Saudi bans old cars

The kingdom has prohibited the import of cars which are older than five years. The move is expected to adversely affect a lot of car dealers, reports Arab News

The Saudi Customs Department has started implementing an official decision banning the import of cars older than five years into the kingdom. “The ban is on used cars, buses and other light goods vehicles more than five years old. Heavy vehicles more than 10 years old are also not allowed to be imported,” Suleiman Al-Tuwaijeri, director of the Customs Department at the Jeddah Islamic Port, told Arab News.

The ban does not, however, cover spare parts for old vehicles in use, Al-Tuwaijeri said, adding that a six-month grace period has been granted to importers to set matters straight.

More than 140,000 used cars valued at SR17.5 billion ($4.6 billion) were imported in 2008. This accounted for 24 percent of total cars imported during the year.

“I don’t know what I am going to do next as the ban is a blow to my business of 24 years,” said Mustafa Baqsha, an importer of used cars.

He estimated 80 percent of workers in the used car market would become unemployed as a result of the ban. “I hope the authorities would review or at least relax the decision to make the ban applicable to cars manufactured before 2000.”

Saleh Abdullah, another trader, said that because of the ban, he had to dismiss some of his workers, and was also moving to a cheaper building. “I used to spend SR500,000 ($133,300) on rent and salaries a month, but now I have to move to cope with the falling income,” Abdullah said.

Several used car showroom owners told Arab News that the prices rose 20 percent over the past two months and that they believed they would remain at that level because of the upcoming summer vacations.

A meeting of the Automobile Committee of the Eastern Province Chamber of Commerce and Industry urged the authorities to relax the rule and ban cars older than eight years.

Ali Hussain Alireza, the chairman of the Automobile Committee at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry said that 50 importers annually imported a total of 400,000 cars to the kingdom from various parts of the world and that stiff competition sent prices falling to the lowest possible levels.

“Some people expected the prices to fall by 30 to 40 percent. This is not true as prices of steel, aluminum and other metals used in manufacturing car parts did not fall. Hit by the financial crisis, international car companies suffered heavy losses last year and in the first quarter of the current year. They have cut down the volume of production to grapple with higher production costs,” Alireza said.

He said he believes the sale of cars in the kingdom will fall by 20 to 25 percent, particularly as new models are to hit the market soon.

First seen on Arab News.

Arabia woman:::consumer demographic

“Muslim women and their money are protected by the dogmas of Islam, wherein they have the right to spend their finances in whatever way they wanted to.”

Recent studies and work by scholars has uncovered surprising similarities between American women and Arabia women when one looks at their influence over household spending and consumption,"shopping"

“Contrary to stereotyped beliefs, Arabia women have control of their own money,” opens the article by two professors from Zayed University in Abu Dhabi titled “Financial empowerment of Women in the United Arab Emirates,” published in 2008 in the Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies.

The article continues: “[Women] have the right to spend their money in any way they see fit, even to contribute to the running of the household if they desire to do so. They may own property in their own name and invest or spend their own money as they choose.”

The article also summarizes the results of a series of focus groups with women in the UAE, a study that showed 79% of women managed their own money. The study also showed that 95%agree that religion influences how they spend their money, 66 percent think money brings them happiness and just over half, 53%, believe husbands and wives should share their money.
Additionally, it notes that men are the ones who pay household bills, but that they do not have control over what’s considered “conjugal” money.

It’s easy to see how not understanding this reality could lead many brands astray in messaging. Consider a hypothetical: A campaign aimed directly at men that subtly implies a woman must get permission from her husband to buy product X or Y? Disastrous. This is the one indisputable area of autonomy for many Middle Eastern women. A brand that fails to talk directly to women would not win any points or make any gains in building brand equity for failing to recognize and affirm this authoring.
Granted, this autonomy as consumers still doesn’t equate to parity with Western women in other economic endeavors. For instance, according to a recent study by the Arab Council of Businesswomen, a gender gap in business ownership persists in the region, with only 14 percent of business establishments in the region owned by women, compared to the US and Europe, where women own 30 percent of businesses.
Even so, Middle Eastern women wield enormous influence over spending, and marketers who don’t recognize this and integrate that truth into messaging, branding initiatives and campaigns do so at their own peril.
Female consumers in the region can also play powerful roles in boycotts of Western brands, according to Aseel Sawalha, a professor of anthropology at Pace University and an expert on the Middle East.
Sawalha shared her observation of street protests and women’s groups that organized boycotts against Danish products and brands in Jordan after the 2005 publication in a Danish newspaper of images of the Prophet Muhammad.
“It’s the women who were organizing, the women who were protesting against Danish products,” she recalled.
She noticed that in many retail stores, proprietors took great pains to make sure to address women shoppers, noting they were meeting consumer demands for the boycott. “Signs would say, lady, or madam, we boycott the Danish,” she said. “It was pretty clear women were in charge from a consumption standpoint.”
So what does that mean for Western brands eager to tap into this market?
“It’s the women who make the decisions about how to spend household money,” she said. “It’s the woman who decides what they are going to cook tomorrow. Even if they are not working, they are the ones who make the shopping lists and do the shopping.”
For marketers, it naturally follows that all brand communications must recognize this power.

