Municipal Erectioneering

In the run up to last month’s municipal elections, an intriguing video appeared online featuring a young man who claimed to be running for mayor of Amman. The six-minute video, which was made by Amman101.com, a new group that aims to promote civic-mindedness amongst Ammanis, shows how the hypothetical candidate would go about solving the major issues facing the city using practical and common sense solutions. Both the video and the website had high production values and, more importantly, a clear and comprehensive manifesto. Tragically, this fantasy campaign put to shame its real-world counterparts.

Like all election campaigns in Jordan, candidates use posters as the main tool of communicating with voters. Granted, some municipal election candidates set up election tents at random spots around the city to get their message across. But the one I visited was more akin to an azz’a (funeral) than a political soapbox, with no candidate or information booth that I could see. I promptly left.

As I observed the poster frenzy gradually reach a lethal road-sign-blocking crescendo as the August 27 election day approached, I failed to find any candidate presenting a credible set of reasons for me to vote for them. Their slogans were almost meaningless and vaguely political, which should be completely irrelevant for the purely civil positions they were seeking to fill. There were few, if any, tangible campaign promises, nor a website or Facebook page to provide more detailed information.

I was particularly confused as to why some candidates proudly announced their tribe had nominated them to run. Unless their fellow tribesmen represented more than 51 percent of all the voters living in their district, it hardly makes much strategic sense to play the tribal card because you will likely alienate everyone else who isn’t a member. Moreover, this is about municipal affairs, so a candidate’s message should be an inclusive one directed at all the residents of a particular district.

Even though the Ministry of Municipal Affairs imposed strict guidelines on where campaign material can be placed, there were still some rogue candidates, or at least their hired hands, that slapped stickers and posters on road signs, inconsiderately obstructing intersections. Of course this begged the question as to how much the candidate really cared about the welfare of the electorate.

But for me the most frustrating aspect of these district council elections was how candidates so readily squandered opportunities to get the attention of voters. Candidates are concentrating on a defined geographic area with direct access to each of its residents. Door drops, car window pamphleting, and giveaways aside, a candidate can actively engage the community in a positively disruptive way and demonstrate first hand what they stand for. If they want to address a garbage problem in a given neighborhood, then perhaps they could hire a private cleaning company one particular week to clean up the streets in a section of a district to the level they aim to have when you are in office. Or maybe they could commission artists to paint existing bins on every corner and get residents more active in refuse management, as the problem most neighborhoods face is as much about the frequency and standards of the rubbish collection as the residents themselves, not to mention the “recyclers” in pick-up trucks who rummage through the bins and leave a mess behind.

Each district has its own unique set of problems and it would be wise for a candidate to go around talking to people in the streets and even knocking on their front doors just to hear the pressing issues and get their name out there. Then there’s the dialogue and engagement that can be had on social media. On a similar note, some candidates put their mobile numbers on their posters. But when I called one, it was engaged. After a few more attempts, it just rang out and eventually became out of reach.

Clearly we as a nation are capable of a higher standard of electioneering, as demonstrated by amman101.com. But somehow when it comes to the real thing, we fail to deliver. Money is clearly being spent by the candidates, but in all the wrong areas. Anything that engages the community directly is bound to get a dialogue going and demonstrate there’s a genuine interest in improving their lives. At the end of the day, these elections were meant to increase the participation of citizens in the running of their affairs, but frankly I’m surprised if anyone voted since the candidates themselves have demonstrated so little interest in engagement, let alone telling me what they plan to do.

Wisam Suheimat

(First appeared in Venture Magazine - Jordan, Sept 2013)

Ramadan Brand Experience

Like Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving in the West where commercial interests have long played a big role in defining the occasion and reinforcing only certain aspects of their core meaning and, ultimately evolving the experience of the very occasion, Ramadan is now being subjected to similar branding forces.

Not so long ago Ramadan ads followed a simple formula: “Ramadan Kareem” headline, product shot, twilight backdrop, crescent moon, lantern, a bowl of dates and variations on that theme. Though you still see that today, many brands have taken it a step further and began positioning Ramadan in the context of the product with the statement “bringing us together”, usually centered around food, late night snacking, gatherings and watching TV shows. It’s also true that compared to some 20 odd years ago, when a lavish iftar buffet at Amra Hotel would set you back JD5, people were less social beyond their family and had far fewer options for evening social activities, while today Ramadan has become very much a social affair.

