DUBAI: Understanding the Saudi consumer is a key goal for many marketers in the Arabian Gulf. You only needed to glance at the program for this year’s Dubai Lynx International Festival of Creativity — the annual advertising show and awards — to realize this.
Yet of those consumers, it is those born after 1995 — otherwise known as Generation Z, or post-Millennials — that are of particular interest to brands. Why? Because they are reshaping the face of consumerism.
On a global level Generation Z tends to be socially conscious, rebellious and ethical. In 2015 the economist, author and professor, Noreena Hertz released the findings of a research project into the attitudes of 13 to 20-year-olds — a group she nicknamed “Generation Katniss” after the star of “The Hunger Games.”
Hertz found that only 6 percent of this generation trust big corporations to “do the right thing.” For 20 to 30-year-olds, it was 12 percent. She also revealed that the generation’s wider concerns focus on data privacy and inequality, while traditional institutions were distrusted.
Efforts to reach Gen Z
Drawing on research conducted across eight markets in the region, media agency UM MENA has studied the behavior and purchasing decisions of Generation Z regionally. It has done this via the use of both “big” and “small” data. For Saudi Arabia, this meant a survey of 440 teenagers in the Kingdom, the use of ethnographic focus groups and social listening exercises.
“Many international brands faltered when trying to communicate with teens in the region,” said Melissa Moubarak, strategy manager at UM MENA, during a talk on Generation Z at the Dubai Lynx.
“Some, particularly the edgier ones, have come in with a very Western brand of edginess, one of complete rebellion and dissent. Others, in an effort to be culturally conscious, have tried to communicate along a very conservative line. Both got nowhere fast. The majority of today’s Arab teens cannot be considered subversive the way Western teens are. But at the same time, their exposure to globalized ways of thinking have made them a lot more liberal than most of the societies they live in.”
Flashes of rebellion
In Saudi Arabia, UM’s research has found that 87 percent of those who fall within the Generation Z bracket believe it is important to be accepted by society, while 56 percent said it was important to stand out and be noticed. The result is flashes of rebellion. This rebellion takes shape via little streaks of “uncommon” behavior that breaks day-to-day conformism.
“These happen more frequently in the virtual world, but also extend into the real world — a dash of purple lipstick here, a hidden tattoo, crazy hair color under a hijab,” said Moubarak. “This is how we are seeing the rise of unusual hybrids among Arab teens.”
She points to trends such as “Hijabi Lolitas” (in which head coverings are added to the Japanese fashion look) and Mipsterz (Muslim hipsters) as an example, both of which try to combine the best of both worlds. A further indication of this is that 53 percent of teenagers in Saudi Arabia said they prefer to overlay the traditional with the unusual.
Virtual versus real world
Their preferred means of communication is the smartphone and various forms of social media and messaging apps. It is here that the lines between the virtual and the real become blurred, with 18 percent of the Saudi teens admitting they would prefer to have no face-to-face communication whatsoever, against a national average of 3 percent.
Virtual communication also means a tendency toward visual communication, such as the use of emoji, with almost three quarters of those polled in Saudi Arabia saying it is important to seem active on social media.
“What we have noticed, however, is the natural talent this generation has at crafting beautiful visual stories around their personal brands,” said Moubarak.
“Growing up under the digital spotlight has made teens today acutely aware of their personal brand and how they portray themselves online.”
Teens live in an “ego-system” where their personal tastes and preferences reign supreme, driven by deep impulses toward convenience, said UM’s research.
Social media climbers
Generation Z is also less likely to use Facebook and has an affinity for Snapchat. It is always on and broadcasts live to the world. If you add this to the fact that Saudi Arabia has the highest YouTube watch-time per capita globally, you end up with a picture of youth that is changing the rules of influence and engagement.
“The implications for brands? Harness their talents as self-promoters,” said Moubarak. “Over two-thirds said they wanted to be famous online, more and more of them are entrepreneurial, self-taught, making use of the masses of applications freely available to them to voice who they are online. Interestingly, this has become more than just play for them. The desire to become famous online, coupled with success stories of ‘influencers like them’ has made their communication a lot less about play and a lot more serious.”
Among those on stage with Moubarak was Raha Moharrak, the first Saudi woman to climb Mount Everest. A social media influencer as well as a climber, she offered her advice to those seeking to stand out and be noticed.
“If you ask me what advice I give to any generation, it is this,” said Moharrak. “First be honest with yourself about what you want and if you were born in the Arab world, sit down with your family and tell them ‘this is my dream’. Because that is the first step to getting there. Have that conversation. Give your parents a chance to talk to you. Don’t just hide.”
