A Gulf in Communications

Pipsyä on suurin järjestelmässä. Laulaisko paulaa vaiparanoiden karaokeissa? Laulamolemat! Let's party! Nyt laivalle jopa -50 prosenttia. Vara heti! Talik-siliapisten viin! No niin! Lähdetä on laivalle! Ehdottomasti! Miks nää tavardot loidulla otti halaja? Eiks meillä olet toimivaa pumpu kärryä? Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Kaos varastolla! Hei-ex-applan pelastaa työpäiväsi! Kun kalustet ovat kunnossa arki sujuu, kotimaiselta hei-sapplanilta löydät ratkaisut varastoihin ja teollisuuteen jo viiden kymmenen vuoden kokemuksella. Katso! Hei-ex-applan vistefi! Hei-ex-ex-applan! Kytilat tarvii pelastajan! Hei-ex-applan! Hei-ex-applan! BBC Radio 4's hit podcast that takes you inside the golden PR toolbox used by the world's most powerful people. With me, David Yellen. And me, Fizzarno Badgerl. This week we're looking at the PR war in the Gulf, the imagery of missile attacks, the managing of those images, is Dubai's spin defence of, now you see them, now you don't, genius or a joke? David, there is so much more to the PR machine in Dubai than just these influencers popping up on our social media feeds. I mean, they are the foot soldiers in the reputation battle, but we're going to cut through the noise and we're going to unpack the PR playbook. Fizzarno, I should say, welcome to fan it. As I know you're a fan of ours and we are big fans of yours. You are a globally connected PR superstar and all kinds of reasons we could not depict. A better week to have you on the show. Oh, thank you for having me. This is my favourite PR podcast. Ah, thank you. And do you know the Gulf countries? I mean, absolutely fascinating. I've been working there for well over a decade across. I had not fished in Dubai for a few years, worked across UAE, Qatar, Saudi, Bahrain. And do you know what's been really fascinating about the region? They've got ambitious leadership. Yeah. They actually totally get the value of PR. And they have used PR to create this image. That's a really converted Dubai, which was this quiet little desert trading town into this city that rivals London on the soft power indexes. And you know, these moments of crisis that we have seen unfold this last week, it really shows you what is behind the veil. Yeah, I just want to say something to the audience at this point. Fan hitters, we are asking something of you this week. And I want you to look at the world from the perspective of Dubai. Imagine you are, no, not the bling bling influencers, which we're going to talk about later, of course. Imagine you are advising the rulers in Dubai or Abu Dhabi or Qatar where the entire PR plan for years has been the projection of safety and security. And then, around attacks, missiles are overhead. Everything is at risk. What on earth do you say or do to keep the dream alive? For Zana, let's start at the beginning. Well, ask whether it's work later, but let's just start off by looking at what they've actually done. Well, David, let's take a step back. First of all, countries like the UAE, Qatar, Saudi, they have invested millions in government communications for a number of years. You know, not only in their government departments building up their comms, teams, but also in agency land. I mean, a lot of their money flows through London PR agency world. And also, the art of crisis communications is actually about preemptive thinking. Everyone thinks it's about, you know, analysing what people do in the midst of a crisis. But so much, David, it's about actually what you do before. And it's about managing risk. And of course, you know, we all have our corporate sort of, you know, risk registers. But, you know, if you're working in government comms in the region, then your neighbourhood is going to pretty much feature high up in the reputational risk register. You know, these tensions, these regional tensions between Iran and the US and Israel. That's not something that's happened overnight. So they've been thinking about this, planning about this. They understand it's been flagged as a reputational vulnerability. You've got to do that stuff in advance because in the middle of a crisis, humans, we just kick into fight or flight mode. And we operate at such high stress levels. So the best crisis management is always preemptive. But it is problematic because, you know, the region they have really brought in this sort of messaging, this narrative based upon these three pillars of safety, luxury lifestyle. And this land, this land of opportunity that has just like a lighthouse drawn in Sony Brits who've come to sort of make their fortune in Dubai. And what you do when you've got this type of messaging matrix of safety and how does safety land when it's raining missiles? I mean, there are three things that strike me about the approach, particularly in Dubai in the first, and they're getting them, I'm going to go and talk about this in detail, is that they're understanding that influencers would set their reputation in a security crisis. Not the media, because they don't have a free media. The influencers, and we're going to talk about how they have influenced the influencers. And a lot of that, Pierre, has been pretty ugly stuff in them on this. You know, but there is a war on. Yeah. When there is a war on different rules apply. Secondly, you talk about the London talent and this is so right. And it's not understood. The top man in