Dubai Calling: Media Monks on Why Now is the Perfect Time to Launch in the Middle East

Amsterdam, London, New York, Singapore, Los Angeles… and now Dubai. Digital production powerhouse MediaMonks has just launched a new Middle Eastern hub. This week co-founder and CEO Victor Knaap has been at Dubai Lynx, giving talks and meeting up with his new neighbours. LBB’s Laura Swinton caught up with him to find out why now is the right time to make his Dubai dreams a reality.

The Dubai office has been three years in the making – it’s a market that Victor has been eyeing up ever since he first visited Dubai Lynx. In that time MediaMonks has since established homes in New York, Singapore and Los Angeles. Although they had started to work with several agencies and brands in the region, Victor and the team decided to wait until the time was just right.

“For us it was a moment in time that was perfect for us,” he explains. “We already had a couple of up-and-running projects here and on the other side of it, the industry is just moving really fast. The creatives are pushing to make better work. 

“It’s a matter of not being too early. With digital, the question always is ‘when are the budgets going to shift from above-the-line to digital?’ You don’t want to be too early because you’ll have an operation up-and-running but it’s not going anywhere. I just have a good feeling that the momentum is right. You can see it at the Dubai Lynx festival where better work is being created. I’ve spoken to 20 agencies in the region over the past six weeks and we’ve been hearing that people are looking for digital partners to help lift an idea and that’s exactly what MediaMonks does. We take an idea and we improve it and we tweak it until it’s good and it feels like people are appreciating the craftsmanship of production more.”

So what’s behind this ‘tipping point’ effect? According to Victor, he’s seen more top-level creatives from the MENA region and internationally heading to Dubai which he thinks is helping to push the level of work being done. Combined with this, there’s an enormous appetite for digital content, particularly on mobiles, which makes it fertile ground for the MediaMonks crew.

“Very good creatives are making a conscious decision to start here. They’re at the prime of their careers and there’s a lot of good work going around and a lot of ambition, especially on the digital side of things,” he explains. “People are walking around with three mobile phones here so there’s a big need for content. If you look at Saudi for example, 60 per cent of people who watch YouTube watch it on their mobile phones. They spend the most time on YouTube too compared with other countries and there’s a huge need for digital content. Creative agencies need to come up with ideas that live on these platforms. Google is doing very well here and they do very interesting work in the region.” 

What’s more, he believes that the city is growing out of its ‘easy money’ image and that perceptions and attitudes are changing too. The stereotype of gleaming towers and oil wealth belies a more creative shift and some exciting potential.

“You know when people look at the region as a place where you can make easy money? I don’t look at it like that. It’s not a choice for us. For us it’s a long-term investment. We see the change towards digital here and we want to be part of that,” says Victor. “There’s an enormous need for creative content but also quality content. As John Hegarty once said, good advertising is 80 per cent creativity and 80 per cent execution. It needs to come together and there’s not an awful lot of quality digital production shops around so for us it’s an interesting market to develop in.”

International trend spotters or creative companies on the hunt for their next global move might also be interested to learn that Victor reckons the city most similar to Dubai is ‘Singapore three or four years ago’. So… a regional hub and a relatively small city-state with the potential to explode as a major global player on the international-level advertising scene and awards show circuit.

Moreover the comparison with Singapore also relates to the way creative companies must balance regional work with diverse local sensibilities. “It feels a little bit similar to how it is in Singapore. That’s also considered to be a regional hub so you have to come up with ideas that work within the region but then respect the cultural differences of the different home markets,” says Victor. “It’s really not a one size fits all. You need a creative idea that works within the region but also adapts to specific countries. That feels similar to Singapore because it’s a small city and from there you could be making work for Thailand or Indonesia or China, countries that have far bigger populations.”

For now, MediaMonks Dubai has hit the ground running. Victor has spent three years building up the idea, six weeks meeting all of the agencies. In the meantime, MediaMonks has also created projects with Geometry for Emirates Airline, for Nike with JWT and recently completed a major brand relaunch for telecom company Ooderoo, with 180 Amsterdam. For now the Dubai HQ is staffed by four people – a producer, a creative, a tech and a film content producer – hooked up to the rest of the MediaMonks’ global network.

Victor Knaap is co-founder of MediaMonks