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atar is taking out its cheque book and importing Tribecca Festival which is an American thing, import-ing TED which is another American thing. If you are importing all this to make the English and the Ameri-can people comfortable here, where would you go to experience Qatari culture which is found only here, asks David Omi.

It is not difficult to get branding luminary David Omi started on his pet theme, branding. Howoever, not the old school branding we are used to, but one that is in keeping with the trends of today. Which is why he repeatedly emphasises the need for Qatar to communicate its inherent culture.

“Qatar as a collective identity, as I see it, is in a hurry to become accepted as a player in the cultural arena,” he says.

“I come to Qatar to experience Qatari culture. And Qatar is busy portraying itself as just any other

developed country.”Qatar from the outside, at least to Omi, is all about

money and extravagant architecture. “In this age of converging finitudes, when the whole

world is talking about containing and sustaining, there seems to be no limit to Qatar’s extravagance. That is antithetical to how the world is feeling. Infi-nite growth contradicts the law of nature. The same is the case with China, on another level.”

If you have to brand Qatar, you have to talk the language of the world, he stresses.

David Omi was in Qatar on invitation from grow, the brand communications agency, and brings with him a wealth of experience as a creative director, designer and brand strategist in traditional and new media. He is associated with some of the world’s most prestigious brands and advertising agencies, both in Europe and the United States, including Saatchi and

QcheQuebook culture?Why QAtAr neeDs to reBrAnD froM sCrAtCh

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Saatchi, Wieden Kennedy, and WPP companies.Sharing his insights with Qatar Today, Omi says:

“Everyone is quite tired of it (branding). Almost all have done it. It is now time that brands reinvented themselves and I can see that happening through the advent and growth of social media and the Internet. Branding is now becoming less about virginity, manu-als and procedures and more about being able to live in multi-complexity while engaging and associating with other brands.”

The very beginning “Branding,” he says, “is all about making people feel better about who they are.”

Continuing on the concept of branding and communication, Omi gives examples of brands that seem to have understood the basics. The most important thing about a brand is the per-sonal touch or communication and in a way it is about trust too.

Just because a brand has something to say doesn’t neces-sarily mean that people are go-ing to listen. And there is a dan-ger too he says of brands being self-obsessed.

It is therefore important to understand that brands don’t live in corporate offices but in the streets and in the minds of people. “Branding has to touch the hearts of people to be successful.”

So what should be the first priority when branding begins?

“The company should first be clear about what it stands for, the essence of the brand,” he says taking the example of Apple – which is also his fa-vourite – a brand that is all about lifestyle not just about technology. “The company is communicating through its logo, which has a universal appeal.”

He then moves on to explain the branding process of JetBlue, one of the rare success stories of an Ameri-can budget air carrier.

“If you look at the JetBlue campaigns nothing is said about air travel, while it is all about managing anxiety. As we embark on a journey, there is a tiny bit of unease that niggles at the back of our mind as we are exposing ourselves to a lot of uncontrollable ex-ternal factors. What JetBlue does through their ad-vertisements and through their website, through the language and the imagery it uses, is to give a friendly

and human touch, making flying a richer, worthy ex-perience. There are very small and some big things that the air carrier does that makes the process look hassle-free.”

Green brandingOmi, who is Executive Creative Director of Sine New York, has been responsible for leading strategic brand developments in leisure markets. Greenhouse

26 was the first ‘green’ bou-tique hotel in New York City. He talks about his experi-ence creating a sustainable design.

“The language of the whole interiors is about going back to basics. It is about cel-ebrating nature and how na-ture takes back things that is already created.

“A coffee table, with a base made of recycled and broken wind shields, a Petri dish showing the bacteria culture, a table made of re-cycled wood, a bedroom that is sparse, stairs covered in moss, chairs mimicking sea pods, walls destroyed and framed in glass, are some of the design features. All of this represents Greenhouse 26,” says Omi with barely concealed passion.

“You are engulfed by nature and it is primitively beautiful.”

On the process followed, he says, “It was all in collab-oration with the designer, owners and architects.”

