Brand strategy in the Middle East: unlearning the playbook

Insight Connect is an initiative where we invite a range of international and local experts to share their experience, view and insights on cultural intelligence and why it matters.

Today, I’m delighted to exchange with Dina Alsharif. Dina is a Brand and Communications Strategy Manager at Accenture Song, with experience shaping brands, narratives and communications across the Middle East.

Having worked across sectors ranging from tourism and technology to government and social impact, she brings a perspective shaped by the region's cultural complexity and constant evolution.

Her work sits at the intersection of business, culture and human behaviour, with a particular interest in challenging the assumptions that have become second nature to the industry. From the tendency to treat the Middle East as one homogenous market to the growing sameness of brand thinking, she believes that meaningful strategy starts not with what we already know, but with what we're willing to question.

With unprecedented access to AI tools, segmentation, and consumer data, marketers have never had more insights. Are these tools actually helping brands understand human motivation in the region? 

DA: I think we're getting much better at describing people, but that doesn't necessarily mean we're getting better at understanding them.

We can tell you what someone searched for, what content they engaged with, which segment they belong to and what they're likely to buy next. But none of that automatically tells us why something matters to them.That's an important distinction, particularly in the Middle East, where identity, aspiration and behaviour don't always fit neatly into the categories we use to describe them.

The danger is that we start confusing the availability of information with the depth of our understanding. AI can identify patterns at a scale we never could before, but it can also reinforce assumptions already embedded in the data.

The strategist's job isn't simply to find more answers. It's to question whether we're asking the right things in the first place.

More data doesn't automatically produce more understanding. Sometimes it just gives us greater confidence in the wrong assumptions.

Creatively speaking, brands can struggle to stand out as they end up using the same data banks and models. With that in mind, we may ask: when everyone follows culture, who creates it?  

DA: I think we're entering an interesting contradiction. Brands have never had more access to cultural intelligence, yet so much of what they produce feels increasingly interchangeable.

Everyone is watching the same trends, analysing the same conversations and using similar tools to interpret what audiences want. And when everyone arrives at the same conclusions, the creative work starts to converge.

However, culture isn't just something to be observed and responded to. It's also something that gets shaped by the ideas people put into the world.

Some of the most memorable brands didn't become memorable by perfectly reflecting what audiences were already doing. They introduced something unexpected. A new behaviour, a different perspective, or even something that initially felt strange.

I worry that in our pursuit of relevance, we're becoming too comfortable with familiarity.If every brand is trying to reflect culture, we risk forgetting that brands can also contribute to actually creating it.

Many brands confuse cultural shortcuts like familiar visual cues or literal Arabic translation with genuine cultural relevance. In the GCC, where are marketers mostly getting it wrong?

DA: In my opinion, the mistake begins when we treat culture as an aesthetic rather than a way of understanding people.

You can put Arabic calligraphy on a campaign, introduce familiar cultural symbols, reference hospitality or community, and still say absolutely nothing meaningful about the audience you're trying to reach.

These elements aren't inherently wrong. But they're often used as substitutes for an actual cultural insight.

The same applies to language. Arabic isn't simply an English message translated into different words. Language carries humour, nuance, emotion and context. And the way people communicate in Riyadh, Dubai or Muscat isn't necessarily interchangeable.

We've become quite good at making campaigns look local. The harder, and far more valuable, challenge is making them feel locally understood & relevant.

I remember Spotify's Listening Is Everything campaign in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, which took a refreshingly different approach. Rather than leaning on the usual cultural imagery, it found humour in everyday situations, from a henna mishap at an Egyptian celebration to the chaos of a desert camping trip in Saudi Arabia.

What made it culturally relevant wasn't the presence of recognisable regional settings. It was the understanding of the people, their humour and the situations they find themselves in. It's a great reminder that sometimes the most authentic portrayal of a culture is also the least polished.

Cultural relevance shouldn't be measured by how many recognisable cultural symbols appear in the work, but by how accurately it reflects people's realities.

Strategy in the Middle East often defaults to treating Dubai as shorthand for the entire UAE, or treating the GCC as a standardised region. What are the biggest outdated marketing assumptions holding brands back from addressing the region’s actual evolution? 

DA: One of the biggest assumptions is that geographic proximity somehow means cultural uniformity.

We speak about the GCC as though it were one audience, when even within a single country, people's experiences, ambitions and relationships with brands can be dramatically different.

Dubai is a good example. It's an incredibly interesting market, but it isn't representative of every experience in the UAE. And the UAE itself can't stand in for Saudi Arabia, Oman or Qatar.

Even our traditional distinctions between local and expatriate, young and old, traditional and modern, are becoming increasingly inadequate.

The region isn't moving along one cultural trajectory. Different generations, communities and cities are negotiating change in different ways, sometimes embracing global influences while holding tightly to local identities.

I think we need to become more comfortable with contradiction. Someone can be deeply traditional and globally minded. Digitally progressive and culturally conservative. Rooted in their heritage without wanting every brand to remind them of it.

The Middle East isn't one market with different flags. It's many worlds, sometimes within the same city.

And the opportunity for strategists & brands alike, is to understand those differences rather than flatten them into a single regional narrative.

How do you feel global brands are exploring tradition vs. modernity in their representation of the region?

DA: We've become exceptionally good at communicating scale, ambition and achievement. The tallest, the biggest, the most luxurious, the most futuristic. Add to that the familiar narratives of hospitality, heritage and progress, and you start to notice how often we're telling variations of the same story.

And while these are genuine strengths, they've also become a rather predictable way of presenting the region to the world.

What's interesting is how little of the Middle East's actual personality makes it into that narrative.

There's an incredible sense of humour here. Wit, playfulness, eccentricity, contradictions, distinctive social behaviours and cultural quirks that people across the region instantly recognise. Yet so much of our brand communications feel remarkably serious, polished and carefully controlled.

It's almost as though we've decided that to be respected globally, we need to present the most formal version of ourselves.One example I particularly like is KFC's Taste Rules campaign in the region. It took something we almost always portray with a certain reverence, Arab hospitality, and flipped it on its head. Instead of the usual perfectly presented gatherings and polite guests, it celebrated the chaos of eating together. Double-dipping, messy fingers, fighting over the last piece of chicken. All the things we recognise but rarely see reflected in our advertising.

What I love about it is that it didn't abandon cultural relevance to be funny. The humour came from understanding the culture well enough to play with its unwritten rules. And the audience response showed that this less conventional approach could resonate.

But culture isn't only found in our achievements, heritage or hospitality. It's also found in the everyday moments, the things we laugh about, the way we interact and the peculiarities that make us who we are.

I'd love to see more brands embrace that side of the Middle East. Not everything needs to be grand, aspirational or a statement of national ambition. Sometimes the most culturally resonant thing a brand can do is show a little personality.

We've spent years showing the world what the Middle East is capable of. Perhaps it's time we showed them more of who we are.

To conclude, Dina, how do you feel global brands and strategists should approach the Middle East moving forward? 

The Middle East doesn't need another playbook for cultural relevance. It needs more curiosity, more courage to challenge familiar narratives, and a willingness to look beyond what we think we already know.

For brands and strategists, the opportunity isn't simply to reflect how the region is changing, but to uncover the stories, behaviours and perspectives that have been hiding in plain sight.

Perhaps the most important thing we can do as strategists isn't to learn more about the Middle East, but to unlearn what we've been taught to see.

This is Insight Connect, a platform where cultural intelligence lands. Watch this space for more culture-first conversations.