After all, considering women in the region lack empowerment in other economic endeavors, undermining women’s power as consumers is misguided, to say the least.
Granted, women in the Middle East are far from monolithic. Data from the World Economic Forum on the global gender gap puts Egypt at the bottom of the list among Middle Eastern countries. Even so, women in the Middle East are making gains, albeit incremental ones, and many economic development studies have cited the continued suppression of women in the workforce and education as a deterrent to economic growth for the entire region.
In a different world, women in the region would already enjoy parity with their male counterparts in employment, education, pay and social freedoms. And empowering women as consumers surely isn’t the path to full-fledged independence. But failing to recognize and affirm this power is a surefire recipe for backlash. This is a consumer demographic that demands respect and the recognition of its autonomy and power.

Singer sewing machines:: Mania in Arabia

Used items market places in Saudi saw a surge in people looking to buy Singer sewing machines.

“Singermania” broakout early april 2009 caused by story about the existence of a mythical substance called “red mercury” that — either helps you find gold, wards off evil jinni, or is a key and highly prized ingredient in making nuclear bombs.






The Singer machines have been fetching outrageous prices since rumors spread that they contain red mercury, according to rumors going around on , a sewing machine can be proved to contain red mercury if a phone signal cuts off when held close by.






As the rumors started sweeping , the prices of Singer sewing machines rocketed from SR200 to hundreds of thousands, with one reported case of a machine being sold for half a million riyals.

In Saudi Arabia::: NEVER say NO to your customers

Red Bull::: Break Da Rulz " Kuwait"

BRAND OWNER:Red Bull
CATEGORY:Beverages- Energy Drink
REGION:Kuwait

DATE:April 2009 (Souq Sharq on Friday April 24 at 5:30pm)

.....So 80’s......

LONG-TIME-NO-SEE SAUDI KISS

Agency:TBWA\RAAD Middle East Dubai
Client:Arab Media Group, MTV Arabia

Internet new wave of restrictions

According to Jeddah-based Saudi Gazette, Saudi’s Ministry of Interior has made it mandatory for internet cafés in the kingdom to install hidden cameras, and to supply a record of names and identities of their customers.

Included in the new wave of restrictions? A ban on using any Internet service subscription, prepaid cards or unlicensed satellite Internet other than the one certified for use by the café. Those under 18 will not be allowed into the cafés, with the exception being computer science students. Cafes have to close by midnight...

Digital relationships :Spectrum of Online Friendship

Another attempt to ease the struggle while describing your online friendships to your Arab Marketers who just don't / don't want / cant understand the power of social media.If you did not hear the news yet!! online friendships are different from what we've traditionally called friendships. Digital technology has affected the number of relationships you can maintain, and the intimacy of those relationships, effectively enabling us to create fans who feel like friends.

Passive Interest
This is the easiest level of engagement. It asks the least of your friends, and achieves the least commitment from us. But, it's the crucial starting point. I follow my curiosity to you, I'm interested in what I find, and I choose to pay attention. e.g. repeat visits, blog readers, fans, followers, etc.
Active Interest
This is when I care enough to let you know that I care (in a nice way, not in a stalker way ;). It's a small step, but a big opportunity for you to identify key members of your audience who are candidates to move along the spectrum. We don't yet expect a response, we're just letting you know that we're listening. e.g. people who leave comments on your blog, wall comments, @replies on Twitter, etc.

