Dubai Lynx 2018 Cheat Sheet

Next month, the creative community of the MENA region (and a fair few international visitors) get together in Dubai for the Lynx festival. There’s loads going on, but we’ve sifted through the schedule to find the sessions that we reckon will give you the best insight into the challenges, trends and opportunities the region’s creative industry faces in 2018.

One of the most surprising and momentous shifts of last year was the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s decision to lift the ban on women driving. Hopefully it will precipitate great change for the women of KSA – and it also signals the need for a major rethink about how brands communicate to women in the country. Nissan’s General Manager of Digital Marketing for Africa, Middle East, Turkey and India explores more…

Burger King isn’t afraid to take a stand on contentious and complicated issues – just the other week they took on the US government’s net neutrality repeal with a clever instore stunt that demonstrated the problem via the medium of the queue. So who better to talk about brands doing good and having a purpose than Global CMO Fernando Machado.

This session from Khalil Haddad, Head of Arabic Copy at Serviceplan Group Middle East, is one for the true obsessives. Craft, cultural specificity and copywriting. Khalil will explore the challenges of maintaining the beauty of the Arabic language in the age of social media, where it needs to be modern and exciting and engaging.

Creative technology is fairly universal, right? According to Assam Khalid and Ali Rez of BBDO, the local nuances of the Middle East and Pakistan are interacting with artificial intelligence and new innovations. 

Karl Escritt of Like Digital and Zeina Al Masri of Rapp UAE will explore the unique and punky emerging Arabic creative street culture as well as discussing the international perspective on the movement as Arab influence and cultural development spreads across the globe.

Hatoon Kadi is a Saudi Arabian comedian and activist who has turned to YouTube to reach a huge audience with the Noon Al Niswa show. She uses humour and sarcasm to tackle difficult social issues from a female perspective and she’s also part of a growing trend of women using social platforms to make content for and form communities with other women in the KSA. 

It’s always worth trying to catch a slice of live judging if you can. For one thing you can watch the best in the business dissect the work that is claiming to push boundaries. And, unlike most categories, the shortlisted contenders can’t hide behind a pretty case study video as they’re held to account and truly grilled.