S6 E2: Navigating the Business Landscape of the Middle East with Nick Leighton

Adrian McIntyre: 00:00:01

From the Public Relations Global Network, this is PRGN Presents. I'm Adrian McIntyre.

Abbie Fink: 00:00:07

And I'm Abbie Fink, president of HMA Public Relations in Phoenix, Arizona and a founding member of PRGN.

With public relations leaders embedded into the fabric of the communities we serve, clients hire our agencies for the local knowledge, expertise and connections in markets spanning six continents across the world.

Adrian McIntyre: 00:00:28

Our guests on this biweekly podcast series are all members of the Public Relations Global Network. They will discuss such topics as workplace culture, creative compensation and succession planning, the importance of sustainability and environmental, social and governance programs, crisis communications and outside of the box thinking for growing your business.

Abbie Fink: 00:00:47

For more information about PRGN and our members, please visit prgn.com. And now let's meet our guest for this episode.

Nick Leighton: 00:00:58

Hey, my name is Nick Leighton. I'm the CEO of NettResults Middle East. We just celebrated our 25-year anniversary.

Abbie Fink: 00:01:04

Well, congratulations!

Nick Leighton: 00:01:05

Thanks so much.

Abbie Fink: 00:01:06

And with 25 years of work in that part of the world, you've probably got a lot of opinions and viewpoints about business and culture and what's it looking like right now as we think ahead to the new year. What's driving business these days? What are you foreseeing?

Nick Leighton: 00:01:26

It's funny to say that. We go to new clients, and we say we will be opinionated. So thank you for the platform. So let's look at 20 24 first of all. And I think for me, if I looked at a global level, it would be a year of change.

There's been elections in many countries. There's been a lot of change in politics in a lot of countries. And with that you see changes economically and in lots of different ways.

Now there are some countries around the world where you don't see rapid change in that way, not triggered by politics. Think about China or Singapore or the two leading economic powerhouses of the Middle East, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

They don't go through political change in the same way that we may be used to from for example, Western countries. So this allows them to have long-term vision, which means that we haven't gone through change in the Gulf countries of the Middle East. We are just driving towards longer term vision. I think that's really one of the main differences and is what we are seeing in 20 25 the fruition of many years going in the same direction.

Adrian McIntyre: 00:02:33

And Nick, just for folks not as familiar with the region, that's primarily because the nature of government is dynastic. There's a long-lasting family-based leadership in Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar as well. Is that is that the primary reason or do you think there's something else?

Nick Leighton: 00:02:48

That's exactly it. I wouldn't want to say it's a "benign dictatorship" because that seems almost evil. But, no, people are very happy with the way that families have ruled these countries in this region over the long term.

Abbie Fink: 00:02:59

So as a communications advisor to businesses that are either based there or are doing business in that region, with this more long term or long view, what are you advising or recommending as things to be considering and planning for with this longer term vision that they tend to operate under?

Nick Leighton: 00:03:24

Well, luckily the visions that these countries have are public knowledge. So UAE Vision, United Arab Emirates Vision 20 21 and Saudi Vision 20 30 are long term visions that the countries live by.

So from a PR perspective, from people who manage what's going on in the media, we know what the rhetoric's going to be in the government-run newspapers, magazines, the media, because the media is quite controlling in our region. So anything that coexists with that vision is going to be a good story to tell in the media. So we don't fight it.

We find where the long term vision is and we try and bring our clients in line with that and we tell the stories in that same way, that narrative. So what the media want to cover is something to do with the future vision, the two visions I just mentioned. And then we bring and align our clients messages along with that.

Abbie Fink: 00:04:20

So are there any trends or business trends that you're seeing or you're anticipating as you're advising your clients? As we look into the new year?

Nick Leighton: 00:04:31

Okay, so the first one, which is obvious for us from a vision perspective, UAE Vision 20 21 and Saudi Arabia's Vision 20 30 are very sustainability driven.

