Ogilvy & Mather Sydney has won a coveted Creative Effectiveness Lion for its integrated ‘Share a Coke’ campaign, while also taking home a Grand Prix in Promo and Activation for Ogilvy Brasil’s ‘Immortal Fans’ initiative on the very first day of awards at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity 2013.

‘Share a Coke’ launched in Australia in 2012 before rolling out across the globe as a result of its impact: in just three months consumption of Coca Cola by Australian young adults had increased by 7%. The initiative built on Coke’s sharing positioning, encouraging members of the public to personalise bottles of Coca Cola with their friends’ names, as well as their own.

The initiative was one of just seven campaigns to be honoured with the competitive award at this year’s Cannes Lions. The category – now in its third year – only considers work which won a Gold Lion in the previous year.

Worldwide Chief Creative Officer at Ogilvy & Mather, Tham Khai Meng, said: “The most creative work is also the most effective, and here is the indisputable proof.  "Share a Coke," which rounded up a pride of Lions at last year's Cannes is back to bring home a coveted Effectiveness Lion. This infectious idea helped Coke pick up the Lion's share of sales in Australia.”

Ogilvy Brasil’s ‘Immortal Fans’ campaign for Sport Club Recife introduced the world’s first ever organ donor card from a football team, encouraging football fans to become immortal by registering as donors. Over 51,000 people have registered for a card, and organ donation in Brazil has increased by 41%.

Tham Khai Meng added: “This Grand Prix-winning work from Sport Club Recife connects the bone-deep passion of its fans with a cause that touches the heart. This idea has emotional impact and a strong message. Die-Hard Fans knocked me out cold … it seems to have hit the judges with the same force.”

On day one of awards at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity Ogilvy & Mather took home 10 Gold, 12 Silver, and 15 Bronze Lions (full breakdown below).

Yahsat, the Middle East's leading satellite service provider, took home the highly coveted SatCom Star Award for the 'Most Innovative Product/Service for Africa' for the second consecutive year.

The award is a testament to the successful growth and uptake of YahClick, which provides connectivity to residents in unserved and underserviced areas across 28 countries in the Middle East, Africa and Central and South West Asia.

Commenting on the award, Masood M. Sharif Mahmood, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Yahsat, stated, "It is a privilege to take home this award for the second consecutive year. The African market is extremely important to Yahsat and we are pleased that the industry recognizes the important role we play and the contribution we are starting to make in Africa."

"According to the International Monetary Fund, growth in Africa is expected to continue over the next five years and between 2010 to 2015, nine out of the top twenty fastest growing economies in the world are expected to be in Africa. This represents a huge opportunity for satellite operators such as Yahsat and Internet service providers who can help connect urban, rural and remote communities so they may join the 21st century global economy," he added.

In Africa, YahClick is already operational in Angola, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and South Sudan. Launched in August last year YahClick is fast becoming Africa's must-have product, pushing boundaries in creating connected communities across the continent. With high speed services of up to 15Mbps and cost effective service plans at monthly subscription prices to suit a variety of audiences, YahClick's current subscribers include a mix of energy, construction, agri-based verticals, SME, NGOs, and individual users who are looking for high speed, reliable Internet connections.

"African countries currently face major challenges including insufficient or congested telecommunications infrastructure, unconnected communities, unskilled workers and an education and healthcare system that needs serious improvements and assistance. At Yahsat, we believe that access to information is a powerful tool that can boost individual, business and societal development. YahClick is our solution to connectivity challenges to maximize the chances of success for the many individual, business and government projects that are springing up in Africa," added Shawkat Ahmed, Chief Commercial Officer at Yahsat.

YahClick also offers a backup connectivity solution 'YahClick Insure' designed for any entity that cannot risk being without continuous Internet access for financial, security or legal reasons if their primary link is disrupted. For organizations that require connectivity on-the-go, YahClick offers a transportable solution which is a service that is mounted on a vehicle that instantly provides high speed Internet connectivity in changing locations for broadcasters, businesses, government entities, and even private users in remote areas.

"By providing communities with greater access to high speed, reliable Internet connectivity governments have the chance to turbo-charge economic growth and development. Businesses, the public sector and all stakeholders involved need to help shape the way emerging countries move to the next level," concluded Masood.

Yahsat works with a network of 30 service partners across 28 markets. Key partners in Africa include Vox Telecoms, CoolLink, Hyperia, Infinity, Netone, Sistec, Simbanet, RCS Communications, and TruIT.

