CNN Go beyond borders Tape Art Project - Case Film

Facebook users in MENA outnumber newspaper copy circulation

A new report from Spot On Public Relations has confirmed that there are more subscribers to social media service Facebook in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) than there are copies of newspapers circulated in the region. The report, ‘Middle East and Africa Facebook Demographics’, shows Facebook has over 15 million users in the region, while the total regional Arabic, English and French newspaper circulation stands at just under 14 million copies.

“Facebook and other social media platforms are now beginning to define how people discover and share information, shape opinion and interact. Facebook doesn’t write the news, but the new figures show that Facebook’s reach now rivals that of the news press,” said Carrington Malin, managing director of Spot On Public Relations. “The growth in Arabic language users has been very strong indeed: some 3.5 million Arabic language users began using Facebook during the past year, since the introduction of Arabic support and we can expect millions more Arabic language users to join the platform.”

Five country markets in MENA now account for some 70% of Facebook users; Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, with a gender bias towards male users that flies in the face of international figures – only 37% of Facebook users in the Middle East are female compared with 56% in the USA and 52% in the UK. Despite the strong growth in the number of Arabic language users, the report also shows that some 50% of MENA Facebook users select English as their primary language, with 25% selecting French and just 23% Arabic.

Egypt’s 3.5 million Facebook subscribers help to make North Africa the largest Facebook community in MENA accounting for 7.7 million out of a total of 15 million MENA users. 98% of MENA’s French language users are from North Africa. The GCC states today account for some 5 million Facebook users.

The two key markets of the Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been quick to embrace Facebook – some 33% of the UAE’s population uses Facebook and it also now stands as the country’s second most visited website after google.ae (according to websites ranked by Alexa.com). Interestingly, some 68% of Facebook users in the Emirates are over 25 years old, flying in the face of perceptions that social media is a ‘generation Y’ phenomenon. However, much of Facebook’s growth across the rest of the region has been driven by the under twenty-fives. Over 48% of Facebook subscribers in Saudi Arabia are under 25 years old, with an equal split between English and Arabic users. However, about three times the number of Arabic users have joined Facebook in Saudi over the past year, compared with the number of English language users. 67% of Saudis on Facebook are male.

“For users, Facebook is becoming a richer and larger component of their daily lives, but for advertisers and communications professionals it’s starting to look like an essential part of the MENA marketing mix. In this region, if you’re going to go where your customers are going, then the answer’s clearly online,” said Alexander McNabb, director, Spot On PR. “However, the key challenge here is the nature of interactions over platforms like Facebook and other social media tools are totally different to traditional media – and it’s important to get these interactions right.”

Facebook has become a force to be reckoned with in the Middle East and North Africa and the platform can now claim 15 million users as of May 2010. Whilst Facebook saw strong early growth in 2008/2009 from English and French speaking users across the region, Facebook’s decision to add an Arabic interface in March 2009 has opened up access to a whole new demographic of Internet users and added 3.5 million Arabic users over the past year. Egypt and Saudi Arabia’s Facebook communities have seen the strongest growth among Arabic users during the past year with each adding 1.1 million Arabic language interface users. We soon expect the number of Arabic language Facebook users in Saudi to surpass the number of English users.

However, with the strong expectation that the weight of numbers will move from English language users to Arabic language users in a number of key MENA Facebook markets, today’s reality is that just 23% of users across the region use Facebook’s Arabic interface. So, those seeking to make the most of the Facebook platform are advised to keep up-to-date with its changing demographics.

Here are some of the key Facebook statistics covered in this report:

— There are now 15 million Facebook users in the Middle East & North Africa (this figure excludes Iran, Israel, Pakistan and Turkey).

— MENA’s top five Facebook country markets, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, account for 70% of all users in the region.

— 50% of MENA Facebook users have selected their primary language for using Facebook as English, with 25% preferring French and just 23% Arabic.

