Fayez Abu-Awad is a media and marketing professional with over 10 years of experience. He is the Executive Vice President for Boost Communications for the Middle East and Africa, a leading provider for mobile marketing and communication services for mobile Internet, SMS, MMS and mobile.

mediaME spoke to Fayez about mobile advertising in the region, its impact today, emerging trends and technologies, efficiency metrics, major clients who have utilized it and much more.

Q. Kindly introduce yourself and your company.

I am an entrepreneurial digital media professional with roots in telecoms and finance. I work for Boost Communications and serve as the Executive Vice President for the Middle East and Africa.  

I started selling advertising in 1995 for a computer magazine; I also sold what I believe to be the first banner campaign in the Arab world back in the spring of 1996 to the very insightful Mr. Joseph Hanania during his tenure at Compaq, based out of Geneva. I moved away from this industry to pursue graduate studies and came back to work in finance, IT and Telecoms. Then back to advertising, I found myself starting something new for Nokia which is still a power-house for mobile content, although it does need to regain its balance.  

I am proud to say that I’m a mobile advertising expert in MEA, starting the mobile advertising business for Nokia in the fall of 2007 starting with brown, not even green, fields. We sold MEA’s first mobile Internet advertising campaign (excluding South Africa) towards the end of 2007, the first brand mobile Internet advertising campaign, and executed it in February 2008 as well as the first mobile CSR campaign in MEA among other firsts in mobile Internet advertising campaigns.

Boost Communications is a Norwegian company based in Trondheim. It is a leading provider of mobile marketing and communication services for mobile Internet, SMS, MMS and mobile TV. For 8 years, Boost has been providing services for brands in mobile advertising, publishers, mobile operators, agencies, TV and Radio stations as well as developing unique competence for mobile football services.

Q. Tell us about the state of mobile advertising and marketing in the Middle East as you see it today. Can you quote figures and statistics?

In short, good; there’s a high rate of growth in ad spend from more brands. Mobile advertising languished for years under broadcast SMS which has been mostly unsolicited and highly untargeted. Mobile marketing for a while was crude and was offering very little insight into the consumer. If anything, it failed to gain the respect of the consumer who found it mostly intrusive. This form of mobile “marketing” continues to exist, unfortunately unabated, so long the region does not adopt tighter regulations concerning privacy and consumer data.  

There are many statistics out there but they all seem to agree that the future is bright for mobile advertising and may be extra bright for emerging markets such as the Middle East.  

Q. Coming from the field of mobile advertising, and now working in mobile content, tell us how these two fields combined to deliver impactful marketing communications.    

There is a virtuous cycle where content and advertising feed off each other, mobile is no exception; Content plays a key role in advertising and vice versa; content drives traffic and adds context to advertising if nothing else, while advertising is key for the promotion of content to attract traffic and to expand your reach beyond the established base of content consumers.  

The region needs to find the proper launch-pads for its own mobile content; a launch pad that does not cannibalize the existing consumer base on other channels but rather expands it while adding value.  
We still need a lot of relevant local mobile content and there is ample opportunity there.

Q. Tell us about particular clients Boost has served and major projects you have launched that you are proud of.

Al Jazeera Arabic and English mobile sites, http://ma.aljazeera.net and http://m.aljazeera.net, both of which have been growing in traffic exponentially since their launch about a year ago. Al Jazeera continues to set the standards in the adoption and utilization of new media to their full benefit.  

In terms of content and billing provision, being selected by Etisalat Group to be the supplier for the FC Barcelona mobile site is a key milestone in the region’s mobile content strategies as Etisalat Group was the first to actually acquire rights to such a big brand and the first to capitalize on these rights at true cutting edge delivery.

Of those, I note with pride Nakheel’s Ramadan campaign during the year 2008 which was the region’s first CSR campaign with a mobile dimension and the first campaign to solicit user content in the true interactive spirit of mobile marketing communications.

The campaign for Chevrolet Cruze is also very significant in the evolution of mobile marketing in the Arab world as it marked: First, repeat sale for the same brand (Chevrolet Aveo mobile component was part of the Dubai Lynx Gold award for the best integrated campaign category) and second, it is the first mobile advertising campaign to employ mobile application and a mobile site to complement ongoing activities both on and off-line.

Q. What measurement or efficiency metrics apply in mobile / wireless marketing? Are there specialized or industry bodies providing this service?  

The Internet is one continuum really, so there is no significant difference in metrics. However, the human interface is through devices that are different, and most importantly, are treated differently by consumers than fixed Internet devices (notebooks, PCs …etc) and these offer their own advantages and challenges.  

Targeting and the high involvement and interaction however, are where the real advantage lies for mobile marketing across the board. People in the Arab world have a love affair with their devices which I saw translated for many brands as exceptional performance (no matter how you measure it).

The Mobile Marketing Association is the global industry body which advocates for the industry and educates the business communities around the world. In the Middle East, we have the Arab Mobile Marketing Association but our numbers are still small.

Q. What in your opinion are the emerging trends and technologies in mobile marketing that will influence the direction of this industry in 2010?

The key trends that will continue to affect the Arab world have been high penetration, pervasiveness of handsets and devices that are significantly above average, short cycle of ownership, and successful operators who have invested heavily in networks and are actively pursuing opportunities to expand and capture opportunities in media and finance.

Technology wise, HTML5 is full of promise. We just have to wait and see.

Q. Anything else you would like to add or share with our readers?

Thank you for this chat and my best wishes of continuous success to mediaME. Keep up the good work.