The SatCom Star Awards were launched in 2007 to identify and recognise outstanding new contributions to the field of satellite communications in Africa. The awards are designed to celebrate the continued growth and success of the satellite marketplace and focus on the exceptional and innovative performers within the industry.

The awards are judged by an independent board of advisers comprising industry professionals. Winners are selected according to strict criteria, with award recipients reflecting the strong foundation and potential for the satellite industry in serving and developing the African continent.

Each year, around 11,000 members of the global creative communications industries come together to be inspired and educated at Cannes Lions. It has been Inspiring Creativity for 60 years. It is the world’s greatest celebration of creative communications in all its forms. Over seven days in June each year the whole creative industry comes together to learn from the best and celebrate the work changing the communications landscape.

The International Festival of Creativity gets underway in Cannes, France on 16 June and this year's learning programme is packed with inspiration. We would be hearing from the likes of Sean Combs, Vivienne Westwood, Lou Reed, Sir Alan Parker, Annie Leibovitz, Jack Black, Jimmy Wales, Lee Clow, Rem Koolhaas and many more.

Today Cannes Lions 2013 has announced the shortlisted entries for the Direct, Innovations and Promo & Activation Lions categories. Here are the agencies which have been shortlisted from the MENA region:

In Direct 

1. In Cars & Automotive Services Y&R DUBAI for LAND ROVER ESCAPE KEY LAND ROVER MIDDLE EAST LR4 
2. In Financial Products & Services DXB Dubai for AWESOME TRAVELING MACHINE EMIRATES NBD
3. In Financial Products & Services again, JWT Riyadh, SAUDI ARABI for SALE INTERVENTION SABB - THE SAUDI BRITISH BANK

There are no shortlists in the Innovation category.

In Promo & Activation

1. In Best Use of Experiential Marketing in a Promotional DDB DUBAI for CONVERSATIONS AL SERKAL AVENUE/ AL MANZIL 
2. In Best Use of Shopper Marketing in a Promotional Campaign JWT CAIRO, EGYPT for VODAFONE EGYPT MICRO RECHARGE CARDS
3. In Best Temporary In-Store Displays in a Promotional Campaign JWT Dubai for BOOKENDS KINOKUNIYA

Launched in 2006, the definition of Promo & Activation for the purpose of Cannes Lions encompasses activity which is designed to create immediate activation and/or offer for the sales of a product or service. This may be effected using sampling, tie-ins, competitions, events, in-store advertising, exhibitions and other promotional vehicles, such as digital media.

Promo & Activation Lions will be awarded to the freshest creative ideas that actively engage consumers to products/ brands and achieve measurable results. The Jury was made up of top international creatives, who judged the entries using four criteria - creativity, strategy, execution and results. Strategy and execution will each account for 20 per cent of the vote, with creativity and results accounting for 30 per cent each.

The Innovation Lions have been designed to reward technologies and innovations. Lions arre awarded to such things as (but not limited to) the most innovative platforms, apps, tools, programs, hardware, products, and radical software which allow brands and creatives to communicate with their customers in a new way, or which stand alone as significant innovations in their own right.

The Innovation Lion honour more than a campaign or communications idea. It could be SaaS (software as a service), a new mobile platform, or a revolutionary piece of software that enables a new kind of customer engagement.

And the definition of Direct Marketing for the purpose of Cannes Lions encompasses targeted direct communication, designed with the intention of entering into a dialogue with the respondent and to generate response or specific action whilst building and prolonging relationships. It is not limited only to work that contains a response mechanism - coupon, phone number etc., but must be able to demonstrate that it had some directly attributable effect on behaviour and must be concerned with obtaining a meaningful, measurable response.

This time if you want to enjoy Cannes Lions Learning Programme but can’t make it to the south of France then one can watch it from the comfort of his own desk. This year Lions Live, shared by Mindshare and YouTube, livestreams one seminar session per day to the world, direct from the Cannes stage.

The daily seminars were chosen by public vote. Get Ready for 7 Days of Creative Inspiration. Here is the Official Cannes Lions 2013 Trailer:

Facebook copies Twitter yet again, launches hashtags to let users add context and discover shared interests. The company says hashtags have become “a vital part of popular culture” and since it has seen users using them on the social network organically, it has decided to actually implement the feature.