If someone with no knowledge of Ramadan were to reverse engineer commercialized Ramadan ads along with the overall experience of being in Amman during the month, they would be forgiven for concluding the positioning statement as being: “Evening gatherings of mass gluttony with a bit of charity to balance it all out,” as opposed to the essence of the Holy month: patience, empathy and a spiritual connectedness to God.

Ramadan’s core focus is in essence about how you feel and behave before breaking the fast, while almost every aspect of the “brand experience” is about what you do during and after the breakfast. Now there’s nothing wrong with that, but it seems to reinforce the mere technical requirements of fasting, i.e. not drinking, smoking or eating during daylight, because there is little evidence of patience, empathy or any form of spirituality when driving around Amman or engaging in pretty much anything during the day time.

Though Salafists may nod their heads in agreement about the blatant commercialization of Ramadan, my take on the matter is in fact very different to theirs. I spent the first ten days of this year’s Ramadan in Beirut. Even though the opening hours of shops, restaurants, and work places remained largely unchanged, there was still a sense of Ramadan infusing the rhythm of everyday life. This sits in stark contrast to the dry, didactic way Ramadan sometimes seems to be enforced in other parts of the Muslim world which includes jailing non fasters and using the holy month to sanction less productivity, bad manners, and little patience. Reading about a man in Zarqa who was badly beaten by a mob when he tried to sneak a daytime cigarette in public, which is admittedly really bad manners in Ramadan, makes one question people’s understanding of the holy month. Perhaps brands have a part to play in reminding people what Ramadan is really about.

Brands seem to miss a great deal of opportunities to resonate with their audiences while fasting by reinforcing the core purpose of Ramadan. Rather than “Buy one chicken, get a bag of rice” promos, how about “Buy half a chicken and we’ll send the other half to a family in need” or instead of “try all ten varieties of X” how about “experience a day in the life of a Zaatari refugee during Ramadan with our replica tent.” Okay, that last example was extreme, but my point is being relevant while someone is fasting, is bound to be more powerful and ultimately effective than trying to squeeze into the iftar and suhoor table, or encouraging spending more time at a mall; if anything, Ramadan is about reducing consumption of everything…even after iftar.

Ultimately brands and people seem to miss the point of Ramadan and fasting, but digging through some Hadith on the topic, it seems this has been the case for a while since according to Abu Huraira, the Prophet (Peace be upon him) said: Many people who fast get nothing from their fast except hunger and thirst. (Darimi).

(First appeared in Venture Magazine July 2013)

Lost in Transliteration. The Perils of Arabization.

Arabic is a rich and sophisticated language that can evoke vivid imagery and powerful emotions in the reader, but Arabized ads and collateral material like brochures that were originally conceived and created in a different language, typically English for multinational clients, tend to struggle at replicating the same impact, meaning and personality. There are culturally irrelevant reference points, topics, styles and all manner of reasons why pure Arabization is simply a bad practice, but there is an inherent challenge in the Arabic language, particularly when it comes to written copy.

Copywriting for ads in English is often described as “salesmanship in print” where the copy, or at least the good ones are written to sound, in the readers mind, like a person talking to you in real life. Beside persuasiveness and using words and reference points that resonate with the reader, the copy crafts the voice and tone of a brand to give it a human quality.

In the case of Arabic there are unique challenges with the duality of the language; a written (Modern Standard Arabic) and a spoken language.  Though headlines and snappy slogans have more creative license, the body copy and any sentence or paragraph must adhere to Modern Standard Arabic, which is never spoken except in newscasts, official speeches and in courts. And here lies the biggest challenge of writing copy in Arabic that is going to sound as convincing as someone talking to you colloquially and embodying a personality and tone that brings a brand to life.

Humour illustrates the problem quite nicely as most if not all spoken jokes are said in colloquial and any attempts to write them down in Standard Arabic will inevitably result in something being “lost in translation”. This creates additional stress on the Arabic copywriter as humour is one of the more effective advertising strategies.

Though Arabic copywriters do have unique opportunities in using Classical Arabic and beautiful poetry in ads as reference points that other languages would struggle to effectively use (think Chaucer for English), it doesn’t help in creating the brand personality through “Arabization” because if you knew someone who went around ONLY speaking in Classical Arabic you’d think they were a bit odd.