Pierre in the United Arab Emirates, Alex Aiken, who until April 2024, ran government comms for the cabinet office here in the UK. He was our top communicator. And there are many, many others and many of them, you know, extremely well, for some, and so do I, some of them. Thirdly, we're going to talk about how the message that the influencers have put out, which is something like #security. We know who's protecting us. People post that again and again. You know, partly because there are people like Alex Aiken in senior positions, they had a plan, didn't they? And what we've seen is a plan being executed. I mean, you know, when war raises, it's ugly head. It's like turning back the curtain. I mean, it would to view how well-oiled their PR machine is, or if it falls apart. And there's more to their PR battle than just this army of foot soldier influences with their TikTok bayonets. You know, it started off as a social media call of action, you know, during peacetime of Humbibi, come to Dubai. And it's now pivoted to We Feel Safe. We trust our leaders to protect us. I mean, that's quite the segue. But one of the interesting differences I've realised from working in the GCC region is that they don't have this sort of legacy thinking that constrains them on how they tackle a problem. You know, they're much more open to the new. And if you think about it, we used to always look down upon influences, roll our eyes. You know, we thought they were ridiculous. And they found in Dubai this place has caught them, supported them, taken them seriously. And they've become the front line in a battle to defend Dubai's reputation. And it's been fascinating to watch how they're derided here in the UK. But in Dubai, they are considered so important that Dubai has actually for years been putting out a siren call to influences around the world. Come to Dubai, we will give you access to equipment. They have built this ecosystem around influences. And it's been absolutely fascinating to watch how they have utilised them in protecting brand Dubai. Yeah, and then we'll come back to the influences in a minute. I think for the record, we need to say that we are aware. Of course, we are. The human rights question has asked about most of the Gulf states. And equally, of course, we're aware of the Shadnfridah, showing in the UK media about applied influences. They're a vine, for example, in the Daily Mail. She wrote, and this is the headline, like a column, a couple of days ago, "I'm tuning my tiniest violin for the ghastly influences of Dubai," she said. But we need to look at the PR and ask whether it's worked. And these images, for Zan, are of Sheikh Mohammed, the ruler of Dubai, the Prime Minister of the UAE, walking with his entourage through Dubai Mail are incredibly potent, Pierre. Because what he knew and what his advisors knew was that he was supplying content. That's what that was. It's a moving image of the leader of a state looking pretty calm, pretty cool, with his entourage walking through a mole. And he doesn't say a thing. He doesn't say a word, but of course, thousands and thousands of influences have used those images and they've gone all over the world. So it's content creation by a leader of a nation. But I also think that he's put it in historical and British context before we look down on those too much of it. Let's remember what happened during World War II. Here, King George VI and his wife, it later became our Queen Mother and their daughters, who of course, Princess Margaret and our late Queen, they remained in London, they tore the East End, they walked around the East End, that's precisely what Sheikh Mohammed did last week now. The King knew he could rely on Beaver Brook and Royal the Mayor and the Astros, the Times, the Times, the Times to disseminate those images just as Prince Mohammed and his advisors knows he can rely on the influences to disseminate those images. And we had loose talk, cost lives, didn't we? Well, let's look at this as I said at the top of the show from the perspective of a country that is threatened by possibly an existential attack and how they have handled and managed that fanator. I mean, what we're also seeing, David, is we're seeing new world PR, gone. you know, are the days of standing stiffly in front of a camera with your flag behind you and delivering this stern message. - Yeah, not in Downer Street. - And what you have instead is actually so many people around the world, Dubai Mall is probably more recognizable within the UAE flag. And so, of course, you're having Sheikh Mohammed gliding through Dubai Mall, its visual, it is on message. And it just gives you that sense of everything is going to be okay. And you know, the move, it's press release 2.0, its leadership formatted content in a way that it's not just for the influencers, which feel sometimes contrived, but it's also for the passerby's, because then they will take pictures and videos and that content feels more organic. So he created a moment, but you know, it wasn't all perfect. I mean, you know, if you look at the PR influencers, I mean, the disdain, the ridicule of, you know, the how contrived it felt to us here in the UK. I mean, there's quite a backlash. And one has to sort of think, you know, was that for an internal domestic audience for them to feel safe so it could flood their algorithms, sort of these influencers who live in their city, saying that they