Government authorities in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region are ensuring that they are reaching consumers with their various messages and endeavors. This is reflected in survey done by Northwestern University in Qatar and Doha Film Institute that shows that government’s share of ad spend is more than any other industry. Unlike in the other world regions, the government accounted for 20 percent of total ad spend in 2015 in MENA. Among the share of ad spend, the market structure across industry segments has been consistent over the past three years. After governments, the second largest ad spender is the food, beverage & tobacco (FBT) category, closely followed by hygiene & household products (HHP) and telecom & utilities (T&U).
Although it is common practice for industries to allocate advertising budget across major platforms, each industry has a different platform mix. Based on the study, a few noticeable preferences are apparent among certain sectors. For example, newspapers are highly popular with Government as newspapers have a more national reach as compared to other channels. Automotive and financial services categories also use newspapers more than other channels for advertisement. Similarly, television is a hugely popular channel among FBT, HHP, and T&U industries. And radio is most popular among telecom operators such as STC, Telecom Egypt, Vodafone, etc.
These statistics are a part of Northwestern University’s and Doha Film Institute’s cooperative effort, named ‘Media Industries in the Middle East’, to better understand the media and communication landscape in the Arab world. This project involves region specific surveys about media usage in the Middle East.
