It might come in at a gruelling 136 slides, but this 2016 Tech & Media Outlook from consulting firm Activate at last month’s WSJ Live Conference is jam-packed with interesting stats, insights and projections for the future of technology, media and entertainment. It’s a bit of a slog if you’re trying to absorb all the information presented, but it’s well worth a skim through at least.
Dubai is a city that is not afraid of ambition. Pumping billions into positioning itself as a tourist mecca and business hub, the place is an attention seeking over-achiever of sorts. Sprouting up from the desert almost from scratch over the last 20 years, the entire city has a start-up mentality. Things happen quickly.
Not that long ago, Dubai was a sleepy backwater that was mainly home to fishermen and pearl-divers. Since the 90’s however, when the rulers set out to strategically diversify it’s economy from oil to tourism and business, things have seriously picked up pace. These days, new properties and infrastructure seemingly pop up overnight, and rarely a week goes by without an announcement of some new extravagant project.
In a city that is made up almost entirely of foreign expats, there’s a level of cultural diversity that is hard to match, a factor that results in a distinctly entrepreneurial spirit across every aspect of the city.
A thriving tech ecosystem
As the technology revolution continues apace, an increasing amount of angel investors and venture capital funds have been drawn to Dubai. And many investors here who had historically looked at tangible assets like property to invest in are now backing new technologies and local start-ups. When you consider that the UAE has one of the highest smartphone penetration rates in the world at 78%, and eCommerce spending is continuing to grow at speed, it’s clear that there is certainly plenty of opportunity in this part of the world.
Incubators and accelerators such as In5, Silicon Oasis, i360 & Turn 8 have sprouted up over the last few years, and business friendly ‘free-zones’ and co-working spaces such as Impact Hub, The Cribb, AstroLabs and MAKE Business Hub, to name but a few, give companies the flexibility they need to innovate and grow.
Region-specific opportunities
With some of the traditional global tech monsters having been slow to address the region over the years, this created opportunities for home grown start-ups geared to a more region-specific audience to take advantage. While eCommerce giants like Amazon and eBay don’t technically operate in the country, this paved the way for local companies like online reseller Souq.com (Souk being the name for a traditional marketplace), and other P2P platforms like Dubizzle to flourish.
With Uber only launching in the country last year, this let competing private car-booking app Careem steal a march and build up a significant customer base in the meantime. Careem, made the trip to Dublin to pitch at the START showcase during last year’s Web Summit and have since gone on to raise a $10 Million round of funding.
While it was originally a challenge to move consumers in the city away from the traditional ‘cash-on-delivery’ model for online purchases, companies like daily deal site Cobone oversaw a shift in consumer sentiment with users finally truly embracing eCommerce since the start of this decade.
A regional hub – connecting the world
Acting as a regional hub, many companies use Dubai as a launch pad to take on other local markets. Dubai International Airport recently took over from London Heathrow as the busiest airport in the world for international passenger traffic, and the state carrier Emirates Airline, has also grown into the world’s biggest international airline since it’s humble roots in the 1980’s.
In November 2013, Dubai was chosen as the host city for the 2020 World Expo and the plans for the Expo Village include a purpose-built 438-hectare site that will house the event, which is estimated to attract 25 million visitors over 6 months, and bring $40 Billion of investment into the economy. A serious coup for the start-up sector and for the city in general even further putting it on the global map in a business and innovation sense.
Influenced from the top
If a company can be said to be a reflection of it’s leadership, then the same must be said for countries too. In this sense, Dubai revels in the patronage of it’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who is intent on fostering an innovation and Smart City mentally across every aspect of Dubai, from communication and technology, to transport and logistics.
This year alone, the government has facilitated a $1 Million international drone technology competition, a similar initiative for the AI and robotics industry, as well as announcing a entire museum dedicated to technology and innovation called the ‘Museum of the Future’ to inspire the creators of tomorrow.
Whatever way you look at it, Dubai is a contradiction of sorts. But love it or hate it, it’s a city that runs on an entrepreneurial drive and a spirit of innovation.
This week’s Cannes Lions festival has given us plenty of food for thought when it comes to the intersection of technology and advertising. Along with the usual celebrity interviews (apparently celebs can teach ad and tech folks a lot about creativity!), there was a few box office draws from the tech world, as well as some interesting announcements. Here are a couple of the highlights of the Cannes festival, along with some other interesting things that happened in the industry over the last week.
