RIYADH: Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan made a phone call on Thursday to France’s new Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs, Catherine Colonna, the Kingdom’s foreign ministry said.
He congratulated his French counterpart on assuming the new position, expressing the Kingdom’s keenness to work with France to confront common challenges and maintain security and stability in the region.
The two sides reviewed relations between the two countries and ways to enhance them. They also discussed regional and international developments, the ministry added.
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Saudi foreign minister discusses ties with new French counterpart
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Saudi foreign minister discusses ties with new French counterpart
British envoy lauds ‘growth’ in bilateral ties since Vision 2030
- Comments made during KSA launch of ‘Anecdotes of an Arab Anglophile’ book
RIYADH: British Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Neil Crompton highlighted the growth he has witnessed in Saudi-UK ties, which has expanded from traditional defense partnerships to encompass numerous sectors such as tourism, people-to-people relations, and sport, in a speech he gave during a cultural soiree marking the launch of “Anecdotes of an Arab Anglophile” in Riyadh on Monday.
“In the modern era, since Vision 2030, our relationship has gone from a quite traditional defense, security, contracting relationship, to take-off,” Crompton said.
The ambassador cited the growth of people-to-people relations between the two countries, mentioning British rowers and cricket players, such as Kevin Pietersen, visiting the Kingdom, and many Saudis traveling to London for holidays.
“I think the affection between the two countries is amazing,” Crompton said. “With the visa system ... since we introduced the visa waiver system in June 2022, over 500,000 Saudis have used it to go to London, in addition to the 100,000 who already had a 10-year visa or another passport.”
The cultural soiree hosted by the UK Embassy celebrated the launch of “Anecdotes of an Arab Anglophile” in Saudi Arabia by Saudi author and Editor-in-Chief of Arab News Faisal J. Abbas.
In a panel discussion between the ambassador and the author, the two highlighted the similarities that bridge the two kingdoms in an event titled “The Tale of Two Kingdoms.”
During his remarks, Abbas said: “There is much more that unites us than what divides us.”
Abbas said that the event might appear to be merely a discussion about a book, but that it is much more than that. “It’s a tale of two kingdoms,” two kingdoms that, he said, have much in common.
“Yes, we are two kingdoms separated by thousands and thousands of miles, we have a different history, but at the same time we are united by trivial things, from a sense of humor to very deeply rooted multifaceted bilateral relations that range from culture to business to defense and many more,” Abbas said.
The cultural soiree was attended by influential figures from the UK and Saudi Arabia, including the chairman of the Saudi Arabian Cricket Federation, Prince Saud bin Mishal, as well as prominent diplomats, journalists, academics and British citizens living in the Kingdom.
Speaking to Arab News, the publisher of the book and managing director of Nomad Publishing, Max Scott, noted the growing interest in Arab perspectives in the West, which are presented in “Anecdotes of an Arab Anglophile.”
Scott said that the panel discussion between Crompton and Abbas was engaging because of the pivotal questions Abbas presented.
“It was very interesting because Faisal asks some difficult questions about where Britain is at the moment. And he’s not shy of saying, you know, it’s a difficult time, and that’s good to see,” Scott said.
“At the end of the day, I think everyone came away with something positive,” he added.
Abbas’s book was originally released in London last June,, The cultural soiree hosted by the UK ambassador celebrated its recent release in Saudi Arabia, with its debut at the Riyadh International Book Fair.
The book is available throughout the Kingdom, exclusively at Jarir Bookstore outlets.
Sports marketeers take deep dive into Saudi culture
RIYADH: Top regional executives spoke about how having a deep understanding of the Kingdom’s culture was crucial in the creative industries, during the Athar — Saudi Festival of Creativity in Riyadh on Wednesday.
Leo Borges, executive creative director of Havas Middle East, spoke to Arab News about how Saudis had the opportunity to mold the creative industry.
“What I would say and sort of like what I want to see coming out of Saudi, is a creative culture that’s specific (to) here, it’s about Saudi people.”
He said that the baseline for the creative industry was understanding the audience.
“If you’re working in Saudi, they need to understand Saudi. They need to understand the culture. They need to understand the times. They need to understand the context in which their message is going to be, it’s going to be displayed.”
Borges went on to highlight the stark difference between sports marketing and other industries.
“I think sports marketing is different from other kinds of marketing because of the passion that the audience has for this sport, or for the teams, or for the players,” he said.
“So in this space, rarely the brand is the number one thing, right? Like people don’t necessarily love Adidas. They love Adidas because Adidas is sponsoring the team.”
Speaking at the “Leaders and Visionaries: CMOs Unplugged” session, panelist Ammar Alamo, director of marketing and communications at the Saudi Sports for All Federation, or SFA, in Riyadh, described his focus on “human insight” as opposed to “local insight.”
With more than 40 percent of non-Saudis living in the Kingdom, Alamo told Arab News that the Saudi Sports for All Federation targeted everyone when crafting their campaigns to encourage physical activity.
“With that, we need to understand who is in the Kingdom, and from a recent study, it showed that 42 percent of the Kingdom are not Saudis,” he said. “When we craft our campaigns or our communication we want to make an impact in the Saudi population, and people living in Saudi.”
Before creating a marketing strategy, SFA will research and developed a program that takes into account the different levels of physical activity within the Kingdom — active, semi-active, and inactive.
“We try, in SFA, with all our programs to cater to everyone in the Kingdom, because our target audience is everyone in the Kingdom.”
Since SFA’s restructuring in 2018 to increase the ratio of individuals exercising at least once a week to 40 per cent by 2030, the federation had seen a positive reaction from the community with exponential growth in physical activity.
