Due to its unique conservative culture, the Saudi market has long been approached with ignorance and discouragement to do something courageous, extraordinary, purposeful, meaningful and relevant to the Saudi people. For this, Leo Burnett and its Saudi office Strategic Planning Director Ahmad Abu Zannad have decided to challenge this fact in their upcoming book: “Speaking Human in the Land of Dichotomies: A Guide to Leo Burnett’s HumanKind Approach to Building Brands in Saudi Arabia”.

The book takes a close look at the Saudi market, its unique culture, the cultural shifts it is experiencing and how this culture – along with the behaviors of its people – could be a source of inspiration toward the building of purposeful brands. The book also challenges conventional marketing practices and brand-building approaches to introduce Leo Burnett’s “HumanKind.”

The book offers a summary on the HumanKind Quotient, a proprietary research tool that measures a brand’s performance based on HumanKind measures. It also presents the results of the HumanKind Quotient Global Study, which was conducted in 11 countries for 778 brands across 155 categories and including 37,900 respondents. The book zooms in on the results of the HumanKind Quotient Saudi Arabia Study, comparing the Saudi market to others and assessing the performance of six categories and 33 local and global brands in the Kingdom.

Afterwards, the book summarizes the cases of three successful local Saudi brands and illustrates how to approach the Saudi market and build purposeful brands that the Saudi people will embrace and feel engaged with. Finally, it concludes with a HumanKind case study within the Saudi market. This example showcases the fact that genuinely attempting to deeply understand the people of Saudi and their behavior, and then building purposeful brands that cater to this behavior, will result in more effective marketing and drastically improved business results.