This world is certainly becoming more complex to navigate. As well as fragmented media ecosystems, we also have to contend with shrinking attention spans. Attention has become the new oil—precious, volatile, and deeply contested. But capturing attention is no longer enough. What matters is how we earn it, sustain it, and use it to create meaningful connections.

The newer consumer generations, Millenials, Gen Zs and Gen As, require a different approach than their predecessors, that much is clear, but the future is still unwritten. It shouldn’t stop us from trying to grasp it and anticipate what’s coming next. We’ve been doing this since 2007, assembling the boldest thinkers—marketers, strategists, creatives, and technologists—to shine that path for our audience in our curated experiences. This year’s OMD Sense focused on the forces truly reshaping our industry. It was our most forward-looking edition yet. Under the theme “Decoding Generation (H)uman,”, it explored how brands and businesses can thrive in a world where the most powerful differentiator is not just data or technology—but humanity.

Decoding this future and anticipating what’s next to create it requires a new kind of intelligence: not just artificial, but agentic.

Agentic AI differs from reactive models. It acts with initiative, learns from context, and executes complex, multi-step tasks autonomously. This isn’t speculative—it’s happening now. And it will reshape how we approach productivity, marketing, and leadership. The opportunity is immense, but so is the responsibility. AI must be guided with strategic intent and human oversight.

One of the most valuable tools any organisation can adopt today is a prompt library—a structured, evolving resource that defines how teams interact with AI. Prompts are the new interface. The better the prompt, the better the output. A well-developed library helps ensure that AI reflects your brand’s voice, values, and goals. It turns AI from an experimental tool into a strategic asset—one that scales expertise, not just effort.

Yet no technology, no matter how powerful, can replace the qualities that make us uniquely human: curiosity, empathy, creativity, and ethics. As we heard throughout Sense, leaders must cultivate cultures of experimentation without compromising their values. They must empower teams to navigate complexity—not just with data, but with discernment.

In the years ahead, the most successful organisations may not be those with the largest tech stacks, but those with the strongest sense of purpose. When AI becomes more agentic, humans must become more human. This is the essence of Generation (H)uman.

The path forward may be uncertain, but it’s full of possibility. We’re seeing a generation of consumers—and increasingly, employees—who demand transparency, authenticity, and connection. They expect more than a transaction. They seek brands that align with their identity and beliefs.

In this context, innovation isn’t just about launching new products or entering new markets. It’s about reimagining how we lead, collaborate, and create meaning. It’s about building organisations that are emotionally intelligent, resilient, and agile enough to turn disruption into opportunity.

This is what OMD Sense set out to decode—not just where we’re going, but who we need to become to succeed there. Generation (H)uman is not a demographic—it’s a mindset. And in an age defined by intelligent machines, being human is our greatest competitive advantage.

Creo addresses measurement challenges in a fragmented market by using Omni, Omnicom’s open operating system and marketing orchestration platform. This integrated approach improves creator discovery, planning, and measurement, while directly connecting creators’ actions to consumer responses. Creo’s advanced solutions, like the Creator Briefing Tool, the Creo Influencer Agent, and the Omni Creator Performance Predictor, will offer brands greater precision and actionable insights, transforming influencers into powerful drivers of commercial results. Creo will also leverage exclusive partnerships with leading platforms such as Amazon, TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat in the region.

OMG’s Anthony Nghayoui has been appointed to lead Creo. With 10+ years of experience in social media, performance and creator marketing, he brings a highly analytical perspective into creator marketing, including data-driven planning and integrating advanced measurement solutions. Nghayoui has led many creator campaigns across multiple sectors and worked on influencer marketing tech and product development. He’s a member of the IAB global creator economy task force and the ABG MENA influencer marketing committee.

Using a series of stark tableaux, EMIR’s Head of Advisory and former futurist-in-chief for Dubai, Dr Noah Raford, depicted the future that is to be expected for the three key consumer generations, Millennials, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha. He advised the marketing community to look for the upside in every situation. “During the next 20 years, we will have to face an extraordinary and unprecedented confluence of economic, political, social, climate and technological transformations. Our job will be to regulate our own emotions and anxieties before helping others, people we know and care about, as well as people we don’t,” Dr Raford warned. “Some will bury themselves in distraction like video gaming, others, technically Gen Alphas, will see AI and other technologies for what they are: an opportunity to create something new and unique.”