Marketers chasing Saudi Arabia’s elusive Gen Z
Marketers chasing Saudi Arabia’s elusive Gen Z
YouTube educator says she is ready to risk career for Gaza’s children
- Ms Rachel says personal encounters with Palestinian families compel her to act
LONDON: American children’s educator and YouTuber Rachel Griffin Accurso, known globally as Ms Rachel, has said she is willing to jeopardize her career to advocate for Palestinian children suffering under Israeli bombardment in Gaza.
Ms Rachel said she had been targeted by online campaigns and faced calls for government investigation after voicing support for children affected by war in Gaza and elsewhere.
Despite growing criticism from some pro-Israel groups and conservative media, she said she remained defiant in a recent interview with WBUR, a Boston-based public radio station.
She said: “I would risk everything — and I will risk my career over and over to stand up for children. It’s all about the kids for me. I wouldn’t be Ms Rachel if I didn’t deeply care about all kids.”
Her comments came as humanitarian agencies continue to sound the alarm over conditions in Gaza, where more than 54,000 Palestinians have been killed, and the UN has warned that the enclave faces imminent famine.
The YouTube star said a recent meeting with Palestinian mothers, whose children remain trapped in Gaza, had had a profound effect on her. She said: “When you sit with a mother who’s FaceTiming her boys in Gaza who don’t have food, and you see that anguish, you ask yourself: What more can I do?”
Ms Rachel recently published about her encounter with Rahaf, 3, a double amputee from Gaza who was evacuated for medical treatment in the US by the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund.
Rahaf’s story, including her wish to return to school and stand while praying, has been shared by Ms Rachel on her social media platforms, alongside the educator’s advocacy for children in Gaza.
Ms Rachel has faced accusations of bias, including a call by a pro-Israel organization urging the US attorney general to investigate her messaging. She acknowledged the pressure, but insisted her mission remains unchanged.
She said: “It’s painful, but I know who I am, and I know how deeply and equally I care for all children.”
A former teacher in New York, Ms Rachel said her work had always been rooted in the principle that all children, regardless of nationality or background, deserved dignity, safety, and access to basic needs.
She added: “That’s the basis of everything for me — children are equal.”
BBC defends Gaza coverage after White House criticism over aid site reporting
- White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt accused the BBC of taking “the word of Hamas with total truth,” claimed the corporation had retracted a story about aid distribution center incident in Rafah on Sunday
- BBC rejected accusations as “completely wrong,” saying figures were attributed and updated throughout the day based on information from a range of sources
LONDON: The BBC has strongly defended its reporting of a deadly incident near a US-backed aid distribution site in Gaza, rejecting criticism from the White House as “incorrect” and denying claims that it had taken down a story.
The row erupted after White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, during a press briefing on Tuesday, accused the BBC of relying on information from Hamas in its initial reporting of a shooting near an aid distribution center in Rafah on Sunday.
Leavitt also claimed the BBC had retracted a story — a claim the broadcaster called “completely wrong.”
“The claim the BBC took down a story after reviewing footage is completely wrong. We did not remove any story and we stand by our journalism,” the BBC said in a statement.
Leavitt’s remarks came in response to questions about reports that Israeli forces had opened fire near the aid site. Holding printed screenshots from the BBC website, she accused the broadcaster of changing casualty figures in multiple headlines and said it had “corrected and taken down” its report.
“The administration is aware of those reports and we are currently looking into the veracity of them because, unfortunately, unlike some in the media, we don’t take the word of Hamas with total truth,” she said.
Leavitt listed a series of changing headlines: “We like to look into it when they speak, unlike the BBC, who had multiple headlines, they wrote, ‘Israeli tank kills 26’, ‘Israeli tank kills 21’, ‘Israeli gunfire kills 31’, ‘Red Cross says, 21 people were killed in an aid incident.’”
“And then, oh, wait, they had to correct and take down their entire story, saying: ‘We reviewed the footage and couldn’t find any evidence of anything,’” she said.
The BBC issued a swift rebuttal, emphasizing that all casualty figures were clearly attributed and updated throughout the day based on information from a range of sources — standard practice in any fast-moving situation, especially during conflict.
According to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, at least 31 people were killed in the gunfire. The International Committee of the Red Cross later confirmed that 21 people had died. Initial reports from local medics cited 15 dead.
The numbers were “always clearly attributed, from the first figure of 15 from medics, through the 31 killed from the Hamas-run health ministry to the final Red Cross statement of ‘at least 21’ at their field hospital,” the BBC statement said.
“Our news stories and headlines about Sunday’s aid distribution center incident were updated throughout the day with the latest fatality figures as they came in from various sources … This is totally normal practice on any fast-moving news story.
“Completely separately, a BBC Verify online report on Monday reported a viral video posted on social media was not linked to the aid distribution center it claimed to show.
“This video did not run on BBC news channels and had not informed our reporting. Conflating these two stories is simply misleading,” it added.