SnapChat founder Evan Spiegel speaks at Cannes Lions
It’s no secret that SnapChat is on the AdLand charm offensive, and while they are somewhat of a flavour of the month at the moment, there’s still some serious concerns from advertisers and publishers when it comes to the targeting capabilities of the platform. This made for an interesting dynamic when Evan Spiegel sat down with Cosmopolitan editor-in-chief Joanna Coles during the week and discussed the challenges facing both SnapChat and the advertising industry in general. On one hand, advertisers need to be able to target the users that they want to reach, but they also need to tread carefully on a platform that places user privacy at it’s core.
WPP, The Daily Mail and Snapchat are launching a native advertising agency
Evan Spiegel has been busy this week. Another big announcement at Cannes was the collaboration between SnapChat, advertising conglomerate WPP, and the Daily Mail, to create a digital content agency called Truffle Pig. The focus of the new agency will be to create content that seems less like traditional advertising that will appeal to young consumers. This content will be served on SnapChat, DailyMail.com and Elite Daily as well as on other digital channels based on the client’s needs.
This partnership makes sense for all concerned as SnapChat are still finding their feet when it comes to advertising, publishers like the Daily Mail are still coming to terms with monetizing on digital channels, and agencies are constantly trying to find a way to create content for their brands that appeals to young consumers. We are still, relatively speaking, in the early stages of the digital advertising revolution, and having publishers, agencies and social platforms working closely together to try and learn from each other can only be beneficial in the long run.
Starbucks have released an app update that lets you pre-order and skip the queue
Starbucks are one of the biggest innovators in the world when it comes to using mobile technology in retail. Their latest app update includes a feature that lets customers order and pay ahead of time so that they can skip the queue and pick up their coffee as soon as they arrive at the store. It’s an addition to their hugely popular consumer app that lets users pay for their coffee and engage with their loyalty program that launched in 2011. The app is one of the highest performing mobile payment apps in retail accounting for over 7 million mobile payments per week in the US (that’s 16% of all of their transactions). Constantly adding features like this goes to shows why it’s so popular.
Dollar Shave Club is now worth $615 Million
Can a viral video really impact a company’s long-term growth? Dollar Shave Club, a men’s shaving subscription service, found mainstream attention in 2012 when their company promotional video went viral. It was announced during the week that after raising $75 million in a new funding round the company is now valued at $615 million. Apparently, the company still isn’t turning a profit though, which raises a few questions around valuing a company on their projected future turnover despite high customer acquisition costs and increased competition. Building a subscription service that scales is one thing, but maintaining those recurring purchases over the long term is another thing completely so we’ll have to wait and see how this one turns out.
QR Codes are really popular in China. Who Knew?
While scanning QR Codes has never really become a mainstream consumer behaviour in most markets, in China things are a little different. Due to the crazy complicated URLs that they tend to use in China, mainly involving numbers due to the difficulty with using Chinese characters, it can be very difficult for users to remember the addresses of the sites they come across. Scanning QR Codes means that they don’t have to. The fact that the most popular mobile apps in China like Weibo and WeChat have in-built QR Code readers means everyone has a readily available QR Code reader in their pocket. Chinese consumers use QR Codes for everything from signing up to companies loyalty programs, sharing their information, and searching online. It’s interesting to see how (and why) technologies can thrive in some markets, while stagnating in others.
Another treasure trove of stats from ‘Queen of the Internet’ Mary Meeker this week with her annual Internet Trends Report, including that the mobile advertising market opportunity is worth an estimated $25 Billion. It’s a long report as usual, coming in at 196 slides, but it’s essential reading for anyone in the technology, media, or advertising industries.
Here’s another brilliant piece of industry analysis from Scott Galloway of digital innovation think tank L2, to add to his talk at last year’s DLD NYC event. In it, he proposes that an online-only approach to retail is not sustainable, and that ‘pureplay’ online-only retailers like Fab.com have so far relied on a novelty factor to woo investors. These online retailers will face stiffer competition as traditional brick-and-mortar retailers get better at selling online and on mobile and, to defend against this, they need to make some sort of a move towards physical retail. Galloway even predicts that Amazon will acquire a company with a huge location base like a chain of gas stations or post offices.
I’m a Digital Strategist passionate about the intersection between technology and creative marketing. Last year I moved to London after 11 years living in Dubai.
