Marketing in the Gulf and MENA: audiences, languages, rules and the calendar

The Middle East and North Africa is often planned as one market with one language. It is neither. This piece covers what a marketer needs to decide when a plan reaches the Gulf, the Levant or North Africa.

• Who lives there Saudi Arabia's 2022 census counted 32.2 million residents¹, more than 13 million of them non-Saudi². Audiences, languages and media choices start from that mix.
• Platform numbers need care DataReportal's mid-2026 update reported TikTok ad reach in Saudi Arabia equivalent to 164% of the country's adults⁴: advertising audiences are not people.
• Language is a decision, and sometimes a rule Arabic register, dialect and English all have their place; Saudi Arabia's central bank requires Arabic in financial advertising, with an exception for ads aimed at non-Arabic speakers¹⁰.
• The rules moved in 2025 The UAE created a National Media Authority in December 2025 to take over the Media Council's functions¹³, after launching an Advertiser Permit for individuals in July 2025¹¹.
• Ramadan is its own season Ipsos's 2025 Ramadan handbooks show different shopping and advertising responses from one country to the next^7, 8.

A team planning for the region has to settle five things before the media plan:

1. Which markets, and in which order: the Gulf states, the Levant and North Africa differ in income, media, language and law.
2. Which languages and registers in each market, and for which audiences.
3. Which channels, including messaging, given what platform data can and cannot say.
4. Which rules apply, especially for influencers, financial services and advertising language.
5. When to run, around Ramadan, the Eids and national days.

The approach to standardisation and adaptation is in global and local; this piece applies it to one region.

The region splits into groups that behave differently, and the site's own market list uses them: the Gulf (GCC), the Levant and Iraq, and North Africa.

Within the Gulf, who lives in a country matters as much as its citizens. Saudi Arabia's 2022 census, announced in 2023, counted 32.2 million residents with an average age of 29¹, and more than 13 million non-Saudi residents². A plan that addresses only Saudi citizens in Arabic misses a large share of the people who shop there; one that addresses only expatriates in English misses the majority.

For North Africa, read this piece with marketing in Africa, which covers the continent's mobile and media picture.

The quickest source of country numbers is DataReportal, which publishes a report for each market, including Saudi Arabia, with internet, social media and mobile use and the user numbers of the leading platforms³. Read those numbers as their publisher asks:

• Ad audiences are not people DataReportal's mid-2026 update reported that TikTok's ad reach in Saudi Arabia was equivalent to 164% of the country's adults⁴. Platform figures count accounts and advertising audiences, and in countries with many residents outside the official counts they can exceed the population.
• Compare like with like Use the same publisher, the same month and the same measure when you compare markets or platforms.

For young Arabs, one public source is the ASDA'A BCW Arab Youth Survey. Its 2023 edition, the fifteenth, interviewed 3,600 Arab citizens aged 18 to 24 in 53 cities across 18 Arab states⁶, and reported that a majority said social media addiction was leading to a decline in their mental well-being⁵. That is a reason to plan social media for usefulness rather than for time spent, and to check the latest edition before relying on any figure.

Arabic copy has to choose a register: Modern Standard Arabic, a national dialect, or a mix. The choice can be regulated. The UAE's former National Media Council required advertisements to be in standard Arabic or the Emirati dialect⁹; check how its successor applies the rule (see the rules section below). In financial services, the Saudi Central Bank's rules make Arabic the language of advertising for financial institutions, except for advertisements aimed at non-Arabic speakers that comply with the rules¹⁰.

Three working rules:

• Choose the register per brand and per channel, and write it down: standard Arabic travels across markets; a dialect sounds closer but belongs to one country.
• Plan English as a language of the market, not as a fallback. In the Gulf it reaches residents who do not read Arabic².
• Write natively, then test. Transcreate headlines and scripts in each language from the brief, as in global and local. Right-to-left design is covered in consistency and adaptation.

Where customers already talk to businesses in chat apps, messaging belongs in the plan from the start rather than as an afterthought. On the WhatsApp Business Platform, a business pays per delivered template message, and rates vary by message category and by the recipient's country¹⁵. That makes the market list a cost decision: the same campaign costs differently in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

The working rules are in the messaging primer: get a clear opt-in, start with an approved message template, and make every conversation lead to an answer, a booking or a purchase. The messaging hub lists the platforms.

Media regulation in the Gulf changed quickly between 2022 and 2026. This is not legal advice; confirm the current position with the regulator and with counsel.

• Saudi Arabia The media regulator set out the rules of its Mawthooq licence for social media advertising in 2022¹⁴. Brief only creators who hold one, and keep the licence number with the contract.
• United Arab Emirates The Media Council launched the Advertiser Permit in July 2025 for individuals who publish promotional content on social media, paid or unpaid¹¹, and extended the period to obtain it until 31 January 2026¹². A federal decree-law of December 2025 then created the National Media Authority, which replaces the Media Council, the National Media Office and the Emirates News Agency in their functions¹³. As of October 2026, treat the National Media Authority as the body to check.
• Financial services in Saudi Arabia Arabic in advertising, with the exception noted above¹⁰.

The influencer primer covers disclosure; the financial services hub gathers related platforms.

Ramadan changes when people watch, shop and gather, and it does not change them in the same way everywhere. Ipsos's 2025 Ramadan handbooks, published country by country, make the point:

In both countries most shoppers preferred stores, and the largest group in Ipsos's segmentation was the one it calls the Content Explorer (35% in Egypt, 31% in Kuwait); but about three in five Egyptian shoppers said advertising influenced them, against about one in three in Kuwait^7, 8. Plan Ramadan per market, with in-store activation weighted accordingly.

For the calendar itself, take the dates of Ramadan, the two Eids and each country's national days from the official announcements of each country, and lay them out a year ahead in the campaign calendar.

Illustrative, with no real data. A regional chain of optical stores plans its first campaign across Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt.

• Markets Three separate plans under one brand platform, with one budget line per country.
• Language Standard Arabic for the brand line in all three; Egyptian dialect for social video in Egypt; English versions for the Gulf.
• Channels Messaging for appointment reminders with opt-in at the till; local creators in each market, briefed only after checking their Mawthooq licence or Advertiser Permit.
• Calendar A Ramadan flight in Egypt weighted towards advertising, and one in Kuwait-style markets weighted towards in-store offers, pending the team's own research.
• Measurement Bookings by store and by market, not platform reach.

• One Arabic for everyone A dialect that sounds natural in one country can sound foreign in the next.
• Planning on platform reach as if it were population Ad audiences can exceed the people who live there⁴.
• Briefing an unlicensed creator In Saudi Arabia and the UAE the individual needs a licence or permit^11, 14.
• Copying last year's Ramadan plan to every country Responses differ by market^7, 8.
• Relying on an old regulator's page As of October 2026, the UAE's media functions sit with the National Media Authority¹³.

Then plan the season in the campaign calendar, map the customer's path in the customer journey map, and run the launch checklist per market. The market entry hub and the influencer hub list related platforms.

• Saudi Arabia's 2022 census, as reported by AGBI and Arabian Business^1, 2.
• DataReportal's country report for Saudi Arabia and its mid-2026 global update^3, 4.
• The ASDA'A BCW Arab Youth Survey, 2023 edition^5, 6.
• Ipsos's Ramadan 2025 handbooks for Egypt and Kuwait^7, 8.
• WAM on the Advertiser Permit and the National Media Authority^11, 13; Arab News on Mawthooq¹⁴; the SAMA rulebook¹⁰.
• On IMC Report: global and local, consistency and adaptation, the messaging primer and the glossary entry for influencer disclosure.