Merkle, a part of Dentsu, is a leading customer experience management (CXM) company that specializes in the delivery of unique, personalized customer experiences across platforms and devices. The appointment follows a competitive pitch designed to consolidate performance marketing for Al Hokair’s retail arm with a scalable strategy and an overarching account structure while maintaining the required focus for each brand under their umbrella.

“AlHokair has witnessed tremendous growth in the last 30 years and it’s an incredibly exciting time to be working with them as they continue to expand across verticals and markets. We are looking forward to leveraging our expertise in customer experience management to support its objective of targeting audiences more efficiently and effectively, by delivering personalization at scale,” said Vimal Badiani, Head of Merkle for the MENA region.

The partnership will require Merkle to deliver personalization through performance marketing and granular feed management for the premium franchise retailer across womenswear, menswear, children and baby goods, shoes and accessories, cosmetics, food & beverage, sports and entertainment.

Alhokair, which is a franchising retail group based out of the KSA, will leverage Merkle’s expertise in managing large scale and multi-layered accounts to demonstrate a ‘consumer first’ approach for its existing brands including renowned fast-fashion brands – Decathlon, Aldo, GAP and Flormar in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.  

Commenting on the appointment, Hassan Al Redha, Head of Marketing at Alhokair explained how they were looking for a new agency partner to deliver across all performance marketing capabilities, consolidating our PPC, social and digital media efforts across numerous distinct brands. “Merkle’s approach will help us integrate and augment our data assets, resulting in people-based insights that will ultimately lead to more meaningful customer engagement across all touchpoints. We are delighted to partner with Merkle to continue driving incremental growth for our brands,” he concluded.