feel safe. Or was it for us as an international audience? And I would say the fact that it played up badly with us, but played really well with domestic audience, it tells you who their target audience. I also think, you know, we have to say that all the influencers are licensed in Dubai by the Dubai media office. And there are punishments if you say things which they don't like. There are repercussions. I mean, there are serious repercussions for these influencers. So first of all, you can't just rock up in Dubai and start tweeting away and talking. You have to register with the Dubai media office. And your license can be revoked if you end up breaking the rules. And one of the rules is that you're not allowed to bring Dubai into disrepute and undermine its reputation, its image, because the leadership understand how important that images to Dubai's economic position in the world. And it's sort of growth trajectory that is on. You could have your license revoked, you could be fined. And they're very clean, consistent with their messaging with the influencers. It's not something buried in the small print. They are consistently letting the influencers know these are the rules of Dubai. And that's how the region works. It's clear effective communications. And you know, you like it or you leave. We do have to remember that the Alex Aiken and the authorities that are operating in a vacuum, they don't have a free media. They don't have people, you know, asking questions to put that into context. I just want to listen to think about what would happen here in the time of crisis. If Kirstaama and his entourage walks through say Westfield, which is a big shopping mall in the west of London and tried to get influencers and people on TikTok and Instagram to say things like we know who takes it. How long will that you know that is just culturally shows you the golf between the actual situation there. And the actual situation here. Well, actually fun. You should say that figures on my TikTok feed are Brits taking that Dubai influence a template applying on Kirstaama. But instead of Kirstaama sort of floating confidently through a more they've got him tripping over. I think that shows the golf in communications between the UK and the UAE. We cannot apply our lens when we are analyzing how effective their comms is for a domestic audience. We have to understand the context that they operate in and what is culturally acceptable and the norm. We have to understand the context of the golf between the actual situation there. Let's party. Now we have to get to the point of 50% of the time. We have to do it. We have to do it. Well, we have to do it. Let's go. How long will it take to get to the point of the time? We have to get to the point of the time. The point of the time is to get to the point of the time. It's really interesting. And the stuff going on here which is really talks about because it isn't widely understood. And I think I just want to look at what the consequences for London here in the UK have been in terms of its reputation as a consequence of this battle that has gone on between Dubai and London. You know, it was back in the US last week. You know, I saw a couple of pieces in the UK at times, something else about London being crime ridden and out of control. And this is the image. And of course, there are issues. There are issues in the capital city here in the UK. But a lot of this folks has not happened accidentally. If you look at the way the influence is in Dubai talk about London. To what degree is this a PR strategy by people in the UAE because they know that when London suffers and the wealthy leave, they are very likely to upstakes and go to Dubai. Do you know in life the best way to unravel a strategy is to just follow the money. There is a lot of money at stake here. These cities London, Dubai they're not operating in a vacuum. They are competing against each other. And there's probably what over a quarter of a million Brits alone in the UAE let alone in the wider region. I spent a lot of time in the region. I've got loads of friends of left the UK left London and headed out to Dubai and would die with Doha, Riyadh. They love their lives in the GCC and they're always tweeting away about how much they love the leadership and they love it. And I say, I'm going to have a couple of two with them. I'm saying, but really, it's just me and you now. Do you really love it? They absolutely love it. One of my friends has a UAE flag outside her house. I mean, they are so patriotic for their new home that you know, I find it shocking as a Brit. Now, they're love for their new lives in the GCC. They're passionate they have for their new home. It's only matched by the disdain that they have for the UK. How they talk down London, obviously as a Londoner, I find that really quite jarring. And I thought it was just a one off, you know, a Brit escaping the UK for Dubai and talking about how great it is. But you start noticing all these Dubai influences, many of them Brits and they just keep knocking London mainly calling at hand safe. They feel in London and some of them have even said even during the missile attacks, they would still argue they feel safe from Dubai with missiles raining down them being in London. And the Dubai residents and a lot of them are Brits. They feel aggrieved. They think the British media are just catastrophizing the missile