Hebrew had a similar duality over a century ago where an ancient written Hebrew co-existed with a spoken Hebrew with wide variations all over the world that was influenced by many other languages, like in the case of Yiddish in Germany. But the Zionists knew that to form a future state where different Jews could live, work and prosper they would need to modernize and unify the language and so over the course of two to three generations created modern Hebrew; a written and spoken language. There have been many attempts to formalize a colloquial written Arabic with limited success as well as outright hostility to the idea. The most obvious problem is regional dialects and vernacular making it impossible to agree on a standard spoken Arabic. The other obstacle is the sacredness of classical Arabic and the need to preserve its teaching and usage. Brands using Social Media to communicate seem to have broken away from the rigid limitations of printed communication where colloquial is written more frequently to fit in with the lingua franca of the medium.

But I digress. Arabization of foreign concepts is still happening at an alarming rate, particularly in the gulf where a large percentage of foreign Creative heads at ad agencies are simply handing off English concepts to be Arabized. Egypt is the one creative market that has broken free of the Arabization trap and that is in part due to the strong colloquial linguistic identity that exists there, which also happens to be the only form of spoken Arabic that all Arabs can understand and relate to, along with Lebanese but to a lesser extent.  

Great tv, viral and radio ads all over the region are increasingly being conceived in Arabic for multinational clients. Authenticity is key to powerful communications and new creative strategies are coming out of the region that leverage the uniqueness and diversity of the Arabic language away from the rigidity of Modern Standard Arabic in print, and that is perhaps why one rarely finds a lot of body copy in print ads, and when you do, it might just read like a badly Arabized ad.

Would the real CRM please stand up?

Would the real CRM please stand up?

Most people have heard of it, some claim to understand it, and others even think they’re doing it. Customer Relationship Management is one of the most misunderstood terms in business today, and for good reason.

I’ll refrain from using any of the thousands of definitions one can find online, and I’ll summarize it as “how to build a profitable and valued long-term relationship with your customer”, and frankly even that doesn’t really hit the spot. There are as many definitions for the term as there are people working in the field (go ahead, google it).  I’ve heard people say “yeah, CRM, that’s call centres isn’t it?” all the way to the more informed but still off the mark “direct marketing infused with a bit of IT and finance”, which is certainly part of CRM, but hardly the whole picture.

The principles of CRM have not changed for decades, forever defined, in my mind by the OgilvyOne mantra, in reference to the customer, “win, grow or retain, where is the biggest gain?”. The discipline of CRM however has changed immensely over the past decade thanks to the internet and the smart phone. Where once you had frequent flyer programmes embodying the very essence of CRM, today new dialogue and engagement platforms, powered by data, has meant businessess, at least the successful ones, are becoming more customer centric and focused on creating brand experiences rather than simply selling products and services. This is what CRM has been trying to achieve all along but people have mislabeled, wrongly defined and ultimately misused it.

Here are four important reasons I have found over the years for the failure of CRM.

1-    It requires re-management of the entire business: Becoming customer focused needs to happen at every level within an organization, not compartmentalized within IT or Marketing as is often the case. Becoming a customer-focused organization should happen before implementing CRM; Job descriptions, processes, policies, performance metrics, vision…practically everything needs to be geared towards meeting customer needs. “CRM” alone will not make a non-customer focused organization become one.

2-    Long ROI models: A fair amount of investment goes into setting up and maintaining CRM programmes; IT, communication channels, HR, training, content providers, agencies etc. The ROI models in most developed markets look at breaking even after two to three years at least, even with amortization of overheads. In Jordan you have to also contend with a relatively smaller population, particularly those with disposable income, where any investment needs to be met by a critical mass of customers to generate a positive ROI. This is also true for most other MENA markets, with the exception of Egypt and Saudi, but in their cases they have marginally more successful CRM initiatives, particularly in the FMCG sector. The long-term approach to CRM often times is a big disincentive to initiate effective change. Though CRM is scalable, it helps to not think of CRM as a “thing to spend money on”, but rather “how do i focus my business on becoming customer centric”.