— Only 37% of Facebook users in MENA are female (compared with 56% in the USA and 52% in the UK). Only Bahrain and Lebanon Facebook communities approach gender equality with female users accounting for about 44% of total users.

— The GCC has five million Facebook users, which Saudi Arabia and the UAE representing 45% and 31% of that total respectively.

— North Africa has 7.7 million Facebook users, with Egypt accounting for 3.4 million users (or 44% of all North Africa users). Egypt has the largest Facebook community in MENA.

— Francophone countries Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia together account for 3.7 million French speaking Facebook users, equivalent to nearly 25% of all MENA users.

— Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Tunisia and Yemen all have Facebook communities with more than 50% of users below the age of 25 years old.

— The UAE has the oldest Facebook community in MENA with 41% of users being over 30 years old, 28% being 25-29 years old and 31% being under 25 years old.

You can find Spot On PR on Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/spotonpr

Survey Downloads

Middle East & North Africa Facebook Demographics (May 2010)

 

Facebook MENA | Demographics

View more documents from Ayman Sarhan.

Chevrolet - Test Drive experience

McCann Bangkok created this billboard to obtain phone numbers from young drivers to enable them to market the latest Chevrolet.

Client: Chevrolet
Agency: McCann Worldgroup Bangkok
Creatives:
Saharath Sawadatikom (Executive Creative Director)
keatnapin sobhinnon (Senior Art Director)
Chotika Ophaswongse (Art Director)
prayer trairatvorakul (Copywriter)
Anuwat Nitipanont (Art Director)
sukontha jantawong (Producer)
kongsuk pongsuradate (Flash Designer)
thitirat tantirittisak (Senior Account Director)
parinya jankrajang (Account manager)
Country: Thailand
Other Credits: Technology Consultant: Wichian Yungmeesuk

Breast cancer awareness |Learn by "boobs" play by wp.pl

According to Warsaw ad agency Change Integrated, the only way to get men interested in breast cancer awareness is to treat them like a child. A horny child. To do this, they recently replaced one of the models in the adult section a popular Polish website with "Edyta." The agency claims Edyta "trained" almost 175,000 men in a single week on how to examine their partner's boobies, and that these wank sessions counted as substitutes for "offline" training. Now that's funny. Go here (nsfw, obvs.) if you want to try it/jerk off.

You can try it here. (Press the right button to enter.)
Advertising Agency: Change Integrated, Warsaw, Poland
Creative Directors: Ryszard Sroka, Jakub Korolczuk, Rafał Górski
Art Director: Sunil Nair
Copywriter: Krzysztof Nienałtowski
Designer: Adam Smereczyński
Flash developer: Konrad Grzegorzewicz
Technical director: Maciel Topolski
Photographer: Rafał Rebowski
Editing: Iza Koniarz
Producer: Magda Gierej
Account executives: Basia Grabiwoda, Adam Sosnowski, Marcin Kozłowski
Published: March 2010

Dr Pepper UK wants to update your status

This Facebook idea to have fans update status.

Mc Donald's - Playland

For kids, McDonalds is a fun, exciting place. They wanted to bring that feeling back to adults. So they did something only Macca’s could. They built an adult-sized Playland in the middle of Sydney. It wasn’t your average Monday Morning. Grown-ups engaged with McDonald’s in a way they hadn’t for years. People see “I’m lovin it” in all their ads. This time they felt it.


Agency: DDB Sydney, Australia.

Pampers|Hello Baby - iPad App

— This has got to be one of the smartest iPad Apps out there.

The app, called Hello Baby, made its debut during Apple's launch of the tablet computer this month. It is Pampers' first mobile device application; the brand never launched an iPhone app. The move is also part of parent company Procter & Gamble's push to position its brands at the forefront of new and emerging technologies, especially as the packaged-goods titan shuffles more marketing dollars into digital, mobile and social media.