attacks. They're damaging the brand of Dubai, but there is money at stake, David. I mean, these people have bought apartments flats. Their property value is linked to the reputation of Dubai. And it's not just Dubai versus London. There's huge rivalries between the Gulf countries and even within the UAE between Dubai and Abu Dhabi, you've got also then in the region, you've got Doha, you've got Rue, the new kid in the block, all jostling for attention and positioning to attract, you know, the best of talent and tourism trade investment. I mean, it reminds me of like the pre-unification obviously when you had all these incredible city states, you know, Florence and Venice. And they're trying to outdo each other to attract the coin and the best artisans. You know, place branding isn't anything new. It's serious business at stake raft. It can't just leave this air in dippity. But really, the strategic government comms and in the Gulf, they bought in the PR cavalry and guess who they are? Brits. Brits, PRs are all over the Gulf, building comms, departments, setting up agencies. I mean, there's probably more Brits, PRs out there than anywhere else outside of the UK. I think that's right. I think there's a lot going on here. A lot of this is, it moves us into the political area as well. I think it's not insignificant that GB News is fifth birthday party. The huge party was held in Dubai. And if you look at the narrative both in the UK and as I said back in the US last week about this country, it is very close to things they say about London, about America, so the car and about the UK generally are very similar. What the influence is saying to you by to what you see all over the world, particularly in places like Fox News and indeed in GB News and indeed in the Daily Mail and the Sun and Telegram and the Sun. Of course, there's a lot of truth to some of these things. There is a lot of crime in London. People do not feel safe. So there is always truth in these things. But what this is a podcast about PR and I think there has been and continues to be a PR campaign which stems from influences in Dubai. That goes global. I was very struck by the economist on this. I thought they brilliantly argued and their headline was, Dubai is the front line of Britain's war with itself. And he went on reading their first paragraph, Dubai infects the British psyche in a way no other place can match. It is a land in which Britain's neuroses about decline, class and money can run free. They are so right. There is something going on here in the rivalry between Dubai and London that people that want to talk down the UK can seize upon. Even me and my old paper, the Sun, is obsessed with Dubai as it is with the alleged decline of a capital city. David, maybe we're just a bit jealous of each other. If you look at the city branding indexes, London's dropped from first place to then second to then now third. Dubai has rocketed up. I mean, I think the last time I looked at it, there was a number four, number five. So they're really snapping at our heels here in London. It sounds ridiculous. But maybe we are jealous that they have basically come out of nowhere and for us Brits who go over there to the region, we see the gleaming new hotels, we see the gleaming airports and we see, you know, how things work there. And then we see it, and we come back here to Heathrow and it's a stark contrast. So maybe we are jealous of each other, they're jealous of what, you know, London is still the city that has a huge, powerful siren call around the world for people to come here to holiday, you know, no matter how much people do London down, fundamentally, in my opinion, it's the greatest city in the world. But unbiased, of course, I haven't been born here. But you know, the UK, we've got a face, it's no longer the wealth magnet it used to be. And the UAE is the world's leading millionaire magnet driven by large inflows and you could argue, who cares? We don't need millionaires who don't want to pay their fair share. But there's a lot of stake because there's a whole ecosystem that comes around these high net worth and these family officers that the economy benefits from and in PR like in life. If you want to figure out the strategy, you've got to see what's at stake. I agree with that. One of the things that fascinates me about this though is the manner in which the British press is so easily manipulated by the influencer community in Dubai, which I think is itself manipulated by the authorities there. So normally, like, so if you want to, if you want to the damage, I don't know, the Brazil or the US or France, through an influencer, PR campaign in Dubai, you probably couldn't get the French press to be really, really negative about Paris because they're French. Whereas in this country, you can get the Daily Mail and the Sun and all these other papers to write continually that this country is going to the dogs. And that, folks, is part of why you read those things the whole time. And this is what I'm saying. This is a purposeful PR campaign aimed at damaging London because there are people around the world, including in the UAE, but elsewhere as well. They know how to manipulate public opinion in the UK and get us to start being negative about ourselves. Quite extraordinary, really. Okay, so that's enough about city PR wars. Let's segue into the power of image. And one of the images that has really