. Where do you see the online media market in the region going from here on the publisher, agency and client sides?
I would rather not differentiate the 3 as I truly believe that the market will only grow if we learn from past mistakes, understand more about the variance in deliverables when it comes to traditional vs online and try our best to get all 3 groups working together. Our event is aimed at bringing together all 3 groups in the same room to share experiences and therefore enable each individual to make their own digital marketing campaigns a success.  Our aim is to ensure that everyone will benefit from the already massive growth and the opportunities to come.