This echoed Blake Cuthbert’s opening talk, during which the CEO of OMD EMEA described six forces that disconnected marketing from growth and offered six counter-approaches to turn them into positives. These include abundance planning, cultural activations, integrated creator planning, commerce intelligence, agentic buying, and the agent ecosystem. “It’s not a case of humans or machines but humans and machines, even in terms of to whom or what we will address marketing messages to,” Cuthbert said. “Individuals and organisations will have to maintain their prompt libraries, which will usher in a new paradigm of effectiveness. What we’re seeing is the end of Big Advertising and a future with lots of littles, characterised by hyper-personalised messages in branded ecosystems.”

With a keynote address she delivered with a heavy sprinkling of humor, the renowned digital anthropologist Rahaf Harfoush captivated the audience with her deep insights into the intricate relationship between technology and human behaviour. Drawing on her extensive research in digital culture across the MENA region, she shed light on the unseen forces at play in our interactions with technology, uncovering the subtle yet profound ways it shapes our thoughts, decisions, and habits. Harfoush offered actionable strategies to extract the benefits of technological advancements while safeguarding ourselves against unintended consequences. “After automating manufacturing, we’re now automating knowledge work,” she observed, adding a warning. “If we rely too heavily on AI without remaining thoughtful and engaged, we risk losing mastery of our thinking and expertise when we need it to validate the work of machines,” she cautioned. Harfoush urged the audience to cultivate “intentional expertise” to ensure that human creativity, judgment, and depth of knowledge remain irreplaceable pillars of progress.

If storytelling is a fundamental and immutable aspect of humankind and how we learn and communicate, Qi Pan, Snap’s Director of Computer Vision Engineering, revealed the next iteration of the media experience: story-living. Pushing the limits of Augmented Reality, media experiences will involve people in large, shared environments. “The technology and devices are developing to make this vision a reality. The ability to add digital content on top of the physical world is hugely exciting for users and brands, as they now can add entertainment and information at scale,” Pan said. “With rapid tech advancements, like Snap’s fifth-generation spectacles, AR is becoming more natural, letting users add content to the real world without losing touch with it.”

The event, which took place at the Museum of the Future, drew a large crowd of senior business and marketing professionals from brands, agencies, and media circles. OMD has been staging annual thoughtleadership events in the region since 2007. Over the years, OMD has consistently delivered thought leadership and innovation, solidifying its position as a pioneer in the industry.

“When everything around you is changing and the very notions on which an economy or market is based are shaking, you can either resist or ride the wave. We’ve clearly chosen the latter, and by adopting our new positioning statement, ‘We Create What’s Next,’ we’ve taken the first of many steps to reconnect marketing with growth where this link had become weak. As always, the devil is in the detail, and it is by looking at our world through an empathetic lens that we can pick up the trends and insights that will make a difference to our clients,” commented Saleh Ghazal, CEO of OMD MENA. “Decoding Generation (H)uman has been designed as a rallying cry to operate the deep transformation the next decades call for. Yes, it can be uncomfortable and even scary but being innovative in this context means being courageous and inquisitive, finding the upside by flipping challenges on their head. It also means understanding what makes people unique and connecting with them relevantly and authentically at scale.”

This edition of OMD Sense was produced in partnership with Snapchat, a trailblazer in augmented reality, creativity, and media technology, and Talon, a global OOH specialist media agency reimagining and reinventing the possibilities of the medium.

Sparks & honey MENA will build on this regional expertise of more than two decades, as Omnicom Media Group’s first research agency was formed in 2004. It became Hall & Partners MENA in 2015.

By integrating the expanding sparks & honey network, Omnicom Media Group’s research capabilities will now include a broader range of services and technologies, notably in the field of cultural intelligence and foresight. These purpose-built solutions are designed to help brands identify the cultural trends shaping the future and their impact on brands.

In addition to uncovering emerging trends and market segments with sparks & honey’s Q Cultural Intelligence, the Culture Engine in Omnicom’s marketing orchestration platform Omni, the consultancy is also offering comprehensive quantitative, qualitative market research and analytics solutions. Its Brand Intelligence Tool, a locally developed system being implemented globally, is a powerful always-on brand tracking system.