So that is something that we've seen in other countries around the world in the last few years. Particularly in places like Germany, there's been certainly some way forward of talking about sustainability, but in the Middle East it's been going on for a long time as well. We just haven't been maybe quite as visual to anyone outside of the region. There are whole cities that are built around sustainability.

And this goes way beyond greenwashing. This really is how do we move away from an oil-driven society, which obviously the Middle East has had for many years.

So there's always been a lot of money pumped into that area of sustainability. And if we can use messages within the PR landscape, again beyond greenwashing, then I think we're going to see a lot of successes in that area.

Also to add to that, COP was in the region recently. So everyone's talking about sustainability and they understand it well.

Abbie Fink: 00:05:35

And sustainability, as you said, the ESG and the modeling and the impact that that's having around the world is I think becoming central to a lot of our communications strategies. As you said, there are some that may be a little bit more advanced in that or a little bit more further along in recognizing the importance of it.

But I think all of us are starting to understand what that means and advising appropriately around it. But there are so many things that are impacting the way communicators do the work that they're doing. And I think maybe regardless of where we might be doing that work.

And you and I have had conversations many times on AI and the role that it plays and the impact that it's having and maybe transforming the way that public relations professionals are doing that. Are you seeing AI take a have a foothold in the Middle East? Is it changing or making a difference in the work that you're doing there?

Nick Leighton: 00:06:46

Yeah, absolutely. So that would be the second area that we're seeing: the development of AI in PR moving from a buzzword into a strategic advantage.

And again, these visions include AI technology advancement. So there is again a lot of initiatives and there's a lot of money behind this.

So gone are the days in the world of PR where we had to cast this wide net. Instead, now in professional PR, we can use AI for far more targeted data-driven outreaches. So we can really target subgroups.

And that's one of the amazing things about this region. In the Middle East, even if we just take the UAE and Saudi Arabia as two of the countries which are normally part of a much larger region, because that's where a lot of the media are, that's where a lot of money is spent. There are so many subgroups within there.

And if you come and visit the region or if you live in the region, you really do see that this is a melting pot of so many different cultures and languages. If we take just Arabic language in the United Arab Emirates, there are multiple dialects.

So already we are seeing technologies that have been launched in the last year, in 20 24, which are dialect specific. So Khaleeji Arabic as opposed to say Egyptian Arabic in the UAE. So now we can really target what we're doing.

Can you imagine if you send out a PR pitch and we know that information and the way that we write our emails can be nuanced to exactly the person we're trying to reach?

It's going to be exciting, and that's the kind of benefit and value that AI brings is that next level of knowledge and understanding and helping us be smarter about what we're doing and the impact that it can have.

Abbie Fink: 00:08:30

What else are you seeing in terms of as you are advising your clients and thinking ahead? Are there any other impacts that are happening from other areas that we advise on--crisis communications, as an example--that might be changing or thinking differently about how we're working in that particular arena?

Nick Leighton: 00:08:55

Right, yeah. Well, also connected to AI, but connected to the digital age and probably not unique for the Middle East is really crisis management. Today's hyper connected world means that crisis obviously can escalate at astonishing speeds. So in 20 25, Middle East PR teams are really using tools for monitoring to stay ahead of potential issues, tracking social sentiment, and that allows us to respond in real time.

And as you're aware, and I'm sure many people who listen to this are aware, crisis communication is all about speed, speed to action, making sure that things don't escalate. So we now have some tools which really we need to look at very seriously. It used to be that only very large companies could afford the tools. Now there's AI embedded in a lot of the tools that we already have. So effective crisis management will allow us to respond quicker.

So as long as brands are available to open their eyes to see what's going on, we can react quicker and hopefully we can control crisis or communicate to them in a more prepared way. So silence or delays can be misinterpreted as indifference and we want to make sure we overcome that.

Abbie Fink: 00:10:08

We know one of the things that we always talk about is the true crisis management happens before there is a crisis, right? And so introducing that ability before you need it is so important. And walking through those steps and helping to understand, you know, if we plan. Because not every crisis is of our making. There are crises that occur and happen to us as a result of what else is happening around us. And so the planning for that is so critical.

