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The WPP, the company Sorrell founded in 1985 has become the biggest advertising and communications group in the world
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The advertising marketing industry has shifted from Beirut to Dubai, and now to Riyadh
Sir Martin Sorrell, the noted adman who founded the largest agency in the world, has forecast Riyadh to become the advertising capital of the Middle East.
Speaking to media in Riyadh, Sorrell said, “Originally I think you’d probably say the heart of the advertising marketing service industry was Beirut and then it moved to Dubai, and now it’s moving to Riyadh.”
Since Sorrell left WPP, the company he founded in 1985 and which became the biggest advertising and communications group in the world, he has made S4 Capital the fastest-growing digital advertising business in the sector.
“We look at the Middle East as a whole obviously, in which Saudi Arabia is a key part, and I think things have shifted over the years that I’ve been in the industry,” he said. Sorrell said that recent moves by the Kingdom to insist companies wanting to do business with government agencies had to have a regional headquarters in Riyadh would be effective.
“It may be contentious, but you know if it’s the rules you’re probably going to have to respond to it because, in the context of the Middle East, obviously Saudi is extremely important, and on a global basis as well,” he said.
S4 Capital could join the rush to set up in Riyadh, he hinted. “Well, it depends on how things develop, but we’re putting a lot of effort into our operation here and Saudi Arabia is important in the context of the overall operation,” he said.
Sorrell’s new business has picked up clients in Saudi Arabia, including work for two of the big megaprojects, NEOM and the Qiddiya entertainment city. He said that the scope of the Kingdom’s ambitions in the Vision 2030 transformation strategy matched his own in the advertising business.
“They are hugely ambitious targets with a lot of pressure for performance and reaching those targets, so I think a hugely ambitious program. Is it achievable? Well, you know, I believe we’re setting ‘big hairy goals’ at S4, so I would agree with setting big hairy goals.”
He saw big opportunities in tourism in Saudi Arabia. “I think the tourism thing is just beginning. Listening to the minister, Ahmed Al-Khateeb, you think about Saudi tourism, and you realize they are starting with almost a clean sheet of paper, like we did at S4 three years ago. So, you’re not held back by the albatross of analog or historic structures or approaches,” he said.