The top 5 marketing mistakes of Dubai #4: Stop lying to your staff

There is a culture of self-affirmation which is prevalent in this country and it is at a silly level.

I am going to be very blunt in this post but someone has to say what all others are thinking:

Stop awarding each other with 'best xyz' awards which no one else is competing in!

Every year, you hear of Shaikha X winning Humanitarian of the Year type awards from their fellow UAE nationals.

You'll also hear of the lip-service (which is a silly term to be used in today's innuendo laden English) being given to the oft-touted 'Emiratisation' movement.

This is the government's attempt at ensuring the local i.e. UAE National working-age adults get jobs in roles across industries in the country. Guess what, it ain't happening.

Why? Lets look at this closely:

Total UAE population: 6 million
Total UAE Nationals: 990,000 (although this is disputed given the number of older UAE nationals who refuse to divulge information no the number of females in their homes due to cultural norms)

Lets take away, say, 10% of that number as 'elderly', which leaves us with 891,000.

Take away 20% of them who are below the legal working age of 18, leaving us with 693,000.

Now, take away those UAE nationals who have family businesses, and / or are quite well-off enough to not have to work at all. I'll put this number at 5% not wanting to take a shot in the dark by putting a larger percentage, despite us knowing its probably the case. That leaves us with:

643,500.

The total number of working expatriots in the UAE is approx. 4 million. Even with the most aggressive Nationalisation scheme, this means they would still only be filling less than 20% of the required number because of nothing other than their total local population.

This doesn't take into account the fact that it seems unfathomable to everyone including UAE nationals that they would want to work in anything other than a job that pays over AED 4,000, which is what a majority of the workforce in the above 4 million earn.

Without benefits.



I've not sidetracked from my reasoning for this post. There are almost 7 different 'localisation' events. One of them is an event I'm marketing myself as well.

These events have been around for almost 5 years at the minimum. Yet, every year there seems to be a problem with Nationalisation and the reasons given by different sources all contradict each other.

However, ONE reason seems to be recurring amongst them all, and has proof to back it up in the form of surveys by reputed firms as well as simple market knowledge and grapevine:

Emirates don't want to work in low paying jobs of long hours and minimal benefits.

In other words: no hard work which makes you sweat.

In more other words: completely the opposite of what the government wants them to do.

So here we are again: with the complete lack of accepting as fact what the consumer really wants i.e. easy, high paying jobs; true, deserving awards to others in the community than Shaikhas; real, visible embracing of human rights, there is a culture of 'if I advertise X enough, no one will notice the 'y'.

Bullshit.

Everyone doesn't just see it, they're smelling it. Around the world. And they're not hesitating speaking it.

I would safely say this is one of the biggest mistakes Dubai has made, wherein it has assumed that if they have enough money, they can allow for a culture of sedentary lifestyles to become rampant and they'll simply advertise the highlights enough to allow the brightlights to drown out the darker underbelly.

Lesson: Don't lie to your staff. They have to be convinced that what you're selling is the truth. And it HAS to be the truth. If your property won't be launched for at least a YEAR after the date your salesmen are quoting, put the actual date. Buyers prefer waiting the extra year than finding out later of the delay, and then pulling out, leaving you with nothing instead of something.

Solution for Dubai: set up accountability and transparent employment laws which are implemented. The sooner your National workforce realises that sweating a bit for a lower pay grade has more rewards than money, the sooner they will start building this country even stronger than the Expats have.

And this time, a recession won't crush you.

The top 5 marketing mistakes of Dubai #3: No one at Dubai Inc. knew what was going on

The left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing.

Too many times in companies, the lack of communication between marketing and sales teams and even the management has led to disastrous results in terms of consumer satisfaction.

Marketing copy saying something entirely different to what sales is offering; or the corporate public image is in stark contrast to internal customer services.

This is the issue that has been the ultimate downfall of Dubai: its PR spin could only last so long.

While claiming to offer the best, the brightest, the most luxurious and the biggest, Dubai long kept hidden from prying journos its dark underbelly of human rights violations, deplorable living conditions and utter lack of employee rights.

In a market built, developed and sustained by a workforce never really advertised to the world, soon the bubble of containment had to burst and the spin doctors could do little to control the news in an era of social media, youtube, twitter and WOM.

Financial Times, The Times of London, BBC, CNN, Bloomberg all featured at some point or the other over '08 and'09 varying footage and news reports of the issues mentioned above, from video evidence of living conditions of the construction labourers who build the glittering skyline of Dubai, to expatriates living in their cars due to being evicted from their apartments by fraudulent or greedy landlords who use the loopholes in a property law already having as many holes as a sponge.

In the end, people - both within and without - began to mock what they called the facade of Dubai, and now despite its many efforts to regain its lost glory, it will take more than a few 'oil discovered' news stories to allow people to trust it again.

Lesson: Don't promise something in your marketing unless your entire organisation has been thoroughly informed and trained about the follow-up process once the promise is finally made. A happy customer tells friends how good you are. An upset customer tells everyone he meets. With the social media world we live in, multiply 'everyone he meets' by a few million.

Solution for Dubai: start telling the truth, albeit smartly. The best brands out there don't sugar coat any ugly truth about their brands, in fact they use that to their advantage with smart marketing. You may not win back all the fans, but you'll start getting new, long term ones.

The top 5 marketing mistakes of Dubai

So someone had to do it.

You know, I might actually be kicked out of Dubai for this, but on the flip side, I might even be commended.

Either way, it doesn't really matter. Everyone's thinking it, at some point someone would've said it in public. After Mishaal Al Gergawi's article which I shared in an earlier post, I think its safe to offer constructive criticism.

So here it is, the top 5 marketing mistakes I think Dubai made. Feel free to comment, and also feel free to provide your own criticism of my 5 choices. If you feel there are others, add them!

I'll be listing them one a day, just in case I think of something new to add.

Mistake #1:
Promising something and delivering something else

It all began not at the boom of the property era, not when Emaar promised to deliver the tallest tower in the world and not when Nakheel said it would create not one, but three palm shaped islands in the sea.

It began with the Dubai Shopping Festival over a decade ago.

Surprised? Not me.

I've lived in Dubai for 12 and a half years, and back in the day the DSF was the most awaited event for local residents and tourists from around the world.

Everyone wanted to win a Lexus a day, a million dollars and a another Lexus the next day!

But it didn't last. Dubai definitely is a shopping haven, but after doing it for so many years, the DSF hardly registers in anyone's mind worldwide and if it does, no one has the dispensable cash anymore to fly here and then buy here.

The Global Village has changed location 4 times. AquaFantasia (that water marvel by the Al Rostamani Group), DinoLand and the Bungee Jump are all gone and fondly remembered. People miss that.

Lesson: Make sure your idea is sustainable, then market it like hell. NOT the other way around.

Solution for Dubai: Bring back what people loved. You have an existing customer base that feels nostalgic, they WILL return. No one cares about the biggest mall. They care about how you make them feel (thank you Seth Godin).

Facebook Arabia

So I was at the launch of Facebook's Arabia advertising presence.

They've partnered with Connect Ads which is a group that's in partnership with MSN.

MSN and bing are really going forward with Facebook aren't they? Lets see how Google retaliates.

Anyway, how it works for Arabia based advertisers and brands is that if they want to advertise on Facebook more than simply buying a banner or side panel, they can contact Connect Ads which is basically going to specialise in offering the different solutions Facebook has.

And boy, do they have solutions! I loved the case studies Mark Cowan of Facebook was going through, especially the Virgin Airlines, McDonald's, Dove, Starbucks ones.

Lesson learnt: Facebook is like Steve Jobs - constantly thinking.