Sharing
At this point the audience member starts to become a fan. You and your work become part of my identity as I use it to talk to my own friends about what interests me (remember that we share content for social reasons). I also have made myself more valuable, because I am now partly responsible for the spread of your ideas. e.g. social bookmarking, retweeting links, posting links and content to my own sites and profiles, etc.
Public Dialogue
This is the first phase that requires action on your part. I have either demonstrated an Active Interest or have Shared your work with my own friends. You foster a relationship by responding to my interest in a public forum. By doing so, you make the rest of your friends aware of my existence, and welcome me to the group. e.g. public @replies, referrals in a blog post, and references posted to our various sites and profiles, etc.
Private Dialogue
At this step, we begin to transform mutual interest into mutual trust. We are willing to share thoughts, ideas, experiences with each other directly. We trust each other with direct access, which has increasing value in an increasingly always-on world. e.g. exchanging email, TXT messages, IM, and direct messages on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, etc.
Advocacy
At first glance, Advocacy looks a lot like Sharing. But, the crucial difference is that Advocacy means that I am making an explicit recommendation of you to my friends. It's too easy now to simply share, all it takes is one click on your bookmark tool bar. Choosing to actually say, "This is important. It's worth my friends' time. And I'm willing to risk my own reputation to convince my friends to check it out." e.g. same tools as Sharing, but different language; usually entails recommending the person or brand, and not just a specific piece of content
Investment
The brass ring of online friendship. This is the most difficult achievement to recognize or quantify. But it's the most important because it represents the willingness of your friends to take action on your behalf.

Investment, became clear to me in the wake of well-wishes deservedly showered on David Armano after his announcement last Friday of his move to the Dachis Corporation. I was one of those well-wishers myself, and was genuinely proud and excited to hear about his new gig.

Saudi Arabia ::: useful pictures references

GalenFrySinger

resourceful with pictures of Saudi culture in the rural areas. With pictures of experiences like Bedu dinner and Bedu farm.

Tour Saudi Arabia
highlighted by an American Woman’s travels to the country.

Those who cultivate wind harvest a storm

Published in Campaign ME magazine, 29 March - 11 April 2009 issue, Page: 18.

Based on (unconfirmed) reports of up to a 40% decrease in advertising spending in the first quarter of 2009 and unoptimistic forecast still the year’s end leaves no doubt that the global economic crisis has castits shadow on Kuwait’s advertising industry; but the truth is that the industry has been dented long before the crisis due to years of malpractice based on “if it isn’t broken why fix it” mentality.

Advertising has an important role to play in the marketing mix as “Advertising presents the most persuasive possible selling message to the right prospects for the product or service at the lowest possible cost”– IPA.

Lets examine the situation based on “cause and effect”.

1. Cause: Price wars, “Brown envelope” culture and long credit.
Effect: Lower profit margins, cash-flow problems and redundancy across all ranks of the industry.

2. Cause: Stock photos and clip art copy-paste creativity.
Effect: Poor creativity and ROI (return on idea).Client’s messages are neither standing out in the clutter nor differentiated from their competitors. As a result clients perceive advertising as a commodity and seek the services of the lowest bidder further contributing to lower profit margins.

3. Cause:Hiring on the basis of “whom you know rather than what you know”.
Effect: Poor levels of industry practitioners. Media and printing press sales representatives compete with agencies by offering lower prices directly to clients than those offered to agencies - further leading to loss of business or contributing towards lowering industry profit margins.

4. Cause: Lack of (credible) media research, transparency and absence of media auditing.
Effect: Misleading data. Hindering the function of advertising targeting “the right prospects for the product or service at the lowest possible cost”.

5. Cause: Proliferation in the media mix.
Effect: Fragmentation of the budget (based on misleading data).

6. Cause: Lack of enforcement of intellectual property copyrights laws.
Effect: Copying the communication solution of a totally different set of problems, which does not yield a ROI - instead resultin a pandemic of copycat advertisements.

7. Cause: The over-simplification and generalization of obtaining an advertising license.

Effect: Advertising is not acknowledged as aprofession that requires certain qualifications to be practiced. Anyone can venture into the industry and cause havoc then exit leaving behind long lasting damage. Pre-press service bureaus, commercial printing press, advertising agencies, PR consultancies, calligraphers, sign makers, corporate gift items and premiums, event management, publishers and distribution companies - All fall under an advertising license with the exact same set of requirements.
Based on these stated facts; my conclusion is that the local advertising industry is in dire need of major restructuring.
If such problems are not seriously tackled promptly, the industry will remain in crisis long after the world economy recovers as per the Arabic proverb “Those who cultivate wind will harvest a storm