Chady Debs will be the general manager of sparks & honey MENA.

Previously the agency’s Integrated Associate Director, Boulos joined OMD some five years ago and in that time has proved instrumental in driving the success of her team. Thanks to her decade of experience working on some of the most prestigious accounts including P&G, Heineken and Mars, she has consistently delivered planning excellence, media performance and impressive business results. A dual citizen of Japan and Egypt, Boulos relies on a unique cultural perspective to understand consumer behavior. To meet the expectations of more discerning and demanding consumers, she has leveraged insights and innovative strategies that have driven engagement and business success.

In under three years at the agency, Hassan clearly impressed as Business Unit Director, handling a major portfolio of accounts. In his career spanning over 14 years, he’s worked in both offline and online media, across multiple markets, including Egypt, Qatar, and the UAE, and across multiple sectors, including FMCG, luxury and retail, banking, finance, and automotive. His strategic and analytical mind has helped him achieve great results in marketing strategy, account management, and business growth for brands as diverse as PepsiCo, Majid Al Futtaim and FIFA 2022 World Cup Qatar.

In their new attributions, Boulos and Hassan will support CEO Tarek Jaffar and their teams in articulating and realizing the vision encapsulated in OMD’s new positioning “We Create What’s Next”. Their roles will encompass building their teams further, innovating with both structure and services, and capitalizing on the agency’s values and points of difference. They will also focus on enhancing media excellence and boosting their clients’ market and brand performance.

The promotions are effective immediately.

Supported by a brand refresh — enabled by Canva — that features a contemporized version of its classic red logo, We Create What’s Next underscores OMD’s unique capacity to leverage shifts in how consumers discover, engage, transact and love brands in an era marked by rapid acceleration in retail media, connected TV, creator and influencer ecosystems, and new and emerging touchpoints such as Generative AI Search.

“We Create What’s Next sends a straightforward message to our teams, our brand partners, and the marketplace more broadly: OMD is building on our global leadership position and legacy of innovation to reimagine how and where brands can win with consumers for the next decade,” says OMD CEO George Manas.

The new positioning was rolled out during a global town hall hosted by Manas, livestreamed to 14,000 OMD employees across more than 100 countries. During the event, Manas also highlighted OMD’s 2024 new business performance, which saw the network earning $1.8 billion in total new business (wins minus losses, including retentions) and adding Gap Inc., Michelin, AliExpress and Turkish Airlines, among others, to its client roster.

OMD, which was first incorporated in the Middle East in 2002 with offices in Dubai and Jeddah, has grown rapidly in the region to now be a leader in its field both in terms of market share and new business activity. Last year, it added more than 10 new accounts including Pizza Hut, the Qatar Free Zone Authority and Asharq.

In the latest edition of the highly regarded Network Diagnostics report from RECMA (Research Company Evaluating the Media Agency Industry) published in November 2024, OMD was named the best performing global media network overall, marking the eight consecutive edition in which OMD had topped the Diagnostics report.

As reported in the Global & Regional Billings Projected 2024 report published in December 2024 by COMvergence, OMD Worldwide is the #1 global media agency network by volume, with $25.9 billion in global billings (+8% YoY). This 7. 9% increase over 2023 represents both the best rate of growth among the top five agency networks as well as the largest net billings increase among all networks, with $1.9b added over the past 12 months.

Sukkarieh brings with him over 18 years of industry experience gained in the region, mostly in KSA. Most recently, he was the General Manager of UM KSA. Over the years, Sukkarieh has navigated the rapid evolution of the local media market and led the team handling the country’s largest advertiser. He owes his success to his deep understanding of the country’s marketing landscape and the needs of its advertisers.

“Working with Saudi Arabia’s growth momentum and its ambitious vision, Ziad’s experience and proven track record to date bodes well for our next chapter in the Kingdom,” commented Saleh Ghazal, CEO of OMD MENA. “Ziad is ideally placed to help us accelerate our growth, with his grasp of the dynamics and mechanics of the unique Saudi market. I am delighted to have a seasoned and respected leader joining the executive team and confident that we will create an exciting future for our talent, clients, and partners.”

“I’ve always had the greatest deal of respect for OMD, and I now realize it is because we share the same vision and values. Joining OMD feels like a homecoming of sorts, a natural step in my professional journey,” Sukkarieh explained. “I am very excited about what’s coming next, and I look forward to meeting, exceeding even, the ambitions of our business partners.”

