| Kippreport.com

Dubai means business…again

February 27, 2012 4:54 by Eva Fernandes

“I never said she stole my money.”

Putting emphasis on a different word on this seven-word sentence produces seven different meanings. Ain’t it kinda cool?

Kipp’s reminded of this grammatical trick learned some time ago as we listen to one of the most telling quotes in the first video to come out of Dubai’s latest marketing campaign.

The international campaign runs under the tagline ‘Dubai means Business’. It will run in print and online, promoting Dubai as the place to be for businesses from SMEs to MNCs. The first video we are alluding to features the Dubai International Finance Centre (DIFC), Emirates Airlines, China Shipping Company at Jebel Ali Port and Standard Chartered. Expect to see versions of the video on international media titles, including The Economist, Financial Times and Wall Street Journal.

The campaign has been commissioned by Falcon and Associates. According to the company’s website, “Falcon is a strategic planning and advisory company”. It was established by a law issued in June 2009 by HH Sheikh Mohammed.

As for the released video, it is said to be “the first in a series of three films exploring trade and business in Dubai today,” as reported in vision.ae.

Click the image to watch the first released video:

Now back to the quote, which is from the very insightful Dr. Nasser Saidi, DIFC’s Chief Economist. Kipp has featured Dr. Saidi before talking about what he calls the ‘Arab Firestorm’. In the video campaign, he said:

“Dubai has learned how to build infrastructure. If you do it intelligently, physical infrastructure can change economic geography.”

Some might argue that while the first sentence is true, the sentence that follows remains diplomatically vague. There is no doubt Dubai has planted itself on the global psyche, but it is also safe to say that by no means has the city been getting gold stars lately when it comes to the economic scorecard.

We won’t get carried away with the doubts, even as reports like the UAE real estate sector continuing to downsize come to the fore. Kipp does believe the city has a lot of potential to be the business hub that it promotes itself to be.

Having stuck with Dubai during the years of pre-boom, boom, and post-boom, we have seen our share of people who have been rewarded by the city and burnt by the city—the ratio of which we’d be too pensive to quantify.

The verdict? Kipp is happy to see Dubai launch a strategically business-led international campaign. We’ve written before about the necessity of moving beyond being the world’s shopping mall. So it’s great to see that something to this effect is happening. Having seen the pitfalls of a quick rising bubble though, we won’t be surprise if people approach the city with the caution that comes with being burnt before.

What about you? What do you think of the ‘Dubai means Business’ campaign? Leave your comments and suggestions below or on our Facebook page, Twitter (@Kipp_Report) or send us an email at [email protected]

Tags: business, campaign, DIFC, Dubai, Dubai means business, marketing, Nasser Saidi