Nick Leighton: 00:10:42

Absolutely. Yeah. We always say there's two types of crisis. There's ones we got ourselves into and the ones that other people got us into. We still need to respond quickly and we need to be ready for those responses.

Abbie Fink: 00:10:52

Right. And really personalizing that effort.

That whether you're out marketing a new product or a new launch of something, or your storylines that are, you're messaging or you're talking about a crisis situation, you can't discount that more personalized approach to communication.

That hyper-focused conversations that need to happen in order to be successful and ultimately affect the kind of change or action that we're trying to get.

So are you, again, with these tools that we have, we have this ability now to really be very focused and hyper personalized into the messaging that we're doing, right?

Nick Leighton: 00:11:40

Yeah, I think absolutely right. That's probably the fourth area we're seeing. Hyper personalizing. What we're doing goes way beyond just adding a first name to an email. And that's really what it used to be.

So, you know, for instance, in our region, streaming services might adjust content recommendations during Ramadan to align with the season's cultural significance.

For our own campaigns, we can translate this into creating customized pitches for journalists using some of the AI tools we have available to us now to refine the content to make sure that what we're pitching is specific not only to the culture we're living in, but to whatever they're writing for. And what we're seeing in the Middle East now, we've seen in other more developed media markets, we're not really pitching to a title.

We're normally pitching to a person and who that person writes for will change. But we're following individuals, we're not really following publications as much. From a PR tactical perspective, how has.

Abbie Fink: 00:12:32

How does social media fit into this? So, you know, there's been a lot of discussions here in the States about some new social media platforms and reevaluating where energy is being spent. Is it similar in the Middle East? Is social media a viable platform for communications?

Nick Leighton: 00:12:52

It's a very viable platform and we see a lot of our clients spending considerable money and time and effort in that area. There are different platforms which have different advantages in different countries across our region. So we have to be a little bit careful about that.

And then because of the language differences that we see across our region, it's not as if you could just have one, let's say Instagram account to hit the whole of the Middle East. Because if you are selling a physical product, you would have different retail outlets in one country as opposed to another. So that's one reason why you'd need separate accounts for each Middle East country you're operating in.

Secondly, if you as a consumer was watching an account and half of the posts were in a language you didn't understand, you'd probably stop following that account. So again, you couldn't just have an English and an Arabic, a bilingual account. That's not going to work.

So think about in the US you might have one Instagram account, possibly for the whole country. In the Middle East, you want a separate account for Saudi Arabia, for United Arab Emirates, for Qatar, Bahrain, et cetera. And then in each of those countries you'd probably want a separate account for each language, English and Arabic.

Abbie Fink: 00:13:57

And I, you know, this is a conversation we have quite frequently around social and the responsibility that it comes with managing content on social and recognizing societal norms, cultural norms, what is appropriate, what is, you know, ethical, what is morally appropriate, culturally appropriate. And I think it's not just social media where that comes into play. That mindset needs to be in any kind of communication that we're embarking on is sort of having that filter, if you will, to see that it. And I think your point about different cultures that you are addressing in the Middle East will look at things differently and as communicators with ethical communications, paying attention to what does that mean and how is our messaging landing depending on who our target audience is?

Nick Leighton: 00:15:02

Yeah, absolutely right. So that's the fifth area that we're seeing transformation in an era of growing consumer skepticism, let's put it that way.

Particularly in the Middle East, ethics and transparency are fundamental. So today's consumers demand honesty and accountability, especially as they gain more access to information through all these digital platforms.

So for brands that we represent, this means maintaining clear, open communications, omitting mistakes, avoiding exaggeration or spin from the PR world, but also making sure that we're culturally aware.

The cultures that we work within, the countries that we operate in, have very strict controls over traditional media and they also want to control social media as well. So right now there's a little bit of self control there across the Middle East region.

And when I talk about the Middle East region, I'm really talking about that Gulf area. If you go to a broader area, for example, in Turkey, then actually they have very strict regulations about what you can post as an influencer.

