Mobinil

Mobinil | Always together

editor — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 03:01:14 -0800

Advertising Agency: Leo Burnett, Cairo

PARC: Ad spend up for Ramadan, but less than last year due to regional unrest

editor — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 22:27:19 -0700

Despite the regional unrest and the economic downturn in the US, Ramadan witnessed an increase in advertising expenditures compared to previous months this year, but remains lower than last year.

This is due to the political unrest sweeping many parts of the region, coupled with the credit downgrade in the US and the debt crisis in Europe.

Mobinil | Tab Khaleek Ma3aya

editor — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 01:37:37 -0700

Advertising Agency: Leo Burnett Egypt

Via [AdBasha]

Mobinil | Esma3 ba2a ya seedi

editor — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 01:21:28 -0700

Advertising Agency: Leo Burnett Egypt

Via [AdBasha]

Telecom companies highest advertising spenders in Ramadan, make up four of top five advertisers

editor — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 01:26:53 -0700

According to the Pan Arab Research Center (PARC), telecom companies make up four of the five top-spending advertisers during the holy month of Ramadan. Etisalat Egypt, Zain, Mobinil and Mobily spent almost US$200 million (Dh734.5m) during Ramadan last year. PARC figures do not take into account discounted or free advertising, but provide a benchmark for this year's Ramadan spending.

Unisono Bahrain launches media department

editor — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 03:22:09 -0700

Unisono, Bahrain’s leading independent full- service agency today announced the launch of the strategic media planning & buying department headed by Yasser Akram.

This latest announcement follows the launch of Unisono’s public relations and digital marketing departments in April and May of this year and further establishes Unisono’s position as a brand centric agency providing truly integrated strategic solutions.

Commenting on the strategy behind the media department launch, Managing Director Pennie Nixon said, “When media and creative teams work in isolation, even brilliant creative work can suffer as it is not portrayed effectively through the Media. By bringing media in-house we will be able to offer our clients an integrated and creative media solution which will add value to their campaigns”.

The market needs innovation in media rather than more recycled media plans. Our vision is for an award-winning department, which creates work that truly maximizes our clients’ return on investment and does creative advertising justice. We are confident that Yasser Akram is the perfect person to make this happen.”

Yasser has a cumulative experience of more than 12 years in the advertising industry, from which 7 years in the media industry. He has worked with clients throughout the Middle East and Egypt, including Zain, HSBC, Vodafone, Unilever, Mobinil, Mercedes-Benz, VIVA and other leading brands.

Yasser started his career in Egypt in 1998 while still at school, working for his family advertising business. By 2004 at the age of 22 he had been able to grow his family business by 45%. After graduating from the Arab Academy for Science & Technology with a degree in Marketing, Yasser joined Starcom MediaVest Egypt in 2005 to be part of the team that managed the largest media spender in Egypt "Mobinil".

Moving to Bahrain in late 2006, Yasser went on to be the lead planner at Mindshare, managing the Bahrain & Qatar market with a portfolio of esteemed clients in various categories (Telecom, Real-Estate, Banking, Automotive, Retail, Entertainment and Motorsports).Prior to joining Unisono Yasser was lead mediastrategist at Universal Media. In this capacity he headed the media business for
VIVA Bahrain as well as other market leading brands.

“Yasser’s set of skills are relatively new and rare to the region. As a specialist in his field Yasser is the ideal candidate to advance our vision of delivering enhanced media efficacy through integration with Unisono’s holistic brand centric approach.

We are truly excited about having him on board, and look forward to seeing effective and exciting marketing campaigns being rolled out throughout the region.” said Managing Director Pennie Nixon.

Permission-based mobile advertising takes off in Egypt

editor — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 02:42:39 -0700

One million consumers have opted in to "Mobinil Ads" in the last two months; driven by Alcatel-Lucent's Optism™ mobile marketing solution.

In December 2010, Alcatel-Lucent announced that it had entered into an agreement with Mobinil - Egypt's leading operator - to provide Egyptian mobile users with access to interactive marketing campaigns tailored to their personal interests, based on the Optism™ mobile marketing solution. Today, Mobinil has well over one million subscribers opted in to its "Mobinil Ads" service.