While you could always technically create a hashtag on Facebook (just put a # before any word), they will now be clickable, taking you to a feed of what other people and Pages are saying about that event or topic. On hashtag pages, you will naturally only be able to see the posts that you would normally see elsewhere on the social network: those that your friends have shared with you as well as those shared as Public.

The new feature means Facebook users can now:

•Search for a specific hashtag from your search bar. For example, #Wimbledon2013, #FathersDay or #Wedding.

•Click on hashtags that originate on other services, such as Instagram.

•Compose posts directly from the hashtag feed and search results.

Here is what the social network had to say on its Facebook page

“Every day, hundreds of millions of people use Facebook to share their thoughts on the world around them. They cheer on their favorite sports teams, share their opinions on breaking news, and talk about the hottest TV shows and movies. Between 88 and 100 million Americans log in to Facebook every night during prime time TV hours, which represents a significant opportunity for broadcasters, advertisers and our other partners.

A recent Nielsen survey found that 29% of respondents post on Facebook about TV shows. We also see this bear out in our data. For example, during the “Red Wedding” episode of Game of Thrones a couple of weeks ago, we saw 1.5 million mentions on Facebook (which is significant given the episode's 5.2 million total TV viewers).  In fact, during the slot that “Red Wedding” aired, there were more than 70 million people logged into Facebook in the United States alone.

Over the past few months, we’ve worked to better surface the conversations about TV and other shared interests that are already happening on Facebook. For instance, we introduced a more visual design to better honor content in News Feed and launched verified Pages and profiles to help people connect with authentic celebrities and organizations.

Today, we’re excited to begin rolling out hashtags to make it easier for these ongoing conversations to come to the forefront of the Facebook experience.  Hashtags on Facebook are just a first step. We'll be rolling out more features in the coming weeks and months that make it even easier to discover and participate in conversations about shared interests on Facebook.

We look forward to working with media partners, broadcasters, and journalists on how best to leverage these new tools.  As always, as we launch products and experiences, we want your feedback on where we can improve and what we should build next.”

Facebook and Twitter regularly grab features from each other as use cases for the two social networks continue to overlap. Many users nowadays have both Facebook and Twitter accounts, although the former service is still significantly larger than the latter.

Recently, Facebook changed the name of its “Subscribe” button to “Follow” and also renamed subscribers to followers. This tweak came after Facebook built its own button similar to Twitter’s Follow button.

Data sourced from thenextweb.com and Facebook’s official media post.

Online TV, video and mobile advertising will no doubt be hot topics of conversation at Cannes Lions this year. PwC’s Global Entertainment and Media Outlook 2013-2017, launched this month, signals key tipping points in these areas over the next five years.

The report talks about the following trends:

Online TV advertising revenues will treble from 2012 to 2017.

Online video-advertising market boomed in 2012 representing year-on-year growth of 33%.

Mobile advertising takes off and will account for 15% total internet advertising revenues in 2017.

South Africa will overtake UK in 2015 to become 7th largest radio advertising market.

After period of decline out-of-home advertising spend will grow from US$33.8bn 2012 to US$42.8bn 2017.

Mobile will overtake fixed Internet access spend in 2014. Mobile Internet spend expected to exceed fixed spend in US in 2013 and UK in 2015.

The Global Entertainment and Media Outlook is a comprehensive online data base of consumer and advertising spend data, providing five year historic and five year forecast spend data for 13 industry segments across 50 countries. Further macro and segment data insights, taken from this year’s Outlook, can be found online via macro data insights and segment data insights. 

Alternatively, please visit PwC at its Yacht 'Winning Streak', docked in Cannes Marina at Jetée Albert Edouard, to discuss what the Outlook forecasts for the advertising industry in the coming years.

Please contact Katrina Jahnke to arrange to speak with one of our entertainment and media experts.

The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity and Deluxe Entertainment Services Group have teamed up to strengthen their dedication to nurturing the creative pursuits of young talent in the advertising and communications industry.

Cannes Lions and Deluxe are pleased to announce the implementation of the Young Lions Masters Series, a continuation of the Young Lions Film Competition, for which Deluxe serves as official sponsor. The Young Lions Masters Series, debuting at this year’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity taking place 16-22 June, will bring back the winners of the 2012 Young Lions Film Competition, Livio Basoli and Lorenzo Picchiotti now of McCann Worldgroup in Italy, so they can revisit their award-winning concept. Deluxe’s well-known creative services brands: Company 3, Beast and Method Studios, will be on-site at the Palais des Festivals providing best in class creative artistry and service to help these brilliant young creative minds take their concept to new levels.

