World Perspective / Photo - 6 [Saudi Arabia]

From various news sources:

"Saudi newspapers ran front page pictures on Friday of King Abdullah and Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz in a crowd of women with their faces bared, adding fuel to the growing fight over mixing in the kingdom."

The picture is several weeks old though.

King Abdullah continues to lead with changes across all aspects of Saudi life, an example is:

"[King Abdullah] opened a new science university named after himself that permits the international body of students and faculty to freely mix together."

The "New" Old Market - Muslim Consumer

Having developed the focus on the Muslim Consumer at P&G at the highest level, it is interesting to see mainstream marketing and communication companies exploring new revenue streams in this consumer sector.  Astute P&G colleague Amer Almomen passes along WPP's thinking around the 1.6 billion consumer awaiting marketing messages, see article here.

Overall, the article shows the early approach to be exploratory while unburdened from cliches about Islam.  Yet, categorization (essential for agencies to develop processes) is nascent - to "touch" the "life" of the "boss" through messaging in the Islamic environment requires minds that have grown up in the environment, or development of large knowledge bases on behaviors created through engagement and intelligence extracted from them.  One such organization is Maktoob Research, recently acquired by Yahoo, see details here.

The Muslim Consumer's diversity from ethnic to economic to geographic is an exciting realm to delve into!  Good luck to all entrants!