This month, we talk to Ahmed Noureldin about the growth of Digital Out-of-Home and BackLite’s leading role in that growth.
Hi Nour – welcome to the Newsletter. BackLite Media has recently added more digital ‘destination’ assets to its portfolio (The Beach, La Mer and Al Seef). What makes these locations so attractive to our clients?
Thanks, it’s a pleasure to be here. I can point to two main reasons: great media and the uniqueness of each destination. Our new destinations are located at the hottest spots in Dubai, reaching a variety of audience segments. And – along with City Walk – our new destinations form the most prominent and wide-reaching OOH digital network across the City.
Each location has its own audience profile – how do they differ?
That’s is correct, and when it comes to the nature and the location of each destination, each one attracts a different profile of audience. La Mer for example, is a beach, entertainment and F&B destination with a great boutique cinema and the Lagoona water park. So, visitors tend to be a mix of UAE locals and expats in addition to good quality tourists.
When it comes to The Beach, it’s a main hub for New Dubai attracting many residents from the surrounding areas, as well as good proportion of tourists, so it can be considered as a plus to any advertising campaign that is targeting these audiences.
Al Seef is the newest destination to reach the heart of Old Dubai, giving visitors a wide range of F&B outlets as well as the look and feel of the Dubai heritage area.
The new ‘giga-screen’ at City Walk is also under our portfolio – that’s an extremely impressive sign!
The ‘’giga screen” a well-deserved name; at 175 meters long it brings something completely new to Dubai and to the UAE OOH market. Size, quality and location are what almost every advertiser wants to have. This explains why we have such diverse business segments advertising on the giga-screen – from telecom companies, government, automotive, to online shopping and even currency exchange companies.
How do you see the market developing over the next 5 years?
I’m very optimistic. Despite the slowdown for the past couple of years across the globe, the UAE market has never stopped developing. The amazing success stories of local companies like Souq and Careem, in addition to all the government support, encourages both local and foreign investment and entrepreneurs to put the UAE and Dubai on the top of their plans. And we can all notice the increased presence of the Far Eastern companies and investors over the past few years.
And don’t forget EXPO2020 is around the corner. I’m sure that – as usual! – Dubai is going to bring something completely different to the Expo that will add a new chapter to Dubai’s impressive success stories.
The adoption of digital technology in Dubai has been relatively slow compared to other global cities – but that’s about to change…
The UAE is one of the most advanced digital economies in the world and it never stops developing, with advanced e-gov portals and services impacting on our daily lives.
The UAE now is one of the top 20 digitally-developed countries in the world. And I’m sure that, within the next few years, the UAE’s ranking will surly jump into the top 10 countries in the world.
When it comes to OOH advertising, and in keeping with every other advanced country, we can see the market moving towards digital OOH screens.
At BackLite Media, we are always striving to be one step ahead with the digital development of the City. So, with our first OOH destination – City Walk – we were the first to introduce a digital screen that plays high-res video that can be viewed on the main road, increasing the engagement with our customers. By maintaining the world class quality of our signs we are keeping an unwritten promise to our clients to ensure their investments are generating the best possible results.
And what are BackLite’s future plans
BackLite Media has great expansion plans that have already started; for example, the recent addition of a Cinema division to our portfolio.
As we are the market leaders when it comes to strategy and innovation, we are planning in the near future to introduce new technology systems that will enable our clients to monitor their campaigns in a professional, scientific way.