Livio Basoli and Lorenzo Picchiotti of McCann Worldgroup will be the first participants in the Young Lions Masters Series programme developed and supported by Deluxe. Upon their return to Cannes in a few days, they will be challenged to produce and finish a piece of up to 60 seconds for Movember, a  non-profit organisation which seeks to raise awareness of men’s health issues by, among other things, encouraging men to grow moustaches for the cause.  Movember is the same charity for which Basoli and Picchiotti produced their winning 2012 Young Lions Film Competition project.

Deluxe offers an end to end collective suite of boutique operations, technology innovation, and solutions that delivers inspiration, meticulous service and maximised efficiency to creative artists.  “Not only do we understand how important it is to encourage and cultivate young talent, we see this as an opportunity to explore creativity during the most creative of gatherings the industry has to offer,” said Peter Feigin, Chief Marketing and Revenue Office at Deluxe.  “With the Young Lions Masters Series, we move beyond concept ideation and see what happens when the best young minds are given access to the innovative artists and technology contained in Deluxe’s Creative Service brands - the best post-production resources available.”

“Deluxe’s Creative Services brands have had the opportunity to work on a number of ground-breaking projects from feature films to commercials, including many that have been honoured at Cannes Lions,” said Stefan Sonnenfeld, President of Creative Services Group at Deluxe.  “We are pleased to have the privilege to work with the most promising young creative minds in the industry on this unique project and are looking forward to providing our artistry and service to these talented individuals.”

The Young Lions Masters Series participants will have six days to shoot and finish their piece using  Deluxe’s Creative Services brands for post-production, including, Beast for editorial, Company 3 for colour and sound design, and Method Studios for VFX and finishing.  All post production will take place at the Deluxe booth on Level -1 at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes.  The final film will premiere in Cannes on Saturday 22 June 2013 and will be used to support the admirable efforts of Movember.

"We are really excited to take the Young Lions Film Competition to another level with a high quality production of the 2012 Gold winning film," says Steve Latham, Director of Talent & Training. "This is a fantastic opportunity for the winning team to really showcase their creative talent."

Delegates can learn more about Deluxe’s Creative Service brands – Company 3, Beast and Method Studios – and how the company manages to marry the delicate touch of a boutique approach with the efficiencies of a broad industry infrastructure by visiting the Deluxe booth on level -1 in the Palais des Festivals during the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

With more and more critical data residing at the edge of the enterprise in remote or branch offices (ROBOs) and on client systems, the ability to reliably protect and quickly recover this data has become more critical to business continuity and end-user productivity. In addition, an increasingly mobile workforce is creating and sharing more data outside the traditional control of those primarily tasked with protecting it. If organizations in the Middle East are not able to efficiently and effectively address these challenges, they face significant business risk associated with losing or having to recreate unprotected edge data, not knowing what data exists in an environment and not being able to find it in association with a lawsuit or compliance requirement.

Allen Mitchell, Senior Technical Account Manager, MENA at CommVault  says that protecting and recovering data at remote sites and at end-points using legacy technologies can consume scarce resources, require expertise that often isn’t present, and is prone to failure. In addition, these isolated systems can be expensive to deploy and manage. In the case of a site-level disaster—such as natural disasters, human error, viruses, and security breaches—organizations need to have a copy of important data stored safely, far away from the remote office that holds the original copy, but that is still easily and rapidly accessible. Without a centralized strategy, organizations are at risk for lost data, which can result in reduced operational capability and employee productivity as well as a range of other business consequences.

ROBOs and End Users Present a Range of Data Management Challenges

Data outside the data center is often just as critical to the success of your organization as that residing within it. Yet, this data is often unreliably protected due to insufficient network bandwidth, a lack of trained IT staff at remote sites and the high cost associated with managing distributed multi-platform environments.

As the volume of data created and stored at the edge of the enterprise continues to grow, legacy data protection and management tools have become less capable of easily protecting it and ensuring business continuity. The data management burden on staff members at remote sites, who often are not IT professionals, is significant and continues to grow along with the data. Expecting end users to perform their own backups puts data at risk and limits your visibility into what data is in your environment. In addition, if you don’t have an easy to use way for end users to recover their own data from a centralized protection plan, then the IT staff will easily become overburdened performing requests to find files for them.

