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TBWA\RAAD’s CEO Says “MENA Is Maturing”

16/07/2025
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Reda Raad sets out his aspirations for the agency, the industry, and the Middle East and North Africa region, in conversation with LBB

The advertising industry ebbs and flows; Reda Raad’s appreciation for it doesn’t. It’s deeper rooted than that – it’s in his DNA.

The Lebanese CEO of TBWA\RAAD in Dubai grew up part of one of the region's most well-known advertising families. “The agency, the people, the campaigns, the ideas, have always been associated with our family,” Reda explains. It’s no surprise that Reda himself ended up gravitating towards it.

“It was just something that I grew up loving,” says Reda. “I’ve always been fascinated with our industry, the creation of the big idea, how we manage brands, how we create brands.

Loved the way we affected culture, loved the way we affected people’s lives.”
Witnessing the connection between brand and culture is what first crystallised Reda’s view on the potential of the industry, and what he could achieve in it.

“What resonated with me was when countries found their voices,” he recalls. The cultural specificity of campaigns from Egypt, characterised by Egyptian song, dance, and humour, as well as Lebanese commercials for the likes of Almaza beer, left an impression on a young Reda. Longevity was achieved thanks to their local insights – and catchy tunes. “There are jingles that we still use today. That’s the impact of great advertising – it becomes part of culture and part of language.”

That’s one of the aspirations Reda had in mind when he and his fellow co-founders launched TBWA\RAAD, despite their humble beginnings with no office, no business cards, and no titles. “People used to call us thinking it’s TWA, the airline – people didn’t really know what TBWA was.” Yet, if you fast forward to the present day, “TBWA is arguably one of the most competitive, most exciting advertising groups in the MENA region. That's something to be part of.”

Reda does feel part of something larger, praising the consistent ‘Disruption’ positioning for uniting TBWA’s many offices around a common methodology. “It's more than just a fancy word or positioning,” Reda suggests. “It touches every aspect of the agency. It helps us connect in a common language. It helps us organise on behalf of brands. And it also connects us as a collective.”

Along with TBWA’s ‘pirate’ mindset, Reda sees the positioning as increasingly important now, as more than ever “clients are looking to break out of conventions, and become a category of one. We do things our way, and we’re a lot more of a challenger, a lot more out of the box. That’s part of what makes TBWA what TBWA is.”

As CEO of TBWA's MENA-region offering, Reda considers one of his most important responsibilities to be fostering an environment that sparks innovation and doesn’t shy away from risk (something which clearly contributed to the agency being named “Best Place to Work” in the world at the 2025 Campaign Global Agency of the Year Awards in June 2025). Recruiting the right people is crucial to this: leaders must be true leaders, unafraid of trying new things, and teams must hold and share diversity of thought, he insists.

Being located in the multicultural hub that is Dubai certainly helps. “In the agency, there’s around 30 different nationalities at any one time,” Reda estimates. “It’s a beautiful thing when you’re mixing people, cultures, and understanding them. That’s part of the magic.”

Reda’s also adamant that in a creative industry, creativity shouldn’t be reserved for the creative roles. In practice, that means looking for traits like curiosity, openness, and a sense of adventure. And, of course, a whole lot of bold intelligence. “Try to surround yourself with people who are smarter than you, who are going to always challenge you,” he says. Healthy debate – and a space that feels safe for it to occur in – is a key ingredient for a competitive agency.

With the proliferation of AI, and the resultant flattening of culture, this human creativity will be what sets an agency apart.

“Human ingenuity mixed with AI can produce some incredible results. That's something that we've got to always protect: the human part of it, creating empathy, creating emotions. We can’t abdicate that to AI. We can't over-rely on machines. Other people may want us to, but we've got to hold that back, and create a more meaningful, more purposeful world.”

Commenting on one of the topics LBB was interrogating at Cannes Lions this year – how we value and price creativity – Reda offers another warning: “We have to be careful not to come and commoditise creativity.” He mentions that the procurement process in MENA in particular tends to be one-size-fits-all.

“You can't negotiate creativity in the same way that you negotiate building a house or a hotel: it's not a unit here and a unit there.” Understanding the value of creativity and pricing it correctly requires education, experience, and “agencies being brave enough to push back and say, ‘Look, we have to value it differently – not just hours spent, but output, how the solution we come up with affects the bottom line.’”

While there are these aspects that need reevaluating, Reda is decidedly optimistic about the future of advertising in his region – even whilst MENA faces more than its fair share of challenges. These issues – often deeply provocative – aren’t something TBWA\RAAD shies away from either: it recently painted the Geneva Conventions’s explicit protection of medical facilities on the rubble of what had been the last operational hospital in Southern Lebanon for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

“It’s important. We talked about the love of the industry – how incredible is it that we can touch people's lives, communicate a message, and be, hopefully, part of something that changes people's perceptions. That's the beauty of creativity. We've got to not lose sight of that.

“From challenge comes resilience, from adversity, we rise, and from struggles, we become stronger.” He cites the acceleration of the UAE’s world-renowned success as an example to aspire to, as the region begins to gain momentum, weave fresh narratives, and pursue new opportunities.

“The industry in MENA is maturing. It's an exciting time to be from the region.”


Read more from TBWA\RAAD here.

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