struck me, apart from Sheikh Mohammed gliding through Dubai Mall, it's been President Trump. And I was just astounded when I saw this image of President Trump sitting in the Oval Office as Christian leaders from across the US prayed and placed their hands on him. While we display, you continue to give our President the strength that he needs to lead our great nation. As we come back to one nation, undergone, individuals will be liberty and justice for all. We pray you're heavily blessing upon him. - Yeah, Jesus, make me. - That's how it sounded. And there is a long tradition of ruler staging rituals and images that signal they've been chosen, best or anointed by God through religious figures. The picture of President Trump would almost look like a Renaissance painting of a Medici suggesting a privileged relationship with a divine, but context is key when it comes to PR. And most Brits will feel somewhat bewildered by the image, but a PR would instantly get it. And the image is not for us. It's not for British consumption. We're not the target audience for the image. And the image is for a US domestic audience, not an international one for starters. And secondly, again, another key conception PR, think about the timing. The image was released as the Iran war entered its first week, polling suggests a high disapproval of the strikes on Iran. So the White House is really operating in this headwind of public opinion against the war. And surveys also show a big chunk of the Maga coalition is made up of conservative Christians. So the cynical amongst us may say, "God, is the ultimate PR Trump card?" I think it's so interesting. We started off the show saying to people at home, to fan this as, "Just suspend your disbelief for about half an hour, so that you can look at things from the perspective that you did by leadership, and now we're asking you to look at the things from the perspective of Donald Trump." The fact is, as I already said, back in the US last week, I was in Ohio in the Midwest. The Cleveland plane dealer was the big paper where the place where I was, the picture was on the front page. Americans look at that picture, they clock it, they think, "Oh, the president's praying." That's great, because most Americans, not all, but most Americans are church-guards. They have a faith. They don't really think about it. And now here in this rather cynical country, and I think it's a wonderful thing to be cynical, by the way, but let's just remember what we're doing here. We're looking at the perspective of the PR people in the White House. They know, as you say, Vazonna, how this image is going to land. Now, there are lots of other things going on here. Some of them are, many people would say, extremely concerning about Christian nationalism. The US was built at the first amendment to the Constitution, is about effectively the separation of church and state. They didn't want to create what they had had in England before they got on the boats and went out for Taboston. So there are a lot of people who believe you me in New York questioning this, but the point is, for most people in the US, this image landed so well that I don't think that in this country, we can even really understand how well it landed. It landed really well, and made people feel sort of quite secure and safe, a little bit like, dare I say, the images of Shae Maha'it walking through the Dubai Mall, made people in the UAE, feel safe. So this is PR, and it works. A PR win in one culture can easily be a PR fail in another. And it's always important to go back to what is the strategic intended objective, who is the target audience. And you know, a good PR needs to be a little bit like a chameleon. You just shed your skin, you don't bring your own biases in world view. You're becoming a bit like an empty vessel. Drop the ego and just be able to get out of your sense of self and understand who the message is aimed at and have the empathy to understand what moves them. Not you, what moves them. Yeah, but that is in many ways the manipulation of people isn't it? And I've spent half my career as a journalist, and half of it in PR. And when I look at that image, it's the journalism which leaps up inside me because I know that Trump has set up the first faith office the White House has ever had. And they're incredible controversially. He's used around that. I mean, deeply, deeply controversial. Some of the people in that picture are-- And just like that, the lights are off. The microphone isn't work. The power card. Is this normal? Is this how you do your podcast? I can assure you, if it's out of this, is not normal. But just so listeners understand, I think I just talked about a Christian god in the White House. Oh, I may be-- maybe, Shane Muhammad, I'm not sure. Everything has gone away. We're in the studio with the production team, lighting us with iPhones. So if the quality of the sound is suddenly changed, that is why. Why the power's gone out, we don't know. But we do know that Lucy Wurzley is in the basement recording. And I myself think it's probably something to do with that, don't you? I think we need to pray. On that note, folks, I should say we hope to be back if the lights and the park come back on next week. Please tune in. And listen to Fan this next week. It's been a fantastic episode and one that I will not forget. Bye. Bye-bye. 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