Advertising for the soul

Local advertising seems to be on the rise and improving day by day. The development and management ofthis industry locally is, in itself, a design marvel. We’vefound that only a handful of Saudis are aware of theprogress of local agencies.

FullStop Advertising is a great example of how local advertising enterprises havedefined standards for distinctive local creative output.Kaswara AlKhateeb, founder of FullStop Advertising,realized that the ads we saw in Saudi in SaudiArabia weren’t always… well, Saudi! He always feltsomething was missing; a local touch was neededto properly send across the product promise to localfamilies who were exposed to ads without any insight.Hence, he decided to not only create a Saudi ad agen-cy that met the demands of companies reaching out tothe local consumer, but to create an agency that alsoprided itself for the unique output of creative work.

According to Kaswara, “The advantage was being able to cross the language barrier.

” He refers to foreign agencies as the barrier, which consists mostlyof non-Saudis that were attempting to address Saudiconsumers in an inappropriate tone. Another advantageKaswara claims “is that we are the clients, the consumersand the advertisers.

So if you need someone to speak to you, you will need someone who can speakin the same tongue.” Kaswara uses his natural instinctsto differentiate between cultural norms and taboos, “ASaudi, at the end of the day, is more likely to understandthe mindset of his own people.”

Among FullStop’s pivitol points of success is the rebranding and re-launchcampaign for Saudi Postal Service wasone of Full Stop’s pivotal points of success.In this campaign, the traditions ofpoetry and true local faces were keyfeatures in promoting the modernizedand efficient, yet still local, Saudi mailingsystem.

Aside from advertising, FullStop is well recognized and applauded for itsprovocative public service announcements.The latest media contributionthat FullStop released for Ramadanwas entitled, “Al-Rahma” (Mercy). TheMercy series aimed to address domesticabuse towards members of the household,whether individuals within a familyor domestic workers.

Another prime project was the latest music clip produced by FullStopfor the rapper, Don Legend. The video’suse of a global philosophy around truerhymes and a local storyline using Hijazifolklore, is further proof that publicacceptance for progressive materialdepends highly on local insight and vision.Today, Kaswara is recognizedas one of the young driving forces forchange within the advertising industryif not other forms of media communication.

He may not have been the first but his establishment has become aforefront for local agencies with higherstandards of creative output.Because of companies like Full-Stop, many global advertising agencieshave moved towards hiring and trainingmore local talents. Creative professionals,who had started out at FullStop,have since graduated to senior positionsin many global agencies including,Ogilvy & Mather, Leo Burnett, Y&R andmany others.

to establish a local advertising agency’With his success in advertisingestablished, Kaswara now plans to flexFullStop’s muscles ins more specializeddesign services such as 3D modeling,animation and postproduction. This impacthas made FullStop a key player inestablishing design as a legitimate andwidely accepted profession in the Kingdomof Saudi Arabia.