Downtime, effort spent re-creating assets and data loss—the consequences of unprotected and/ or unrecoverable data—are costly. Whether you are taking busy production systems offline for backup or in order to recover data, downtime can significantly impact your organization’s mission or your company’s revenue, worker productivity and customer satisfaction. In the event of a temporary outage, a disaster or application data corruption, it becomes critical to access a more recent copy of your data than last night’s or last week’s backup. You must be able to quickly recover specific files or to specific points in time so you can prevent data loss or roll back from corruption. It’s time to modernize your backup approach for ROBO and end-point data with a single platform. A platform that replaces out-dated legacy backup products that have not kept pace with today’s growing data center business challenges and contributed to management complexity, skyrocketing costs and put vulnerable data at risk.

The problem with extending the traditional backup strategy used in a data center to ROBOs and end-point data is that it is not cost effective to deploy at each remote site. Traditional strategies require additional backup software and hardware that is expensive to purchase and maintain. They also require technical resources not readily available at remote sites. Instead, many organizations use local tape to back up data at remote or branch offices. But this approach requires a significant amount of effort and administration. For example, when tapes are sent off site, security becomes an issue—reports of data tapes lost in transit or delivered to the wrong client are not uncommon. For organizations that don’t use tape and instead send large backups over the wire from remote locations to a central data center, a lack of sufficient network bandwidth becomes the issue. Finally, other methods, like using disparate, point appliances or localized disk and replication, are not ideal because they add cost and complexity if they are not part of a unified solution for managing data across the enterprise.

Finding an efficient protection solution for distributed data becomes pressing for organizations under a number of circumstances. For example, they may need to centralize and consolidate operations because they lack the resources to reliably protect and recover data locally at remote sites or across their desktops and laptops. In another case, they may want to implement a cost-effective disaster recovery strategy that leverages remote sites or virtual environments. This can entail efficiently distributing copies of backup data on disk at another site in order to improve RTO/RPO by maintaining a current copy of data to enable fast-yet-granular recovery to specific points in time. In both cases, they want to be able to take advantage of technologies that can reduce WAN bandwidth requirements because for many organizations the ability to centrally protect data is inhibited by limited network resources.

Arrive Systems, Inc. (www.arrivesys.com) the leader in Extreme Collaboration and edgeless media Pro A/V products, in association with Biamp Systems today unveiled its latest innovation, Arrive NetPoint™  the new generation of Audio Video Bridging Networked Device at AVnu Alliance Pavillion of InfoComm 2013 in Florida, USA.

Biamp Systems is a leading provider of innovative, networked media systems that power the world's most sophisticated audio/video installations. Biamp’s booth (#1333) features their full line of industry-leading audio products and will host multiple presentations on a variety of new topics throughout the show. Biamp will also be featuring the Arrive NetPoint™ switch in their booth.

AVnu compliant Arrive NetPoint™ ensures AVB interoperability of networked A/V devices, which helps in providing the highest quality of streaming A/V experience. These new set of AVB standards are enabling interoperable platforms to offer better, faster, flexible and cost effective solutions on the market.

Aseem Gupta, CEO and founder of Arrive stated, "The Arrive NetPoint™ AVB Bridge Platform is an exciting development and entry for Arrive to make with our associates Biamp Systems during InfoComm 13.  AVB is the leading edge technology platform which will transform the transport of audio and video from analog to digital multi-stream meeting time sensitive media requirements which is not possible on standard TCP/IP network. AVB bridges are a natural fit for Arrive EdgelessMedia® platform”

Experts from both Biamp Systems and Arrive Systems are available at the show to provide demonstration of Arrive NetPoint® and its interoperability with other audio products. To meet the experts from Arrive, visit the AVnu Alliance technology and product Pavilion Booth # 459a, schedule an appointment through This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or download the special invitation at www.arrivesys.com.

“Our presence in the MENA market is relatively new. Having launched in October 2012, we are currently focused on growing our member base and engaging with them through relevant and meaningful content. We continue to grow our teams in line with the needs of our business.” Said Fredrik Bernsel, Sales Director, EMEA + LATAM Partners, LinkedIn.

In an interaction with MediAvataar Middle East, Fredrik talked about this growing social network which is slowly and steadily spreading its wings in the MENA region. With new technologies up its sleeves, LinkedIn is doing pretty well all across the globe. Here is the discussion...

MediAvataarME: Social Media has certainly shown an upward trend in the MENA region. How is LinkedIn doing in the region in terms of user base and popularity?

