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Saudi Arabia pins branding hopes on Riyadh Air launch

Clothing, Hat, Aircraft Alamy via Reuters
Riyadh Air unveiled its brand identity and livery last year. The airline will make its first flight next summer
  • New airline debuts next summer
  • ‘Unifying message’ seen as vital
  • Sports investments paying off

Saudi Arabia still hasn’t found the magic sauce for branding its social and economic reforms. 

Hopes are high that the launch of Riyadh Air will do for the kingdom what Emirates airline did for Dubai, industry experts say.

“We saw the journey of the UAE, how brands started there then became iconic on a global level. Probably the best example is Emirates airline,” says Mounir Harfouche, CEO of advertising agency MullenLowe Mena. 

“The idea is to build the brand but every brand takes time to build.” 

Saudi Arabia is ploughing $1.25 trillion into diversifying its economy away from oil, in an attempt to place the country at the forefront of new industries and change global perceptions. 

The government is spending billions on infrastructure expansion, including a new airport in Riyadh, in the expectation of tourism rising to 10 percent of GDP by 2030, from around 4 percent at present

Key draws could be sports and entertainment city Qiddiya, branded as an Arab Disneyland, and a Riyadh museum featuring Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi.

The Dubai model seems to have guided the government in establishing a new national airline, Riyadh Air, due to operate out of the new airport from next summer. 

“Getting a world class airline in and out of Saudi Arabia – it’s super-critical,” says Dhiraj Joshi, a partner at management consultancy Arthur D. Little Middle East. 

“If you look at the UAE, especially Dubai, it stands apart. Everything came together when Emirates and Dubai developed that hub.”

There are signs that huge investments in sport are paying off, batting away what one Western diplomat called the “scare factor” still felt in some Western countries. 

A recent survey of online and printed material from more than 14,000 media outlets found that the Saudi Pro League, for example, is winning a global audience, with Indonesia accounting for 15 percent of viewers and the United States accounting for 12 percent. 

Harfouche says Saudi Arabia is doing something unique in the esports category, with gaming districts planned for Qiddiya and hosting the recent World Cup

“What’s happening on the football front and esports – the gaming industry – there’s something magical about these categories and they’re big in Saudi Arabia,” he says. 

Another candidate for a defining brand is the futuristic city Neom – the jewel in the crown of the Saudi giga-projects that is currently gobbling up 20 percent of global steel resources.

With lower oil prices causing a slowdown and the government diverting resources to Riyadh-based projects ahead of the World Expo in 2030, Neom has seen some delays. 

Its horizontal city The Line has been cut from a planned 170km to 5km at opening in 2030, although mountain resort Trojena is still on track to host the Asian Winter Games in 2029. 

One Riyadh-based media professional, who does not wish to be named, says the government needs to streamline its fragmented marketing, which is divided among different giga-projects, entities and regions. 

“They are trying to do too much. They need to focus on a couple of things and do them well,” he says. “Unifying the message is a basic need. There are too many chiefs who don’t know what they want or are doing.” 

But Harfouche says a unified message would eventually dominate the branding. 

“Like all brands you need to be consistent for people to start believing in you, you need proof points, you need time to be credible,” he says. 

“They’re making a lot of efforts individually and at the level of the government. At a certain point in time everyone will emerge onto one singular point which becomes the combination of all of that.”

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