Witnesses, NGOs and local health officials said that civilians had been shot at while waiting for food at the Rafah aid point. The Israeli military denied these claims and said its forces had not fired at civilians. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a US- and Israeli-backed private group overseeing aid distribution, dismissed the reports as “outright fabrications.”
On Wednesday, GHF announced a temporary suspension of its operations in Gaza, citing security concerns. The Israeli army warned that roads leading to aid centers were now considered “combat zones.”
The closure follows a string of deadly incidents that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has condemned as “unacceptable” and potentially “war crimes.”
The information war surrounding the conflict — now in its 21st month — has intensified, with both Israel and Hamas battling to control the narrative.
Independent reporting from Gaza remains limited. Israel continues to bar international media, including the BBC, from entering the territory, forcing news organizations to rely on local journalists, social media and unofficial channels.
Many local reporters are working under extreme physical and psychological pressure and are themselves frequent targets of Israeli airstrikes.
The BBC reiterated its call for unimpeded media access and urged the White House to support that demand.
“It’s important that accurate journalism is respected,” said Jonathan Munro, deputy director of BBC News. “And that governments call for free access to Gaza.”
Houthis abduct 4 journalists, jail another for criticizing leader, says watchdog
- Committee to Protect Journalists and local authorities condemn the action, saying it “exemplifies the Houthis’ escalating assault on press freedom”
LONDON: At least four journalists have been abducted and another jailed for criticizing the Houthis’ leader, media watchdog the Committee to Protect Journalists said on Tuesday.
Local reports claim freelance photographer Abduljabbar Zayad, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reporter Hassan Ziyad, Soorah Media Production Center director Abdulaziz Al-Noum and deputy head of the Yemeni Journalists Syndicate Walid Ali Ghalib were abducted between May 21-23.
On May 24, the Specialized Criminal Court in the Houthi-held capital Sanaa sentenced Yemeni journalist Mohamed Al-Miyahi t0 18 months in prison for criticizing Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi online.
Al-Miyahi was also ordered to sign a pledge not to resume his journalistic work and to pay a guarantee of SR5 million ($20,500), which he would forfeit if he continued to publish material critical of the state.
Regional director of the CPJ, Sara Qudah, condemned the actions and said: “The kidnapping of at least four Yemeni journalists and media workers and the sentence issued against Mohamed Al-Miyahi exemplify the Houthis’ escalating assault on press freedom.
“We call on Houthi authorities to immediately release all detained journalists and stop weaponizing the law and courts to legitimize their repression of independent voices.”
The Yemeni Journalists Syndicate also condemned the kidnapping, calling it an “arbitrary campaign targeting journalists and freedom of opinion and expression.”
A statement released by the organization said: “The syndicate considers these abductions a continuation of the approach of repression and targeting of journalists and opinion holders, and a hostile behavior towards freedom of opinion and expression, holding the Houthi group fully responsible for the lives and safety of the detained colleagues.”
Al-Miyahi has criticized the Iran-backed Houthis in a series of articles, broadcasts and social media posts. In his last article, prior to his abduction in September 2024 and enforced disappearance for more than a month, he accused the group of suppressing freedom of expression and “not respect(ing) people and treat(ing) them like mindless and unconscious herds.”
In January he appeared in court accused of “publishing articles against the state.” The YJS called the trial a “sham (…) where the verdict was read aloud by the judge from a mobile phone inside the courtroom, violating the most basic standards of fair trial procedures.”
The CPJ accused the Houthis, who control Sanaa and govern more than 70 percent of Yemen’s population, of running a “parallel justice system (…) widely seen as lacking impartiality” and argued Al-Miyahi’s prosecution violated Article 13 of Yemen’s press law, which protects journalists from punishment for publishing their opinions.
Israeli army blocks Oscar media tour of villages in West Bank
- Soldiers bar journalists from visiting Palestinian residents on trip organized by award winners
JERUSALEM: Israeli soldiers on Monday barred journalists from entering villages in the West Bank on a planned tour organized by the directors of the Oscar-winning movie “No Other Land.”
The directors of the film, which focuses on Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territory, said they had invited the journalists on the tour Monday to interview residents about increasing settler violence in the area.
In a video posted on X by the film’s co-director, Yuval Abraham, an Israeli soldier tells a group of international journalists there is “no passage” in the area because of a military order.
Basel Adra, a Palestinian co-director of the film who lives in the area, said the military then blocked the journalists from entering two Palestinian villages they had hoped to visit.
‘They don’t want the world to see what is happening here’
“They don’t want journalists to visit the villages to meet the residents,” said Adra, who had invited the journalists to his home. “It’s clear they don’t want the world to see what is happening here.”
Some of the surrounding area, including a collection of small Bedouin villages known as Masafer Yatta, was declared by the military to be a live-fire training zone in the 1980s.