Fredrik: LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network on the internet with over 225 million members worldwide and we are currently growing at 2 members per second. In the MENA region, we have over 5 million members including more than 1 million in the UAE.

Because of the demographics in this region, we have a very diverse member base ranging from citizens of each country, MENA citizens working in the region but outside their home country, and expats from other parts of the world.  Our mission is to make LinkedIn’s members productive and successful and we see that our members here are using the platform to discover professional opportunities and not just jobs. 

We see great potential in partnering with professionals in the region and enabling their success -. We will continue to help professionals in the region build their identity, provide them with insights through innovative products like LinkedIn Today, Groups and Company Pages and work where our members work through our apps for mobile phones and tablets. 

MediAvataarME: Please elaborate the complete view of the demographics on LinkedIn?

Fredrik: As of May 2013, we have more than 225 million members around the world and are adding more than 2 members per second. Professionals outside the United States make up more than 64% of LinkedIn. According to comScore, unique visitors (including members and non-members) increased 29 percent year over year to average 132 million in the first quarter of 2013. When including SlideShare, LinkedIn averaged 170 million monthly unique visitors. In the first quarter of 2013, an average of 30 percent of unique visiting members to LinkedIn came through mobile apps, versus just 19 percent a year ago.

Our LinkedIn Audience 360 study showed that globally, 4 out of 5 LinkedIn members drive business decisions. Members turn to LinkedIn for a variety of reasons including 73% for networking, 70% to grow their professional identity and 2 out of 3 use LinkedIn for business purposes.  Hence brands looking to engage with LinkedIn have access to an influential, affluent, educated audience and can build campaigns based on insights targeted at specific audiences.  

At the other end of the spectrum, we also have over 30 million students and recent graduates on LinkedIn. Students are among LinkedIn’s fastest growing demographics. 

MediAvataarME: Is the youth a big ray of hope for the network?

Fredrik: There are over 30 million students and recent college graduates on LinkedIn today. Our member base is made up of varying demographics, but the youth are an important part of our future. 

Today’s youth are all digital natives, whether they are a few years into their careers or just finishing high school. They are educated, entrepreneurial and ambitious, and the internet is their medium to achieve success. Features like Career Services have been introduced to help universities help connect students to opportunities. Our LinkedIn Alumni tool helps our members discover where their college network is and seek out opportunities to share business insights, collaborate with connections or just build your network. 

Being early adopters of new technology, they seek different ways to access the internet and that is why we continue to innovate and build more engaging mobile apps across platforms. In the first quarter of 2013, an average of 30 percent of unique visiting members to LinkedIn came through mobile apps, versus just 19 percent a year ago. 

We will continue to invest in our web and mobile platforms to provide our members with an engaging and interactive experience on LinkedIn. 

MediAvataarME: Please tell us about your new search and visual story tool.

Fredrik: Professionals come to LinkedIn to discover opportunities and to tell their professional story. 

With our most recent updates to LinkedIn profiles, members now have the ability to showcase their unique professional story using rich, visual content on their LinkedIn profile. Members can illustrate their achievements in the form of stunning images, compelling videos, innovative presentations and more. 

We have streamlined LinkedIn search, thus making it smarter. Last year, over 5.7 billion professionally oriented searches were done on LinkedIn. Every day, millions of professionals are finding opportunities and getting found through LinkedIn.  We have unified the search experience so members no longer need to search for people, companies, or jobs separately. Now, all members need to do is type what you’re looking for into the search box and they’ll see a comprehensive page of results that pulls content from all across LinkedIn including people, jobs, groups and companies.

In line with our members first philosophy, we believe that these changes will positively impact how LinkedIn used and will make professionals productive and successful. 

MediAvataarME: What according to you are the conditions here that affect the number of users on social media networks?

Fredrik: LinkedIn has over 5 million members from the MENA region. The main reasons why people use social media varies with every network. However, content including its relevance and quality are of primary importance. The reason why professionals use LinkedIn is because they know we are completely focused on them. With tools like LinkedIn Polls, LinkedIn Today, Influencers and LinkedIn Groups, we are focused on making them productive and successful. 

MediAvataarME: How do you differentiate the user interest here as compared to the rest of the world?

