Robert McGovern – Thoughts on Mobile, Tech & Digital Marketing from Dubai, UAE

I’m a digital strategist at Horizontal Digital, passionate about the intersection between technology and creativity. I’ve been living in Dubai, UAE since 2011.

I write about technology and digital marketing and regularly feature in magazines such as Campaign Middle East, WIRED Middle East, Entrepreneur Middle East, Arabian Business, and Forbes Middle East, as well as in the Khaleej Times newspaper, the Web Summit blog, LinkedIn Pulse daily newsletter, Wamda, Lovin.ie and the blogs for Horizontal Digital and Serviceplan Group.

Digital Media, Web & Mobile

I’ve worked on both the agency and client side, for small web start-ups and larger international software companies and agencies, in a strategy, project management and business development capacity.

I have been involved in managing various digital activities for clients such as Emirates NBD, DP World, Danone Nutricia, BMW, MINI, Toyota, Emaar, Nespresso, Commercial Bank of Dubai and MAN Truck, involving projects across Web Design and Mobile App Development, Content Creation, SEO, CMS Management, User Database Management, Email Campaigns and Digital Display Campaigns. I’ve also been involved in pursuing new digital projects involving mobile technology and Virtual Reality among others.

In my spare time I freelance in web design and work with HTML, CSS, Graphic Design & UX/UI.

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International Development

I have significant international experience having worked across the Middle East, Europe, North America and Africa. I also have an MSc. in International Business Growth from UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School as well as having studied International Business at the University of Applied Sciences Wiener Neustadt, Austria.

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Achievements

During 2011 / 2012 I was part of Enterprise Ireland’s inaugural Graduates for International Growth programme having been included in the top 4% of over 1,200 college graduate applicants. I also have an MSc. in International Business Growth from University College Dublin and a BSc. in Marketing from Dublin Institute of Technology.

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My Blog

WTF is an NFT?

I originally wrote this article for the April 25th 2021 issue of Campaign Middle East magazine
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last few weeks you’ve probably heard people talking about NFTs, or non-fungible tokens – digital files such as images, videos, audio or text.. →

Moderating Campaign Middle East’s AdTech Strategies 2021 Panel

I was delighted to moderate today’s AdTech Strategies 2021 panel for Campaign Middle East. The panelists were from Google, Huawei Ads and MMP WorldWide.

Find out more here and watch it here.

Programmatic after cookies

The cookie is dead. Long live … the what? As Google.. →

Catch me on this week’s episode of The Prof G Show

I appeared on this week’s episode of Scott Galloway’s The Prof G Show with an Office Hours question about Facebook’s antitrust challenges:

With all this antitrust pressure facing Facebook at the moment, do you think there’s any chance that – if they are forced.. →

Interview with Reem Al Marzouqi for WIRED Middle East

I originally wrote this article for the Autumn 2020 issue of WIRED Middle East magazine

Thomas Edison was a busy guy. The renowned American inventor was responsible for such innovations as the phonograph, the incandescent light bulb and one of the earliest motion picture cameras. In total,.. →

Google says that user experience will soon affect your search ranking

I originally wrote this article for Campaign Middle East magazine
Cast your mind back to 2015. It might seem like a lifetime ago for a lot of reasons, but it was also an inflection point of sorts for digital media – social media had finally revealed itself as a pay-to-play platform for advertisers,.. →

The power of first-party data in a cookie-less world

I originally wrote this article for the May 31st 2020 issue of Campaign Middle East magazine

The humble web browser cookie doesn’t get much love these days. Despite being part of the fabric of the internet since web browsers took off in the mid-nineties, cookies still get a bad rap. While.. →

Can Careem become the SuperApp of the Middle East?

I originally wrote this article for Forbes Middle East

Hot on the heels of launching a new bike rental network across Dubai last month, ride-hailing app Careem has hinted at ambitious plans to further branch out from being a transportation and food delivery platform, and become an all-encompassing.. →

The mystery of the most expensive painting ever sold

I originally wrote this article for the October 27th 2019 issue of Arabian Business magazine

Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘lost’ painting, Salvator Mundi, sold for $450m back in 2017, becoming the most expensive painting ever sold. It was supposed to go on public display at the Louvre Abu Dhabi.. →

It’s time to push back against distraction – Nir Eyal Interview

I interviewed ‘Indistractable’ author Nir Eyal for the October 2019 issue of Entrepreneur Middle East magazine
We live in a world of constant distraction these days. Or at least that’s the way it feels. An army of devices and digital media channels call out to us, demanding our.. →

Face Off

Originally written for the September 22nd 2019 issue of Campaign Middle East magazine
Our faces say a lot about us. They let other people know whether we’re happy or sad, angry or afraid, surprised or disgusted. They’re a window into our emotional state. And as facial recognition technology.. →

Hello…

Digital Media, Web & Mobile

International Development

Achievements

My Blog