Some 1,000 Palestinians have remained there despite being ordered out, and journalists, human rights activists, and diplomats have visited the villages in the past.
Palestinian residents in the area have reported increasing settler violence since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel and kick-started the war in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli soldiers regularly move in to demolish homes, tents, water tanks, and olive orchards — and Palestinians fear outright expulsion could come at any time.
Adra said the journalists were eventually able to enter one of the villages in Masafer Yatta, but were barred from entering Tuwani, the village where he lives, and Khallet A-Daba, where he had hoped to take them.
Adra said settlers arrived in Khallet A-Daba on Monday and took over some of the caves where village residents live, destroying residents’ belongings and grazing hundreds of sheep on village lands.
The military demolished much of the village last month.
“No Other Land,” which won the Oscar this year for best documentary, chronicles the struggle by residents to stop the Israeli military from demolishing their villages.
The joint Palestinian-Israeli production was directed by Adra, Hamdan Ballal, another Palestinian activist from Masafer Yatta, along with Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor.
The film has won a string of international awards.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.
The Palestinians want all three for their future state and view settlement growth as a major obstacle to a two-state solution.
Israel has built well over 100 settlements, home to over 500,000 settlers who have Israeli citizenship.
The 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the Palestinian Authority administering population centers.
‘No safe place’: Writer’s group PEN International calls for arms embargo on Israel
- NGO says Palestinian writers have built growing body of evidence demonstrating systematic Israeli efforts to erase the Palestinian people and their cultural heritage
- Open letter details ‘irreversible loss of much of Gaza’s tangible and intangible cultural heritage’
LONDON: Writer’s group PEN International on Monday urged the international community to impose an arms embargo on all parties involved in the war in Gaza, calling specifically for a ban on weapons used by Israel in attacks that have targeted Palestinian civilians across the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
In an open letter, the London-based association expressed outrage at what it described as the global community’s failure to hold Israel accountable for the “ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.”
The letter condemned the daily killing of civilians and the prolonged blockade, calling for immediate action to halt the assault.
“PEN International has documented harrowing testimonies of Palestinian writers across the OPT, all of whom have reported and corroborated the growing body of evidence demonstrating concerted and systematic efforts by Israel to erase the Palestinian people and their cultural heritage, particularly in Gaza,” the open letter said.
The group said it shared the view of other international organizations that “genocide is being perpetrated against Palestinians in Gaza through various means,” and reported that at least 23 writers — excluding artists and other cultural workers — have been killed in Israeli bombardments since Oct. 7, 2023.
Describing the current period as “the deadliest for writers since the Second World War,” PEN International said the assault on Palestinian culture — through the destruction of heritage sites, cultural spaces, and the targeting of writers and journalists — was “a deliberate strategy to silence and erase the Palestinian people.”
The NGO joins a growing number of organizations, experts and legal scholars that have concluded Israel’s conduct in Gaza meets the threshold of genocide.
The International Court of Justice ruled last year that Palestinians face a “plausible risk of genocide,” and UN experts, aid agencies, and hundreds of legal specialists and genocide scholars have echoed that assessment.
Even former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, writing in Haaretz, recently described the offensive as a “war of extermination,” though he stopped short of using the term “genocide.”
PEN International’s letter also detailed the “irreversible loss of much of Gaza’s tangible and intangible cultural heritage,” including independent cultural institutions, personal libraries and literary work, many of which were created under extreme restrictions and later destroyed in the war.
As of the end of May, UNESCO confirmed damage to 110 cultural sites in Gaza since the war began, including religious landmarks, historic buildings, museums and archaeological sites.
Testimonies gathered by PEN International also described the conditions faced by Palestinian writers amid the persistent threat to their lives.
“The relentless Israeli military operations, the indiscriminate bombardment of so-called ‘safe zones’ with high explosives, unexploded ordnance, sniper attacks targeting civilians, and the ongoing arbitrary restrictions and ban on humanitarian aid — are a grim, daily reality,” the letter read.
“All writers who spoke to PEN International have consistently stressed that: ‘There is no place safe in Gaza’.”
Founded in London in 1921, PEN International has grown into a global cultural institution. It has not remained untouched by the rippling political effects of the Gaza war.
In September 2024, the group passed a resolution condemning the rise in targeted killings, arbitrary detentions, and restrictions on access to information in both Palestine and Israel following the Oct. 7 attacks. The resolution placed primary responsibility for these violations on Israeli authorities.
In April 2024, PEN America, the group’s US branch, was forced to cancel its annual literary awards after several authors boycotted the event over what they viewed as the organization’s failure to take a clear stance against Israel’s war on Gaza.
The decision followed an open letter signed by dozens of authors and translators who withdrew their work from the awards in protest.
