As brand designers and consultants in the Middle East, it’s our everyday challenge to push our clients’ boundaries and help them take a quantum leap into the future. With our work with Aldar, one of Abu Dhabi’s largest developers, we challenged conventions and told the story of people and quality of life. With the Qatar Museums Authority (QMA) and the Qatar Foundation (QF), we turned His Excellency Sheikh Hassan bin Mohamed bin Ali Al Thani’s private art collection into a community institution and a leading voice on Arab Modern and Contemporary art in the region. We also collaborate and promote innovators such as Dr. Hayat Sindi and her project, i2 Institute for Imagination and Ingenuity.
Saying this, I do feel disheartened by seeing only one or two brands from the Middle East that have made it globally. Thank god for Emirates Airlines!
Thanks to the global reach of companies like Google, Apple and Starbucks, Middle Easterners experience the impact of global brands everyday. We watch them closely and take comfort in being able to tell the difference between someone else’s good or bad design. Like all other people around the globe we follow trends and argue loudly over whether we should buy the iPhone or the latest Samsung, over which is better or more user friendly. Most of us are trend followers to an extent where I wonder if this comfortable feeling of following rather than pioneering results is dampening our ambition to create our own movements.
Who are the Steve Jobs, the Richard Bransons and the Ratan Tatas from this part of the world? As a region we’ve got the people, the brains and the financial resources. But what sort of ingredient are we missing to take our brands from a home grown Fattoush salad to a universal Caesar?
This is by no means a post to criticize or revive nostalgia of our past glories, we’ve had enough of that. I’m just taking the opportunity, with all the changes happening around us, to ask if this could be the time for another sort of movement. One that doesn’t involve any sort of aggression but surely involves ambition and an unstoppable drive to become global. Can’t we Arabs do better?
Bordered by Switzerland to the west and south, and by Austria to the east, this small principality is dubbed by most as the Monaco of Eastern Europe. It shares a lot of similarities with its French namesake, including the second lowest unemployment rate in the world (Monaco is 1st) as well as the highest gross domestic product per person anywhere. But thats probably where the similarities end in the eyes of those behind the Liechtenstein brand. It underwent a branding exercise in 2004 with Wolff Olins London and since then has been positioned as a sophisticated capital destination with an influx in tourism and a strong entrepreneurial spirit.
Fast forward to 2012 and Liechtenstein is pushing the reboot button with the same spirit it had back in 2004. It has asked design agencies around Europe to submit their thoughts on what Liechtenstein should look like now and will then put those ideas forward to the principality’s 30,000 citizens. Having such an accountable population really helps makes the job a lot easier.
With the global economy slowly rising from the ashes, an increasing number of brands and the people behind them are using the opportunity to latch on to people’s new found spending confidence. Destination brands are gaining popularity by the minute, because people are looking for a change in scenery.
It goes beyond looking for new places to visit, and onto new ways to get there. Emirates airlines is another brand focusing on a massive global refresh, moving from Keep Discovering, to Hello Tomorrow. If the trend is to hold water, then brands all over are going to begin to appeal to the masses and their aspirations, and Liechtenstein will probably be following suite.
Watch this space for updates on which new Liechtenstein is chosen.
Charles Wright, MD of Wolff Olins Dubai, talks about our forthcoming work with Hero Honda, some of the complexities of resolving brand architecture for auto companies and insights into working on Tata Docomo. Live on Indian channel, Economic Times.
The WO group in Dubai was introduced to two inspirational art spaces here in the city: Shelter and Traffic. Shelter is a community workspace, where small businesses and other creative talent have access to a work station, a brasserie, a cinema, a library, as well as an outdoor garden. Currently the space is open to the public, but beginning in the fall will require a membership. http://www.shelter.ae
Traffic is the first design gallery in the Middle East. It hosts exhibitions of regional artists, has a permanent collection and houses a design studio with graphic design, lighting design and interactive media capabilities. http://www.viatraffic.org/
