News
Grey Group (WPP) acquires a majority stake in hug digital
Grey Group has acquired a majority stake in hug digital – a leading independent regional digital marketing agency, based in the Middle East. Founded in 2009 by Oussama Jamal and Timothy Michael Baker, hug digital is one of the largest and fastest growing, 360°digital agencies in the MENA region.
The full extent of the services offered by hug digital encompasses handling their clients brands’ social assets, content creation, influencer marketing, digital products development, full-fledged digital campaigns, web and mobile app development (UX / UI), on-ground and digital activations, media planning & buying as well as digital research, analysis and social listening.
Headquartered in Dubai (UAE) and with offices in Egypt, India, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, the agency has a headcount of 160+ full-time staff. Their impressive clientele list includes more than 70 international, regional and local brands such as;
- Americana (Hardees, TGI Fridays, Krispy Kreme)
- Al-Futtaim (Al Futtaim automotive group, Toyota, Honda, Lexus), Majid Al Futtaim (Ski Dubai, Magic Planet, iFly, Little Explorer, LEGO)
- Commercial Bank of Dubai
- Dubai Tourism
- Alwaleed Philanthropies (KSA)
- Rafal Real Estate (KSA)
- Shell (Egypt & UAE)
- Festival City Group (Egypt)
- Sarai and Taj City by MNHD (Egypt)
- Toys ‘R’ Us (Egypt)
- Allianz (Egypt)
- Emaar Misr (Egypt)
“We’re incredibly excited about our new partnership with Grey Group.” stated Oussama Jamal, Chairman of hug digital. He added, “As a team, we are very eager to take our digital know-how and intimate knowledge of digital in the MENA region and scale this with Grey Group. The acquisition means access to incredible resources that will enable our personnel to excel further and service our digital partners and brands even more.”
As chairman and CEO, Jamal and Baker will continue to head the hug digital operations whilst working closely with Nirvik Singh (Chairman and CEO, GREY GROUP, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa) to set the overall strategic digital direction and growth for the region.
The acquisition is expected to bring additional benefits to the clients of hug digital, including access to Grey Group’s vast offerings such as its in-house broadcast production facility, GreyWorks, its shopper-marketing agency, Grey DPI, and its highly-regarded creative and design technology company, Vinyl-i. Similarly, Grey Group’s clients from across the globe will benefit from the digital technology and local expertise of Hug Digital.
“Grey Group is rapidly establishing a strong leadership position in the MENA creative and digital space. The partnership with Hug Digital is an excellent strategic fit to lead with ground-breaking digital work especially as it has always been Grey’s commitment to constantly deliver quality value-added services to our clients. With this acquisition, we are heading in the right direction.” said Nirvik Singh, Chairman and CEO of Grey Group Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa.
News
Amr Diab Gets Hacked on Twitter
Amr Diab’s Facebook page has announced that his twitter account has been hijacked by anonymous and now tweeting political.
Update: Amr Diab’s Facebook Page announced that “Amr Diab’s Twitter account has been restored successfully and you can follow Amr’s tweets normally now”
Amr Diab got hacked on Twitter
On Thursday 9th of Jan, Amr Diab’s Facebook page announced that Amr Diab’s Twitter account has been hacked by anonymous and now tweeting politics!
Amr Abdul-Basset Abdul-Azeez Diab (born 11 October 1961) is an Egyptian singer and composer of pop music. He was awarded the World Music Award for Best Selling Middle East Artist, three times: 1998 for the album “Nour El Ain”, 2002 for the album “Aktrr Wahid Byhbak 2001” and 2007 for the album “El Lillady”. Amr Diab also won The African Music Awards 2009, Big Apple Music Awards; Life Achievements Awards: Best Singer of The Year in 2009, and Best Male Act in African Music Awards 2010.
He is known as the Father of Mediterranean Music He has created his own style which is often termed “Mediterranean Music” or “Mediterranean Sound”, a blend of Western and Egyptian rhythms.
In The Mediterranean in Music, David Cooper and Kevin Dawe referred to his music as “the new breed of Mediterranean music”.According to author Michael Frishkopf, Amr Diab has produced a new concept of Mediterranean music, especially in his international hit, “Nour El Ain”.
In his analysis of The Very Best of Amr Diab album, Victor W. Valdivia of All music said: “His music melded traditional Arabic sounds and textures with Western rhythms and instruments. The mesh was dubbed Mediterranean music, and The Very Best of Amr Diab displays Diab’s superb skill in creating it.”
