Ikea

The 1st of October 2012 , the British newspaper METRO broke the news : the new Ikea catalogue for their Saudian stores erased every women from the pictures : 

The news made a scandal and all over the world Ikea has been criticized for the decision they made.

Saudi Arabia being a muslim country heavily influenced by the Sharia ( the religious law of Islam) they don't allow women to reveal parts of their body such as their arms, legs , breast etc..And go even further in the covering as they require women (even the foreigners) to wear a Niqab. 

Ikea quickly reacted by apologizing  “We should have reacted to the exclusion of women from the Saudi Arabian version of the catalog since it does not align with the IKEA Group values.”

But the damage was already done. 

I personally think that erasing women models from their catalogue is indeed disrespectful to women and it is almost a denial of their existence and their importance in the society.  

But I can understand their decision as a marketing choice. The Ikea Group knew that if they would have put women in their catalogues, the Saudians wouldn't have looked through the pages during family time or with their wives or husbands and it would have affected their sales pretty strongly. They adapted their strategy to their audience, and put their financial interest first.

What do you think? Smart choice or not? 

Mc Donald's

Mc Donald's is the world most famous fast food chain in the world and  they serve around 68 million customers everyday in  over 119 different countries. Being one of the biggest American symbol , everyone around the world associate the fast food chain with the United states and the value they advocate such as Fun,democracy, human rights, freedom of speech etc..

That being said let's have a look at Kandari and Gaithers' paper and their statements :

-"Arabs who have favorable attitudes to Western lifestyles might to be stigmatized as betrayers of their social standards."
-"While American popular culture is associated with futuristic fictional characters, traditional and historical symbols might resonate more with Arabs."
- "Many Arabs and Muslims strongly believe that democracy and human rights notions are pure Western inventions that instruct against the teachings of Islam."

So let's see how the American Giant approach their Egyptian audience in this 2007 commercial: 

So? ... Just by looking at the commercial we can see that once again religion is not mentionned  at any time and there is no "Arabic" way of targeting the audience, the commercial portrays a young couple fighting over a meal and they could be from any country in the world.
And it didn't stop Mc Donald's from having an amazing sucess in Egypt with around 40 000 customers everyday ( that I am sure are not considered as "betrayers of their social standards")  in over 59 restaurants around the country. ( Mc Donalds Egypt)
The commercial is funny and everyone can relate to it because let's be honest..who never fought for their fries ?

Arabs don't like change?

In Kandari and Gaither's paper "Arabs, the West and PR" the authors say :

-"The words of Allah and Muhammad, without exaggeration, perhaps represent, for Muslim Arabs,the most trusted and credible sources on earth for information (...)Arabs probably will rank whatever Allah and Muhammad say as more trustworthy than whatever parents,(...)media or others would say."

-"Using verses and stories from the Koran and Sunnah could be persuasive tools for avoiding or

adopting practices and behaviors."

And "In general, Arabs resist change"

Now let's have a look at this Egyptian commercial :

Well we can see in this campaign launched by the Egyptian public service to raise awareness about birth control and contraceptive options that not at any moment religion or Allah are mentioned.

Contraception is not mentioned in the Koran as it didn't exist at the time but any kind of abortion or interfering in another‘s individual right to die or live is forbidden. Each life is sacred and blessed from birth to natural death. The Koran says that Allah is the creator of everything, only him can create life and order death.

If we follow Kandari and Gaither's statements, we would say that the majority of  Egyptians being Muslim this campaign could offend them or create negative reactions.But most egyptian friends of mine who saw the video embraced the idea, and Nafisat, my 20 years old friend from Cairo told me " I understand that some women choose this option , i wouldn't myself but I am not offended as I don't see anything against Islam or against my beliefs"

With this video we can see that Kandari and Gaither arguments are not applicable to every campaign and therefore are not consistent and researched enough to make such powerful statements