2021: A year of high-tech milestones
By Sofia Serrano for Campaign Middle East
Against all the odds, this year has been dotted with great achievements for W Group in general and all its subsidiaries specifically.
Several sturdy partnerships blossomed into great deliverables, from major exhibitions and trade shows to experiential activations and optimization of media assets.
The partnership that Hypermedia signed with Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority granted the Out-of-Home media mogul investment and management rights of the Dubai Metro outdoor advertising, which includes all 53 Metro stations, seven Route 2020 stations including Expo Station, and 125 trains.
As a result of this strategic partnership, several renowned brands gained exclusive naming rights of several metro stations.
Mashreq Bank was granted the naming rights of Sheikh Zayed Road’s Barsha station. The strategic location is in close proximity to the bank’s customers and will enable Dubai Metro’s commuters to enjoy a high-end digital banking experience.
Landmark, the leading retail group in the region, signed a strategic partnership agreement for the naming rights of two Metro stations for its brands Centrepoint and Max Fashion in Al-Rashidiya and Al-Jaffiliya.
Sobha Realty, the real-estate giant, landed the naming rights of what was once named the Dubai Marina Metro Station.
In addition, Hypermedia renewed its Metro station naming rights agreement with Majid Al Futtaim, the leading shopping mall, communities, retail and leisure pioneer across the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. The successful partnership between the two parties yielded the renewal of MAF’s two stations’ naming rights, Mall of the Emirates (MOE) and Deira City Centre (DCC), for the upcoming 10 years.
Hypermedia’s other milestone was the digitization of its ‘Digi-Tableau’ spread over 12 bridges along the Sheikh Zayed Road, the main artery that goes through the city of Dubai.
By taking a series of steps to further press forward in its growth plans, W Group has finalized most of the digitization phase of all of Hypermedia’s assets. Following that, the group, with the support of DigitAll, one of the leading digital and transformation consultants in the Middle East, will be fully immersed in programmatic advertising.
Alongside Hypermedia, DigitAll – through its ‘media tech’ solutions (DOOH and programmatic) – will allow advertisers to join the game from all around the globe by democratizing the OOH business, hence, allowing those with small budgets to test and see the impact of their campaign.
“What ‘media tech’ will provide advertisers with is a full integration of OOH combined with the smart technologies in order for brands to run more effective and targeted campaigns,” said W Group Chief Operating Officer Phillip Matta. “With this cutting-edge technology, advertisers will be able to integrate OOH to their very agile, omnichannel communication approach. They will be able to deliver relevant content on our screens to their passing-by target audience, or adapt campaigns according to the result of their A-B testing of the campaign’s performance, or any other variable that may be relevant, such as the weather, time of day, sales progress, etc.”
The entire experience was carried out on Route 2020 Metro Station, which was equipped with the most high-end, smart-solution-packed, interactive screens to create a full journey for the commuters visiting the world’s biggest event.
Experiential journeys
Another front that W Group has been spearheading is experiential marketing. It has been creating full experiential journeys for clients, chief among which is Dubai Internet City (DIC), during its participation at Gitex 2021 Dubai. W Group, through its entities, conceptualized, built and created an entire high-tech engaging experience for visitors to the pavilion.
From state-of-the-art activations to cutting-edge technology that was on display around the pavilion floor, the aim was to showcase Dubai for the tech hub that it is and for the advancements, it has pioneered in many tech ventures.
W Group, by association, was acting within its core DNA because it aims to be positioned as the leading media tech company in the region. Subsequently, it has always operated by a code where it invests in its human power, its strongest asset, and its macro vision aligned with the wise leadership of the UAE.
The OOH market is a very competitive one, and W Group aspires to always lead with new innovations, technologies and expansion plans around the entire region.
In the words of Habib Wehbi, W Group’s chairman and CEO, “the United Arab Emirates is the land of equal opportunities, and if you dare to have the ambition and passion to follow through and grind away at your dreams, you will eventually land exactly where you aspire to be.”