The “physical activity level in the Kingdom in 2018 was 13 percent ... In 2021, the physical activity level in the Kingdom reached 48 percent, which is great, and now we’re changing the targets and increasing the targets, actually, beyond 40 percent to achieve more targets in 2030.”
Since joining the SFA in 2023, Alamo has played a pivotal role in promoting and growing events, including the Riyadh Marathon, Tough Mudder, the SandClash CrossFit competition.
The session also brought together industry leaders, Najeeb Jarrar, CMO at Google MENA, Aamir Allibhoy, regional chief marketing officer @ Tim Hortons, MENA, and was moderated by Ashish Verma, global head of Bloomberg Media Studios, who all shared insights on navigating the rapidly evolving creative landscape in Saudi Arabia.
The festival will conclude with the Athar Awards ceremony on the evening of Nov. 6.
Sudan’s army chief receives Saudi deputy foreign minister in Port Sudan
- During the meeting, Al-Khuraiji stressed the keenness of the Kingdom’s leadership on restoring security and stability in Sudan
RIYADH: Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan received Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Waleed Al-Khuraiji in Port Sudan on Tuesday.
During the meeting, Al-Khuraiji stressed the keenness of the Kingdom’s leadership on restoring security and stability in Sudan.
The minister’s visit to the country comes as part of the Kingdom’s ongoing efforts to address the crisis in Sudan, reach a ceasefire, and restore stability to the country.
The Kingdom continues to support the humanitarian response efforts to alleviate the suffering of the Sudanese people, Saudi Press Agency said.
Saudi pavilion at UNESCO Arab Week in Paris celebrates Kingdom’s camel culture
- It shows how the role of the camel evolved from essential means of transport and provider of resources to a cultural icon embodying the Kingdom’s values
PARIS: The Saudi pavilion at UNESCO’s Arab Week event in Paris this week featured a showcase of the Kingdom’s deep-rooted connection to camel culture.
It explored the role of the animals as a vital part of the nation’s heritage, identity and civilization, and offered a glimpse into their enduring place in society, the Saudi Press Agency reported on Tuesday.
The exhibits showed how the role of the camel has evolved from essential means of transport and provider of resources to a cultural icon that embodies the Kingdom’s values, and the ways in which camels are embedded in Saudi customs, traditions and literature, including poetry and proverbs.
The Saudi Ministry of Culture designated 2024 “The Year of the Camel” to highlight and reinforce the status of the animal as a national symbol and cornerstone of the Arabian cultural identity. Camels are regularly celebrated across the country through dedicated festivals, race events, clubs and research centers.
UNESCO’s Arab Week, which features 22 Arab nations, was initiated by Saudi Arabia. Guests at the official opening of the event on Monday included Saudi envoys, ambassadors representing other nations, Arab and other international diplomats stationed in France, and officials from UNESCO.
AI makes media industry more efficient and drives growth, expert says
- Martin Sorrell: ‘AI speeds up writing processes, increasing efficiency’
- New tech allows for increasingly personalized content
RIYADH: Artificial intelligence is being used more effectively and efficiently to drive higher economic development in the media industry, said Martin Sorrell, founder and executive chairman of S4 Capital.
At a panel session at the Athar Festival of Creativity Sorrell described how media agencies, such as S4 Capital and its subsidiary, Media.Monks, are using AI in a number of ways.
One application of AI in media, he said, is in “speeding the execution of copywriting and visualization.”
Time to market is drastically decreasing: “What took us literally days is now taking us three hours,” he said. Yet this produces another problem because reducing the time of procurement cuts costs, but this also means it is necessary to move to a model that increases gains in outputs,” he said.
Another application is in personalizing content for consumers. Sorrell told Arab News: “Individualization, hyper personalization, are going to become more important. Knowing the consumer in excruciating detail, using data, using the signals from the platforms, using first-party data, it becomes even more important.”
Using Netflix audience feedback algorithms as an example, Sorrell pointed out that AI enables these algorithms to produce larger and more accurate quantities of output, for example, recommendations based on user profile readings.
“We charge on a per asset used basis. Price of the asset may come down, but total revenue grows because we’re using multiple assets,” he said.
A growing area is in “media planning and buying.” Sophisticated algorithms can far more efficiently choose the distribution of planning and buying than individual media planners.
Technological capital and human capital, however, go hand in hand.
“We as agencies have to validate the algorithm’s analysis. We have to make sure that the client’s money is spent in the right way.”
Another benefit of AI is its ability to improve organizational efficiency. Where organizational silos once kept departments and specializations separate, AI opens up information to the majority of users.
To maintain the emotional connection and trust of the brand-consumer relationship in a technologically driven world, according to Sorrell, understanding individual motivation is increasingly crucial.
“Insights into culture, insights into language, into custom, into belief, into family, into country, that knowledge becomes critically important, far more so in a globalized world,” he said.
The diversity and knowledge of global and local organizations are essential for the success of any company, but the value of personalization means that local knowledge may take the lead, he added.
Quoting Harvard Business School professor Ted Levitt, Sorrell continued: “because remember, consumers will consume everything in the same way everywhere.”
Advising young professionals in tech, media and other industries operating in an AI-powered future, Sorrell said that rather than stripping away opportunities from creatives, avoiding the risk of “bombarding” consumers with much of the same, AI means “creativity becomes even more important.”
Additionally, creatives need to familiarize themselves with the skills and roles that are complementary to the new world: “I think every creative should learn Chinese. I think every creative should learn Spanish, probably Arabic too … and they should learn code.”
“The skills of the ‘Mad Men’, that Don Draper had or his colleagues … are very different to what you need now.”
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