In 1997, he won three awards at the Annual Arabic Festival: one for Best Video, for Best Song, and for Best Artist of the Year. Diab received a Triple Platinum Award for the sales of Nour El Ain and a World Music Award in Monaco.
After the success of the previously shared overall analysis of Sherine’s new album “Ana Keter” and her social media presence, we decided to fulfill your requests with more details and additional insights.
The report is from Jan 15 through Jan 31, 2014; however, starting Feb, we noticed that Sherine’s team has enhanced and developed how they engage with fans on Facebook.
Still, there’s more to do; please review the slides below to know what exactly they are missing with recommendations.
Check out the report:
Key take-outs in 15 days after the launch:
- Album gained 11 million views in 2 weeks on YouTube
- YouTube Channel subscribers boosted by 90K subscribers in 15 days out of 127K total subscribers overtime
- Buzz reached 15K tweets/RTs since the launch on Twitter
- How do people talk about the album/Sherine on Twitter?
- People are sharing songs from YouTube & SoundCloud
- +90% positive sentiment on Twitter
- Sherine’s Twitter account is excellent at spreading the news about the album’s success.
- People are tweeting the song’s lyrics.
- Sarcastic tweets about Sherine & few songs (regular) - Almost zero negativity about the album
- Album teasers on Facebook created credibility for Sherine’s page, reflected in the page results after the album’s launch in the next 15 days with 92K Interactions & 312K New Likes.
- The album received tremendous engagement on the launching date of Jan 15. However, no posts for four days after the launch negatively affected the interactions.
Recommendations:
Sherine Abdel Wahab’s Facebook page would have received double or maybe triple new likes and interactions if the improved posts’ quality; please find below the points taken:
- Long updates with no extra value-added will lead to losing your fans’ interest
- The text-only format isn’t preferred, as it is well-known that they generate less reach than other content (Facebook announcement)
- A call to action is essential to generate leads & increase engagement
- Each post has to have its visual, audio, or video so you can attract/engage your audiences
- Understand the situation and act upon it, always be relevant to the time and avoid posting irrelevant content at the wrong time.
- Revise the tone of voice in future activities.
To recap - Overall performance is average to good - Enhance your content formatting - Improve the tone of voice on all networks - Be creative to engage your fans better - Be Consistent - Start your SoundCloud account.
News
Putin, Obama war on social media starts with unfriend on Facebook
New stage of the cold war, is it?
The Social media war between Putin and Obama started with UnFriend, this is the action taken by Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the Facebook diplomacy with American president Barack Obama.
The unfriending comes after an official White House update about the possibility of a US-Syrian war. President Putin revealed that Obama’s updates about the Congressional debate on a possible war with Syria have annoyed him.
After unfriending, President Putin update status on profile “Something I should have done a long time ago”
Also, He said to Russia’s Pravda News Service “President Assad and I, we are the Facebook friends. We like the same pages, we share pictures of cute women and all that. Obama needs to lighten up on there, it’s not for serious stuff,”
President Obama’s latest posts about the possibility of the war in Syria have been reported by someone and he received a warning from Facebook that he will be prevented from posting on his profile for 24 hours.
He has also commented “Really, Putin needs to grow up. If he didn’t like that [post], he could have just hid it from his news feed instead of creating all this Facebook drama,”
JOE BIDEN “Vice President of the United States” announced to reports that President Obama has signed into his Twitter account to unfollow Putin.
The turmoil generated between Putin and Obama over their dispute on the Syrian crisis. Expanded to reach the social networks
Putin and Obama on social Networks
The question now is, are we witnessing a new stage of the cold war between the two countries, will they continue the war online instead of the military tactics and old spy war?
It’s obvious that social media is really changing the game in everything, and now it’s taking over on a very high level.
Keep an eye on Digital Boom and we will keep you posted with more news and updates on the cold war and even more…
-
Startups9 years ago
3 Creative Egyptian Women Who Master E-commerce
-
News10 years ago
11 Talented Egyptian Photographers on Instagram
-
Campaigns8 years ago
Vodafone Egypt Brings Generations Together, Unlocks 4G Power
-
Marketing9 years ago
Which categories will suffer most from increased prices in Egypt?
-
Apps8 years ago
Radio Garden Live Map of The Globe’s Radio Stations
-
News8 years ago
Top 10 Egyptian Fashionistas to Follow on Instagram
-
Campaigns8 years ago
7 Big Stats That Show Which Ramadan Advertisements Resonated Most
-
Opinion9 years ago
F*** Being a Founder, Be a Follower