Leveraging Alcatel-Lucent's Optism™ mobile marketing solution, Mobinil's customers are in the driving seat and can share their interests and preferences with Mobinil to receive ads and offers from their favourite products, thus getting interesting and relevant news, offers and discounts from brands they really care about. Brand communications are delivered via interactive text (SMS) and rich (MMS) dialogues that use question-and-answer exchanges, literally putting the brand in the hands of mobile subscribers. This is a gold mine for advertisers - who are now able to set up true conversations with a highly-targeted, receptive audience - leading to higher response rates and less wastage of advertising spend.

Clearly, the Egyptian people recognize the value of receiving relevant content from the brands they like - right on the mobile phones in their pockets. Next to the one million subscribers milestone, figures that were released at today's Cairo Cristal Club Seminar show that - 41% of the opted-in subscriber base is between 15-24 years old; 22% between 25-34 years.

The top categories that show the highest interest rates include: sports (30%), music (23%), fashion (23%) and technology (14%). Response rates to advertising campaigns run on Mobinil's "Mobile Ads" service ranged from 12% to as high as 54%.

UM Digital Boom Conference; Industry experts discuss the future of digital media in the region

editor — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 01:33:24 -0700

Media experts from around the region gathering in Egypt recently for the one-day Digital Boom conference organized by UM highlighted the importance of integrating online and offline disciplines to create successful brands stories. The conference aimed at establishing the most effective ways for online and offline media to work together to reach the right audience at the right time in addition to discussing social media impact, insights and measurement methods.

UM, the leading MENA specialist media marketing consultancy firm tied in with Google, Nielsen Media Research, and Egypt's major website developer Digital Republic to host communications professionals from various media agencies and brands communications managers in Cairo.

Participants at the one-day event included Wael Ghoneim, Head of Marketing MENA and Wael Fakharany, Regional Manager from Google, Diego Semprun, MD of Nielsen Online, Omar Mandoor, GM of Coca Cola Egypt, and Rania Elbakry, Digital & Direct Communication Manager at Mobinil. In addition to Karim Khalifa, CEO of Digital Republic, Ahmed Osama, MD of TE Data, Con O'Donnell, MD of Sarmady Communications, Tim Baker, MD of Hug Digital, James Harris, Head of Digital, UM-EMEA and various industry experts from the MENA region.

Paul Katrib, Regional Managing Director, UM highlighted the importance of new and emerging media to reach out to different audiences and optimize investment for brands. "This conference falls within UM's regional initiatives to keep pushing the potential of the digital platform within our communication strategies, and exploring the ways it could help us strengthen the connections between our brands and the consumer," said Katrib.

Dina Hashem, UM Egypt Managing Director said: "the event organized for the first time in the Egypt aimed to bring industry experts together to discuss global best practices to optimize the usage of online and mobile technologies and facilitate access to and enable target audiences to interact with the brands and share with their peers."

Participants discussed the market dynamics especially the internet infrastructure in the region, mobile advertising revolution, viral marketing and the essential consumption habits and profiles of internet users in the region. And various successful case studies such as Coca-Cola and Mobinil were presented following an overview of the digital media scene in the Middle East and North Africa region.

Rania El Bakry, Manager, Digital and Direct Communication, at Mobinil said: "It was a pleasure to be part of this wonderful event. It was a great opportunity for idea exchange among parties involved in the field of Digital Communication and it was a much needed event to help this field evolve and grow."

In his closing presentation, Karim Khalifa, CEO Digital Republic Egypt re-emphasized that digital is not only about banner ads, but it is about creativity, entertainment, engagement and interactivity as well as building a two-way relationship with your consumer and rewarding them for their interaction with your brand. He called on communication professionals to get ready to take their brands to the next level to reach audiences through mobile advertising, online TV, and location based marketing.

Abdelrahman Eliwa: Our vision is to create and distribute top quality Arabic-language content through web and mobile

editor — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 04:49:05 -0700

Abdelrahman Eliwa, Business Develoment Manager for Moheet Internet Group, talks to mediaME about Moheet's history and achievements, the evolution of Internet news, the online advertising market in Egypt and the MENA region, Moheet's future plans and more.

Q.Kindly introduce yourself and tell us about Moheet (its history in summary).

I am the business development manager for Moheet Internet Group.

Moheet Internet Group is a digital media group that provides general news; sports news, entertainment, food recipes, games, jobs, e-learning opportunities, guides & information and social.