Everything has to be noted within a post. And there are a number of cases of influencers that have been fined a lot of money because they haven't led by that.

I think we're going to see that same kind of thing happening across the Gulf countries in the Middle East.

Adrian McIntyre: 00:16:14

Nick, I wanted to follow up and ask you about that because you mentioned the tight control over the media earlier in this conversation. You've just returned to it now. Many countries in the Middle east, from Morocco to the Gulf, have state owned media.

And many of those same countries and some other countries have state controlled media--media censors and kind of a formal apparatus for managing the media. And still many more of those countries have control over the Internet and control over the information flow.

How does this shape the mindset of the populations? Because as you said, there has been a skepticism and a kind of cynicism towards a lot of things, but at the same time there's an eagerness in many places for authentic or raw information that is somehow coming around and that's been, it's been this way for decades. This is not a new thing at all.

Nick Leighton: 00:17:07

Right.

Adrian McIntyre: 00:17:07

But understanding that many of your clients have to operate under these tightly controlled ... the system of constraints, if you will. And in any cases you need to collaborate with governments and with their media outlets to get the message through.

This is a phenomenon, a dynamic, that certainly most communications firms in Europe or North America would not be familiar with at all. How does that set of conditions affect the process of thinking about messaging in the region?

Nick Leighton: 00:17:36

And you're right, it's nothing new. I think nearly 20 years ago when we had the Arab Spring uprisings, you could see that countries could control the state owned or state monitored media very quickly. But that's when there were things of the rise like Twitter as it was back then, X today.

And that's because that became a peer-to-peer communication almost and they couldn't control that without taking the whole of the telecommunication network down. So nothing new for us. We've been seeing this. There's always been control over what people can see online. Social media is right on the edge of that.

So it's kind of interesting because even from a monitoring perspective, if you are monitoring your press coverage, you know what country that happens in social media? Not so much. And a number of the social media platforms that are large across the world.

If we're getting coverage in the United Arab Emirates, we can't actually pinpoint this from the United Arab Emirates. We're just seeing coverage everywhere. So definitely some dynamics that we can't control. There's a lot of dynamics they would like to control.

So I don't know how that's going to play out. We'll see. I think it's going to be self regulation is going to have to be there.

Anyone who operates a media of any type has licenses across any of these countries. Getting the license is not easy. It takes a long time. It takes a lot of processes. To be banned or to be stopped for some amount of time would be a huge revenue threat to any business. So a media house has to be very careful about what they're posting now as we advise clients, which is really the other side of the question.

It's like, what can we do? If the clients have people in their teams or employees that are in the region, it's a little easier.

But even in the last month we've had to advise clients who aren't from the region who wanted to, for example, celebrate United Arab Emirates National Day, which we had actually this week, and they wanted to use the UAE national flag in their social media and we had to advise them not to use a flag. To some cultures it would seem obvious you don't use the national flag in communications for in other cultures it actually seems patriotic. So yeah, there's a lot of little nuances there. And that's one of the advantages of having a local team that can help you out.

Adrian McIntyre: 00:19:49

Just to wrap this up, is that changing over time as you look forward to the future, this uneasy set of compromises that have defined things?

Nick Leighton: 00:19:57

I don't think so, no. I'm not seeing that change in 20 25 or '26. If anything, I'm seeing that people become more aware of the region and they choose to be in the region. People choose to live there. So therefore you have to choose to go there. You choose to live within that society.

It's unlike other countries where people grow up and then they complain, oh, there's been a change of politics, I'm going to leave the country. And my goodness, isn't that crazy? And obviously we've had celebrities who've done that from the US in the last few weeks.

But no people choose to come to this area. The population of the UAE, someone has to fact check me, but the last time I looked at over 90% of the population was from another country.

10% were local UAE national-born people. So 90% of the population choose to be there. You choose to live by the rules and the regulations.

Adrian McIntyre: 00:20:49

Thanks for listening to this episode of PRGN Presents, brought to you by the Public Relations Global Network.

Abbie Fink: 00:20:55

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