The app, available for free on iTunes, is essentially a pregnancy calendar, where users can track weekly progress from weeks four to 40 by entering the baby's due date. (The calendar draws on baby and parenting content taken from Pampers' "Village" online community site, said Susan Liao, a digital producer at StrawberryFrog, the agency that worked on the app.) Expecting moms can also hold the iPad in front of their tummies to view a typical, life-sized representation of the baby. Common comparisons include a baby that is the size of an acorn, pear and other "well-known fruits and vegetables," said Pampers North American marketing director Patrick Kraus.

Mobile baby apps like TheBump.com's Baby 411, for the iPhone, already exist, but Hello Baby, so far, is the only one developed exclusively for the iPad, he said. The app takes advantage of the portable device's high-resolution, multitouch screen to bring the prenatal development process to life.

P&G, which spent $53 million advertising Pampers last year, sans online, per Nielsen, said Hello Baby's investment is small, but it's looking to take findings from this "experiment" and leverage it online, Kraus said.     

IKEA’s Radio With Pictures

To promote the launch of a new IKEA superstore opening in Sweden, IKEA’s approach was to combine traditional and new media, namely, to have customers look at images via mobile while listening to a radio commercial.
The commercial was composed of two messages in one ad-break. In the first part, viewers were instructed to send an SMS to the promotion number with the promise that they would receive great offers and be participating in a “unique image-radio experiment.” They were also told to stay tuned for the next message a few minutes later. The link the IKEA sent back contained images. In the second message, listeners were asked to listen to the radio while looking at the images on their mobile,

NIKE "Write The Future" Full Length Film Version

What better time than now to launch this beautiful campaign when FIFA World Cup is approaching fast. Nike is unveiling an action-packed film that brings together some of the world’s greatest players to inspire soccer lovers and sports fans around the world. The epic three-minute film, “Write the Future,” takes people on a journey that dramatically captures that one moment when headlines are written - from a single pass or one strike that brings a nation eternal happiness, while bringing others to their knees.


The film, directed by renowned Hollywood director and producer Alejandro G. Iñarritu (21 Grams, Babel), features some of the world’s best players, including Cristiano Ronaldo, Didier Drogba, Wayne Rooney, Fabio Cannavaro, Franck Ribery, Andres Iniesta, Cesc Fabregas, Theo Walcott, Patrice Evra, Gerard Pique, Ronaldinho, Landon Donovan, Tim Howard and Thiago Silva. Special guest cameos are made by tennis legend Roger Federer, basketball superstar Kobe Bryant and Homer Simpson.


Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, Amsterdam, The Nederlands
Creative Director: Mark Bernath, Eric QuennoyArt Director: Stuart Harkness, Freddie PowellCopywriter: Freddie Powell, Stuart HarknessProducer: Elissa SingstockProducer: Olivier KlonhammerExecutive Creative Director: Jeff KlingHead of Broadcast: Erik VerheijenProduction Company: Mokkumercials – AmsterdamProduction Company: Independent Films – LondonDirector: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Stuart Harkness, Pablo CasacubertoDirector of Photography: Jeroen van der PoelVFX Company: The Mill

Cafiaspirin| Getting Stronger

Bayer in Brazil presented the choices of normal strength Aspirina and the stronger Cafiaspirina pain killers with a print advertising campaign featuring annoying situations. Aspirin can help you deal with the Boss, the Ex Wife and the Teenage Daughter. But, there are worse menaces than them like the boss’s jokes, the ex wife’s lawyer and the teenage daughter’s boyfriend. Not to worry, for them you have got Cafiaspirin. 


Agency: Almap BBDO, Brazil
Executive Creative Director: Marcello Serpa
Creative Directors: Luiz Sanches, Dulcídio Caldeira
Copywriter: Marco Giannelli (pernil)
Art Director: Ary Nogueira
Typographer: José Roberto Bezerra
Supervisor: Maria Luiza Dias

Your Twitter Popularity Measured in Cup Size

eBoobs is probably one of the useless but funniest web apps available related to Twitter. It measures your popularity using cup size.

Using only US sizes to compare your popularity, this web app tells you immediately how popular you are just by entering your Twitter user name.