Fredrik: Every LinkedIn member is different and like in the rest of the world, we are seeing members in the MENA region using LinkedIn for various purposes. Whether it is to find a career opportunity, identifying business partners, sharing insights or just establishing collaborations, LinkedIn members have access to tools and services that help drive their success and productivity. For example, Paul Kenny, the founder of Cobone.com has utilized LinkedIn as a tool to instil trust and build longstanding business relationships. Caitlin Cighi, an independent consultant, used LinkedIn to coordinate, secure attendance and arrange interviews for a leading conference, resulting in valuable content and networking opportunities for attendees.

MediAvataarME: Which are the top GCC countries that dominate the Arab LinkedIn users as percentage of population?

Fredrik: LinkedIn has over 5 million members in the MENA region and over 1 million in the UAE. 

MediAvataarME: Are more and more advertisers turning to LinkedIn?

Fredrik: With LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, marketers can engage with an influential, educated and affluent audience. Our suite of solutions enables them to target members and earn measurable results.  Together with Clique Media, our advertising partner, we have been able to successfully grow our LMS business line. In the Middle East, a number of brands like Etihad are using LinkedIn for marketing campaigns.  

MediAvataarME: What are the best ways in which companies can measure the success of their advertisements on LinkedIn?

Fredrik: Every marketing initiative on LinkedIn can be measured with deep insights that help brands understand and learn more about their audience. 

Using LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, companies have a number of options available for them. Our various tools help build customized campaigns that engage audiences relevant to a brand. Sponsored content drives thought leadership and helps you be seen in the right audiences using groups, polls and company pages. Social ads and display ads can be targeted specific members based on their profile data. 

LinkedIn not only lets you target ads but also provides measurable results. You can measure new followers, engagement and impressions. The availability of in-depth results helps measure success and evaluate ROI.  

MediAvataarME: What is your future plan in making a stronger hold in this restricted market?

Fredrik: Our presence in the MENA market is relatively new. Having launched in October 2012, we are currently focused on growing our member base and engaging with them through relevant and meaningful content. We continue to grow our teams in line with the needs of our business. 

SMS YES or NO to 53421, asking for feedback on a poll or a question was the way conventional media started to interact with mobile. This feedback mechanism due its soaring popularity has certainly housed many pockets in India and has become the rationale of augmented usage by the marketers.

Middle East is certainly nearing a point of seeing a smartphone in every pocket, the rise of mobile and the fast adoption of smartphones have led to many consumers going everywhere with their very own direct-response tool. With the device, they use calls to action from other media to get more information and sometimes even make a purchase immediately, wherever they are.

Today almost all the traditional mediums i.e. TV, Print, In-store and OOH have a direct or indirect correlation with mobile medium (mainly smartphones). With 2 D barcodes and LBS (Location Based Services) not only connecting but making an on-the-go consumer to Call to Action has taken a concrete shape.

But are all the mediums leveraging this personal and portable medium equally?

As the habit of pulling out a phone to respond to ads takes hold, some media are enjoying faster uptake than others. According to March 2012 research from Google, conducted by Ipsos MediaCT and TNS Infratest, 43% of smartphone owners used their device to search in response to television ads at least monthly. Nearly as many, 40%, searched in response to ads they saw in stores.

Searching based on magazine ads and out-of-home ads like posters was less common, but seems likely to increase as smartphone owners get more and more used to pulling out their device to get information, increasingly prompted in these media by 2-D barcodes, as well.

Typically, respondents reported researching products on their smartphone while either at home (58%) or generally “on the go” (43%), followed by in a store (31%), making retail locations the No. 1 single out-of-home place for smartphone owners to take action.

Meanwhile, the locations of online ads noticed on mobile devices shifted between July 2011 and March 2012 toward a greater emphasis on general website ads as well as in-app ads. Respondents were somewhat less likely to notice ads in March on search engines or on retailer websites.

These shifts are part of a maturing mobile ad market, which eMarketer estimates will reach $2.6 billion in the US this year.

According to a new Yankee Group study, mobile ad spending across Brazil, China and India will grow six fold to total more than $6 billion by 2016, while the U.S. total will level off to about half that amount in the same four-year period. In Europe, the growth of mobile ad revenue will level off even more markedly, with little or no rise in the estimated $1 billion generated this year.

The study further predicts that the mobile sector will make up more than half (51%) of digital ad revenue in India in four years, compared to just 11% in the US.

Such ads have so far enjoyed click rates higher than those on desktop websites, a fact many have chalked up to their novelty. As that novelty continues to wear off, smart marketers will look to mobile’s potential for generating responses to ads in other channels as well as within mobile advertising itself.