The biggest opportunity for brands in Saudi right now is to shape the story

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 As Saudi Arabia accelerates its transformation under Vision 2030, the advertising industry is undergoing a profound shift driven by digital innovation, cultural change, and ambitious national projects.

In this interview, Farah Saab, Strategy Director at Havas Middle East, shares her perspective on how the Saudi advertising landscape has evolved over the past five years and what these changes mean for brands and agencies operating in the Kingdom.

How has the Saudi advertising landscape evolved over the past five years?

If you zoom out, Saudi isn’t an “emerging” market anymore. It’s a lead market in MENA.

Vision 2030 didn’t just turn on the tap for budgets; it rewired what “marketing” even means here. When you’re building whole cities, entertainment districts and cultural institutions from scratch, advertising stops being about traditional advertising and becomes about narrating a national transformation in real time. 

On the ground, we see two major shifts:

  1. From localization to Saudi-led creativity

Five years ago, most Saudi work was adapted from elsewhere. Today, ideas are being born here and recognized across the region. You can see it in Saudi agencies and brands taking home multiple Grands Prix at Dubai Lynx, with work that feels unapologetically Saudi. The confidence has shifted from “does this fit, culturally?” to “this is ours.”

   2. A market shaped by culture, creators and experiences

At the same time, Saudi creativity isn’t living only in ads anymore. With massive investment in entertainment, gaming and esports, brands are being pulled into culture, content and participation - not just 30-second TVCs. Creators and fandoms are increasingly shaping how brands show up, what they say, and how people engage with them.

 What are the biggest opportunities for brands in the Kingdom today, and how are agencies helping clients tap into them?

The biggest opportunity for brands in Saudi right now is to shape the story, not just be visible within it.

A few areas really stand out:

• Nation-building moments

With new destinations, cultural institutions and entertainment platforms coming to life, brands have the chance to contribute meaningfully to how the Kingdom is experienced - especially in lifestyle and culture. This requires long-term narratives people can emotionally connect with, not short-term campaigns.

• Creators and social commerce

Creators play a huge role in how people discover, trust and buy today. The opportunity is no longer just reach,  it’s relevance. Brands that win are the ones building real partnerships with Saudi creators and designing authentic ideas that live within platforms.

• Gaming, entertainment and fandoms

With gaming and esports becoming a serious cultural force, brands can move beyond sponsorship into building communities and platforms that people actively choose to engage and connect with.

 The role of agencies today is to help brands move away from one-off ideas toward platforms that can live across content, creators, experiences and commerce. Agencies need to bring creators and cultural insight much earlier into the strategy - not as an execution layer, but as part of how ideas are shaped from the start.

What role does cultural authenticity play, and how do you balance local resonance with global standards?

In Saudi, authenticity isn’t a “nice to have,” it’s the price of entry.

People can tell immediately if something was made in a WhatsApp group in London and just translated into Arabic. The best work in the Kingdom right now doesn’t just feature Saudi culture - it’s built from Saudi humour, aspirations and human truths outwards.

For us, that means a few things:

• Starting from lived culture, not category clichés. We lean into real behaviors - how people actually spend their time, how family dynamics are shifting, how youth navigate tradition vs modernity - rather than falling back on "generic Arab family around a table” tropes.
• Letting Saudi voices lead. That’s creatives, strategists, producers and creators. When the people who write the line also live the culture, you naturally avoid tokenism.

Designing for two audiences at once. The work must feel like “this is ours” to a Saudi viewer and be legible to a global audience of tourists, investors or partners... which forces us to ask, “Is this both locally true and globally world-class?”