The company is owned by Arabia Inform, the pioneer in media monitoring and Arabic media analysis in the MENA region since 1996

Moheet.com was launched in 1998, to be the first Arabic news portal. The rest of the portals have been launched since 2008 and Moheet.com became become part of our group in 2009.

Currently, we have the following group of online properties: moheet.com, korabia.com, lahona.com, alfanonline.com, bayanonline.com, shoghlanty.com, shamlola.com, gamegoom.com, betshoof.com.

Our vision is to create and distribute top quality Arabic-language content through both web and mobile, to keep all Arabs informed.

Q. Tell us about the nature of Moheet’s strength in the MENA region.

According to our third-party partners, Nielsen and Double Click, Moheet network receives around 6 million unique users with over 150 million impressions and 70 million pages views per-month.

More than 53% from the total visits come from Egypt, 28% from KSA and 16% from UAE. The rest of the traffic comes from different countries.

Q. Over the past decade, Internet news and content has evolved. How has Moheet changed with the times, and how has it maintained a leading position?

Actually, when moheet.com started, we focused on the objective of becoming the biggest Arabic reference for news in the MENA region. We did that by monitoring other media. Then, in 2002, we revamped Moheet to become an electronic newspaper that offers original content. Then we expanded the number of topics that moheet.com covers.

In 2007 we developed a new concept for Moheet; we decided to offer information and news as well as other interactive services.

In 2009 we developed a new business plan that offers a wide range of e-content through different channels WEB, WAP, ODB, I-PAD...etc, to revamp “Moheet Internet Group” to support our advertising and to achieve high penetration in the Egyptian market.

Q. As the business development manager of Moheet Internet Group, what are the areas in Moheet’s business model that you are working on developing or growing, and are there any new products or services to be launched soon?

There are several business models that we are working on, which we feel will create significant revenues:
1-    B2B: Digital Advertising through Moheet’s network
2-    B2B: Portal Management and Content Syndication services
3-    B2B: Partnerships with ISP companies to make Moheet’s content available for their clients
4-    B2C: Developing paid applications for Moheet to be available on mobile.

For the new products, we are in the process of launching a new bi-lingual TV guide called betshoof.com, covering over than 700 channels and allowing users to customize their channels to stay updated with latest movies. The second step will be developing each portal in a WAP version through partnering with one of Egypt’s big names to run the network on mobiles.

Q. As a major internet media outlet, what’s your prediction regarding the growth of online advertising expenditure in Egypt and the GCC and what are the main obstacles to faster growth of digital advertising expenditures in the region?

For the past three years, we have faced a serious problem with advertisers who do not understand the concept of online advertising and digital world. But this year, Egypt has around 100 million EGP in the market from advertising.

As for the obstacles, I believe it’s mainly education, as most of the agencies and advertisers still need to learn more about online advertising and how it can positively affect their businesses.

For Moheet, we’ve only started an online advertising push from the beginning of 2010. B efore, it was so hard to convince advertisers. The only ad spenders were the big and well-known brands such as Coca Cola, Vodafone, Mobinil and they typically advertise on MSN, Google, Maktoob, etc…..

Q. Tell us about the Internet media market in Egypt. There’s an active publisher scene, but what are the levels of awareness among advertisers (clients) and agencies?

The online advertising market here in Egypt is growing very fast. In my opinion, it is growing even faster than the GCC market. This is because advertisers and agencies are beginning to change their mentalities through the organization of several workshops that aim at educating advertisers and explaining the level of importance and benefits of the digital advertising scene.

Q. What are the immediate future plans of Moheet? Are there any developments or announcements you are working on?

Moheet plans to continue to grow, to encompass distribution of content on both the web and other devices, as well as the development of new brands and new channels. Moheet’s team really believes that top quality and original content are the most attractive elements for users, and therefore, the more the content, the bigger the market. This, as a result, will support our advertising plans and fulfill our goal to become the market leader in this field.

Q. Is there anything else you would like to add?

I would like to thank my colleagues at Moheet, who contributed valuable information to this interview.
And I call on mediaME visitors to visit our group sites Moheet.com, Korabia.com
Lahona.com, Alfanonline.com, Shamlola.com, Betshoof.com, Gamegoom.com and Bayanonline.com.

Mobinil | Skateboard

editor — Sun, 02 May 2010 03:13:54 -0700

Advertising Agency: Leo Burnett, Cairo