3-    Not knowing how to leverage the data: Data is the new gold and many companies ignore or struggle to use the vast amount of data on their customers (think Banks and Telcos). Knowing what to do with the data is the other half of the battle where CRM comes into its true purpose. Segmenting, analyzing, testing, learning and ultimately creating great experiences for customers that translate into more profitable relationships. Knowing what to do with the data is just as important as knowing not to stalk and harass your customer, but rather lure them with relevant and timely value and offers.

4-    Investing in Loyalty: Loyalty is very much a two way street and many companies don’t invest enough in giving individualized value and recognition. Emotional bonds with brands have shown to foster more profitable relationships, and emotional bonds cannot be bought, but rather have to be earned. Winning loyalty through monetization, only means you’ll lose their loyalty to someone else for the same reason.

Many of these problems are universal and not simply unique to Jordan or the region, though lets be honest, we seem to struggle significantly with them. But the biggest failure of CRM is in its very own definition, or rather the multitude of definitions. It means all things to all people except the one thing that it is; simply better business.  

(First appeared in Venture Magazine (Jordan) for June 2013 issue)

Brand dissonance in Jordan

Brand dissonance in Jordan

To borrow and evolve a phrase; a brand is only as strong as the worst part of the experience. Brand Dissonance, when over promising and under delivering creates an added sense of frustration due to expectations being unfulfilled or little effort is made to deliver on an implied quality of experience. Dissonance has always been around, but brands today have a far more difficult task of living up to the experiences they claim to offer and indeed define their brands as being. Jordan seems to suffer greatly from this condition, particularly at the customer service level and sometimes the basic fulfillment of transactions.

Gone are the days when “branding” a product with a logo would satisfy the customer with some quality assurance, as are the days when making claims of differentiation were demonstrated within carefully controlled environments, like on the product packaging, basic service or store space. Today customers are becoming accustomed to, and indeed expect, a brand experience that is true at every touchpoint and at every engagement, and that includes the simplest things in the customer journey, even down to the parking experience outside your store, not to mention personalized recognition or amazing mobile apps that improve my life and experience with a brand. If a brand is to be defined as the sum of all the parts of a business, then it goes to reason there needs to be a brand consideration for every aspect of a business, and especially any aspect that engages customers, its shareholders and stakeholders.

As brands have become more entrenched into our lives and technology enables more mass customization, brands have moved from commodities, to products to experiences in the span of a generation. Today brands have to work harder to engage and win customers, not to mention the efforts to maintain the relationships by adding value to their lives and attempting to become indispensable. It has only made the task of creating genuine and meaningful brand engagements more difficult and costly, particularly when said efforts are un-genuine and ineffective.

Many brands in Jordan seem to be suffering from an amplification of brand dissonance in recent years. Telcos and increasingly banks are particularly good at raising expectations, almost to near impossible levels, only for the real experiences to be frustrating, unfulfilled and needlessly complicated. But even though the experiences we have are overall better than many years ago, the amplification of the dissonance can be attributed to a number of reasons. Higher expectations from customers as the benchmark for brand experiences are raised with more competition, more exposure to foreign best practice, partly due to the web but also from more regional and foreign brands upping the stakes in Jordan. But ultimately it is hollow campaign slogans and half baked efforts that make the experiences so much worse because they fail to fulfill the expectations.

Customers have become more savvy at assessing and scrutinizing the overall experience of engaging a brand as people are exposed to global best practices that contrast heavily with what is experienced in Jordan. Its amplified by the grossly exaggerated claims and dizzyingly meaningless brand campaigns that reflect nothing of the reality, and in fact do more damage to a brand and a business when the actual experiences contrast so much.

Its almost advisable to set expectations low and surprise and delight people with brand experiences, as the first thing people tend to do these days when confronted with severe brand dissonance is share their experience on social media, and sometimes, though much more rarely, share their delight with positive brand harmony. Brands need to spend less money telling people how great they are and more on showing them and demonstrating their value propositions. Social Media can then let customers amplify your qualities rather than experience dissonance and undo all your advertising and marketing efforts.

There’s a trend in advertising that’s frankly refreshing, where honesty to the point of self-deprecation is finding more resonance with audiences. Even in subliminal ways brands are turning away from using beautiful models and actors for their ads and instead using more homely, and in some cases ugly people. It’s a movement towards making brands even more human, with traits that most people would admire in real people, like humility, honesty and genuine effort to self improve, something brands in Jordan need to consider.

(First appeared in Venture Magazine- Jordan,  May 2013)