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In MENA, Ipsos Release Online Panel Data

08 Feb 2012 - Two years after the launching of the Online Audience Measurement project, Ipsos has released KSA and Egypt panel data. As a result, Ipsos audience software "Gexplorer" now covers online audience data for 8 MENA countries, being UAE; Kuwait; Oman; Qatar; Jordan; Lebanon; Syria and Morocco.  The data encompasses 300 regional participating websites and full Panel Data for KSA and Egypt (including participating websites, non-participating websites, multinational and social networks).

"It took us some time to launch the panel data since the recruitment process was challenging. We needed to achieve a representative sample size in both countries. Also, we were validating the data based on internet penetration by demographics collected from monthly offline studies". Joud Nawar [pictured], Ipsos Media Research Manager. More…

In Saudi Arabia, Ipsos Launches Middle Eastern Panel

MrWeb News: Ipsos has launched its first online panel for the Middle East, in Saudi Arabia. The new panel has been 18 months in the planning and will be called Rewarding Panel.

Edouard Monin [pictured], Ipsos’ CEO for the MENA region, said: ‘Internet in the Middle East has undoubtedly started to be significant and the client needs for online research there is growing. Online is increasingly the data collection method of choice amongst international research buyers, because it offers many advantages, and enables to go beyond the limits encountered by the other data collection modes.’  More...

In UAE, Effective Measure Invests in Arab Media Hub

Strong demand for digital insights in MENA’s thriving media industryboosts Effective Measure growth

DUBAI, UAE, 5 December 2011 - Effective Measure, the leading provider of digital media planning solutions in emerging markets, today  announced  that it  is investing in MENA”s thriving digital media industry with the addition of four new members to the Middle East North Africa (MENA) Business Development team and a dedicated training space in Dubai.

Effective Measure Vice President of Digital Insights, Brendon Ogilvy [pictured], said, “Digital media is coming into its own as an exciting, profitable industry. The encouraging growth coming from increased digital ad spend across the region has created a strong demand for reliable market intelligence– including Effective Measure’s. More…

New Wave of Mobile Growth to be Driven by Women Entrepreneurs

Dubai-UAE: 29 November, 2011 – An in-depth study on the role of women in the mobile phone industry has highlighted the social and economic advantages of including more women entrepreneurs into the mobile value chain.

Undertaken by the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, leading partner STC and market research firm TNS, the niche study drew participation from several mobile network operators, distributors, vendors and other industry stakeholders across 11 markets.  Commenting on the findings of the study, Cherie Blair, Founder of the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, added: But there is also a real business case for mobile operators to include women in mobile value chains, as they offer significant advantages such as better branding and access to new markets.  More...

In UAE, Digital Word-of-Mouth to Drive e-Commerce

40% of MENA Internet Users Likely to Vocalise Level of Satisfaction for Products and Services

DUBAI, UAE, 28 November 2011 - Effective Measure, the leading provider of digital media planning solutions in emerging markets, today reported that 40% of Internet users in Middle East North Africa (MENA) surveyed indicated that they would spread the word when they are pleased or upset to as many people as possible – highlighting the potential to use Internet users to drive e-Commerce growth through word of mouth.

Effective Measure Regional Director, MENA, Dinesh Arasaratnam [pictured] said, “With the Internet serving as the world’s largest marketplace, positive word of mouth from satisfied consumers can add value and credibility to an emerging digital economy.  More…

In MENA, Internet advert spending on the rise

Ben Flanagan of The National writes: Spending on internet advertising in the GCC and Levant is forecast to hit 9 per cent of the total advertising market this year, and is fast approaching the proportions spent in developed markets such as the US and Germany.

Digital advertising has been considered a poor relation to television and newspapers, which remain the dominant media for advertising in the Arab world.

"Digital is taking up a significantly bigger percentage than people think," said Dimitri Metaxas [pictured], the regional executive director for digital at OMG in the Mena region. More...

In MENA, Media Research Tool Google Insights officially launched

August 16th, 2011 - As internet penetration continues to grow in the region, the need for data on online behavior is becoming increasingly crucial for both consumers and businesses. Google MENA today announced the launch of their latest service, Insights MENA. Insights MENA is an interactive tool providing critical data about the online behavior of urban consumers in five key MENA markets: Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and UAE.

“Insights MENA will provide viewers with access to knowledge, while at the same time expanding the Arabic content ecosystem to better serve the growing constituency of such content. This service will also provide much needed information for internet users in the Middle East, which grew in the past six years at an incredible speed of 275%,” said Najeeb Jarrar [pictured], Head of Marketing for Google MENA. More…

In Israel, Gemius launches Online Audience Measurement

Gemius in partnership with local specialists Erez Bahat and the Market Watch Institute, will provide the industry-standard online planning system for the Israeli internet market. The companies signed a 4-year contract with the Israeli Joint Industry Committee, initiating the measurement of websites with major media owners as well the establishment of an online user panel.

Filip Pieczyński [pictured], Vice President of Gemius explains how gemiusAudience enables comparability of internet data with other media monitoring projects: "To correctly assess the online advertising landscape, advertising agencies, advertisers and publishers need the ability to track online ads as they are delivered to people, not cookies or spiders. This can be undertaken only via key person-based metrics, such as Gemius’ Real Users, which is used in gemiusAudience research across over twenty markets of the EMEA region."

The results of the study also include a full range of key advertising and planning metrics, such as engagement metrics (number of page views, time spent online), affinity index, frequency and reach statistics, all of which give users the possibility to analyse the demographic data both on publisher- as well as section-level. More ...

In MENA, Ipsos & Gemius launch Online Audience Measurement

2011-02-07 Ipsos/Gemius Audience study implementation – the first step to a pan-regional panel and complex online measurement for the region. In December 2010, the initial Ipsos/Gemius Audience results for two of the MENA region countries were published. The dynamically developing Gemius flagship study is intended to cover the whole Middle East/North Africa region. The research, which is presently being implemented in seventeen MENA countries, will provide a thorough insight into current trends and changes on the local internet market.

As far as the MENA region market is concerned, the population of internet users is estimated at 65-70m (total population in the region is 320m). As Wael Ghonim [pictured], Marketing Manager for the MENA region at Google predicts, there will be 100m internet users from Arabic countries in 2015. Online 2010 adspending in the region amounts to approximately 100m USD, which translates to a 1.5% share in total MENA adspends. More...

Al Jazeera uses real-time analytics tool Chartbeat to capture Egypt story

Mike Shields writes for AdWeek: On Jan. 28, as the protests in Egypt escalated, Mohamed Nanabhay — who runs Al Jazeera’s English Web site—noticed traffic was exploding using a real-time analytics tool called chartbeat. “Without chartbeat, we would have no idea what was happening on our site,” said Nanabhay. “We wouldn’t have known the world was coming to us for this story.” More...

Chartbeat is a revolutionary real-time analytics service that enables people to understand emergent behaviour in real-time and exploit or mitigate it. Chartbeat launched in April 2009 and is used by some of the most popular sites on the web including the Onion, Mahalo, Pitchfork, and DailyKos. Based in New York, the team is led by General Manager Tony Haile and is part of betaworks, a media company focused on the real-time web and social media.