Another milestone in his career was the branding of the luxury fashion house, Alexander McQueen. He reminisces, “I met Lee Alex-ander McQueen, just before his St Martin’s fashion show, his graduation show. He was

a little guy, very smart, bright to the point of being scary. He knew exactly what he wanted. He was a gen-ius tailor. There is no uncertainty with anything that he did. I drew his logo on the back of a cigarette pack and he liked it and that was it. Working with Alexan-der McQueen was not difficult, he was a lovely man who knew what he wanted his brand to portray. He was also very loyal to his close associates.”

He ends the interview with his golden rule of branding: “A brand’s authenticity and effectiveness will ultimately be determined by what it does not what it says”

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The UK Brand NowI was recently in Heathrow’s Terminal Five build-ing and happened upon the souvenir gift shop. As I walked around the aisles festooned with double-deck-er bus piggy banks, teddy bears wearing tiny sweaters emblazoned with Union Jacks and ludicrously priced Fortnum and Mason tea selections, I was overcome with a growing sense of woe and frustration.

Being a Brit and a long time expat I am appalled at how my country insists on portraying itself to the out-side world. The picture we paint of ourselves is mis-leading at best. My heckles rise when people of other nationalities describe the UK as being a nation that cannot cook, a place that suffers constant rain, and a

quiet and reserved people with a stiff upper lip. Noth-ing could be further from the truth. There appears to be a profound disconnect between who we really are and who we are perceived to be. Which means that we do not have an effective cultural brand.

Cultural identity as ambassadorAn effective cultural brand serves as an ambassador to the world. The role of ambassador is to represent everything that is good and authentic about a coun-try. You can tell a lot about a culture from what it chooses to say about itself – a willingness to trade in cultural cliché belies a lack of confidence and fails to offer the world anything new.

cUltUral Branding (left to right) qatar's cultural imports, tribeca film festival, university london college, christie's and ted conference

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An effective cultural brand provides a powerful insight into the collective psyche of a people and the social and political mores of a country. Effective cultural representation can give business leaders valuable insights into a country vis-a-vis how their businesses might integrate into the local culture and avoid any political missteps by offering authentic in-sight into the potential threats, opportunities and practicalities of doing business there. But effective cultural representation requires a certain degree of accuracy. Cultures are always in a state of transition. None more so than the Middle East and its constitu-ent nations.

The Qatari Brand NowQatar right now smacks of a country in a hurry to be loved by the world. It wants to show it is culturally progressive, having recently hosted the Doha (New York) Tribeca Film Festival and a TED (New York, Vancouver) conference. University College London is setting up a campus in the country and the Qatari powers that be are also looking to buy the auction house Christie’s. Already Harrods has fallen into its rapidly increasing global investment pool.

Qatar is interested in becoming known for some-thing beyond its untold wealth. It wants to be part of a larger cultural world and is using its vast resources to do so. But in its rush to impress the world with its cosmopolitan Rolodex, it is imperative that Qatar does not buy into the shopping mall of imported high

cultural status brand names, removed from time and place. In fact, this global mall is not theirs - it is not Qatari - and paving over ancient marketplaces for such construction leaves Qatar in a cultural desert. It’s vitally important that Qatar does not lose its es-sence by smothering its traditions and cultural nu-ances because the specificities of its culture are what the world will ultimately fall in love with. Hence why places like the Souq Waqif, Museum of Islamic Art and Katara are loved by the people who have em-braced and adopted them as their own. Heritage, tradition and family values fused with enormous ambition, it seems, represent the Qatari DNA and as these are expressed outwardly in a truly authentic manner, monuments to Qatar’s brand will remain and emit Qatar’s brand as a legacy for generations.

The Arab world’s struggle to recreate itself for the modern age provides Qatar with a fabulous oppor-tunity. Namely the possibility to develop a cultural identity that represents not only Qatari society but also one that reflects in microcosm, everything that is beautiful about the Arab world’s newly emerging socio-political selfhood

As for the UK’s souvenir gift shop in Heathrow’s Terminal Five, it remains a wasted opportunity in terms of conveying the true nature of our national character. The Arab Spring has directed the world’s rapt attention to this corner of the globe. Let’s not waste the opportunity by peddling in worn-out clichés.

United kingdom what is actualy proJected to the world (1 & 2) and what could be proJected (3 & 4)

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2

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