Riyadh::: The ship-shape- hotel

No. 3 Riyadh, Saudi Arabia:::The World's Worst Places to Work

Overall Grade: Very High Risk Location
Severe Problems: Political Violence & Repression, Political & Social Environment
Major Problem: Culture & Recreation Facilities
Other Problems: Housing, Climate, Disease & Sanitation, Education Facilities, Physical Remoteness, Communications






No surprise here. Life in the Saudi capital is not easy. "The possibility of a terrorist attack is an ongoing threat," according to ORC, "while wide-ranging restrictions on dress, movement, conduct, food, alcohol, travel, and communications limit expatriate life." The city is especially hard for foreign women. Finally, adds ORC, "violating the country's strict moral religious codes is a particular danger in this conservative city."

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/09/03/0304_difficult_cities/1.htm

Jeddah: Ikea store opening

FP7 Doha::: forced to apologise after Jesus ad scandal

The ad has been called "an attack against Christian symbols", after it was published in the Lebanese newspaper Al Mostakbal last week.

Samsung had not commissioned FP7 to create any ad campaigns, and argued that the agency had only created the spot in order to pick up some honours at the recent Dubai Lynx Awards.

The investigation follows the publication of a damning entry on bloganubis, in which the legitimacy of FP7 Doha's work for clients Higeen Mouthwash, Samsung and Nissan was questioned.Steve Lane, festival director of the Dubai Lynx, confirmed that complaints had been received from numerous agencies as a result of the blog, as well as from clients.

Sunny Hwang, the president of Samsung Electronics Levant, said: "At no time was Samsung Electronics aware of these advertisements and the company has not approved or commissioned FP7 to create any advertising campaigns. "Samsung has the utmost respect for all cultures and religions and would never produce or approve the use of such culturally insensitive advertisements."At the award ceremony, FP7 picked up two golds and a silver for its Samsung work, as well as winning the agency of the year title.

The agency is now being investigated by the event's organisers, and is expected to be stripped of its honours. Phillip Thomas, the chief executive of Cannes Lions, the organiser of the Dubai Lynx Awards, said: "It appears in this case that FP7 Doha has knowingly tried to mislead ourselves and our jury regarding work they claimed to have created on behalf of Samsung Electronics, which in reality the client had never seen or approved."

Will FP7 change this page

Source: http://www.promoseven.com/

Perspective on thankfulness

Tim & Kristen Koehn talk about living and working in Kuwait and how that's affected their perspective on thankfulness

Saudi clerics call for ban on women appearing in media

Saudi clerics call for ban on women appearing in media

by AFP
Wednesday, 25 March 2009

Hardline clerics in Saudi say images of women in popular newspapers and magazine are 'obscene' and should be banned.

Hardline Saudi clerics have called on the government to ban women from appearing on television and to prohibit their images in print media, which they called a sign of growing "deviant thought."

In a letter to new Information Minister Abdul Aziz Al Khoja that appeared on websites this week, the 35 Islamic clerics also condemned the increase of music and dancing on television, as well as images of women in popular newspapers and magazines that they labelled "obscene."

"Our faith in you is great to carry out media reform, for we have seen how perversity is rooted in the ministry of information and culture, on television, radio, in the press, literary clubs, and book fairs," the letter said.It cited an alleged plan to "westernise" Saudi women by "reducing their rights to a question of removing veils, wearing makeup and mixing with men."

It added that the ministry had permitted the import of "obscene newspapers and magazines that are filled with deviant thought and pictures of beautiful women on its covers and inside.""There should be no Saudi woman on television, in any case," they said."There is no doubt that this is religiously impermissible."

The clerics, including justice officials and academics from a conservative Islamic university, cited several cabinet-endorsed orders and policies from years past which they said supported their argument.

They appeared to be challenging a growing push for liberalisation of tough restrictions on women, including near-mandatory use of black, full-face veils, which are rooted in its ultra-conservative Wahhabi version of Islam.Both Saudi television and print media increasingly feature women, while Arabic-language magazines showing women in Western garb and makeup are also widely sold in the country.

The letter came in the wake of an information ministry-sponsored book fair in Riyadh in early March at which religious conservatives complained that men and women were allowed to mix freely, and that some books on sale violated Islamic principles.

The book fair was marred by the muttawam, or Islamic morality police, harassing a woman author promoting her book and trying to prevent men from obtaining her autograph.