As reported in the 2022 Media Agency New Business Barometer – an analysis of the global media agency marketplace published by independent research company COMvergence – OMG agencies added more than $2.5 billion in incremental client billings last year.

Leading with an offer that connects media, content, and commerce, OMG’s net new billings added outpaced the second-ranked group by close to $670 million; exceeded the combined totals of the second and third-ranked groups by more than $100 million; and bested the fourth-ranked group by a factor of ten-plus. OMG also had the best global win-to-loss ratio, with more than 3x more new billings coming into the agency ($3.75 billion) than left ($1.2 billion) in 2022. 

OMG was also the top net gains performer in APAC, North America, and the UK.

Equally important as its incremental wins, OMG’s 2022 retention rate across the entirety of its client base was an industry-leading 98%.

“In a marketplace where complexity is a bigger pain point than ever before, clients are looking for the optimal mix of deep specialization and deep integration,” said OMG CEO Florian Adamski.

Summing up OMG’s performance in 2022, Adamski drew a direct line to a comprehensive analysis of global media agency groups from research and advisory firm Forrester, in which OMG received the highest possible scores in the critical future-defining development areas of retail media, commerce media, intelligence and insights, optimization, operations automation, and innovation.

“OMG has built – and continues to build – the capabilities, partnerships, technology, and talent force that empower our agencies to deliver transformative consumer experiences on behalf of our clients, driving sales today and share tomorrow,” said Adamski.  

OMD and PHD top the agency network rankings  

Accordingly, OMG’s best-in-class ranking consolidates powerful performances by its OMD and PHD agency networks in 2022. Leveraging their parent company’s assets – including Omni, Omnicom’s marketing orchestration platform – OMD and PHD topped the global agency network net new business rankings at #1 and #2. OMD also led in the EMEA and MENA rankings, with $370 million and $55 million respectively.    

OMD was also the top-ranked agency for total new business won in 2022, which reflects business that went into review and was successfully defended. 

“Our results in 2022 prove that we are a trusted partner to brands in pivotal moments of transformation, enabled by truly differentiated capabilities in digital, data, and tech to navigate new paths to growth,” said George Manas, CEO of OMD Worldwide.

“Our expertise in handling data, tech, and everything that digital transformation entails, on top of our traditional services and legacy in communication planning, creativity, and effectiveness, is our growth engine. As clients see the impact of these new services in real time and in business terms, demand for them is rising fast, accelerating our own transformation. Across the region, new territories are added to our remits, and new expectations [are] included in our briefs. The more clients challenge us, the more we challenge the status quo with solutions that help us make better decisions faster,” explained Saleh Ghazal, CEO of OMD MENA.

The release of the 2022 Media Agency New Business Barometer wraps up a year of announcements, including a multi-year agreement with Affinity Solutions to integrate retailer purchase transactions into Omni – Omnicom's marketing orchestration platform; an enterprise-wide partnership with Firework, the world’s largest livestream commerce and shoppable video platform, to deliver livestream shopping solutions directly to Omnicom clients’ websites; the industry’s first programmatic marketplace for point-of-purchase screens; and the Supply Chain IQ Score, which gives media planners day-to-day visibility into SKU inventory data at the physical store, digital shelf, and inventory-in-transit levels, enabling media investment to be shifted away from low inventory products in real time.

At the 2022 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, OMG also announced a series of first-mover strategic partnerships with retail media networks including Walmart Connect (cross-screen planning with Omni ID), Instacart (joint clean room development), and Kroger Precision Marketing (supply chain optimization for media targeting); and the global expansion of its TRKKN analytics and cloud consultancy that offers Google Marketing and Cloud Stack support. Also at the festival, OMD was named  Media Network of the Year – the same honor that PHD had earned in 2021.

The end of the year saw the scaling of Omnicom’s Transact connected commerce consultancy as a global resource that will help brands gain first-mover advantage from its retail media network partnerships, and grow their market share in e-retail.

This year, the MDA received 106 entries marked and judged for their innovativeness and creativity.

The awards were given across categories clustered under seven groups.

The ‘Best Use of Social Media – Small Budget’ award was presented to The Environment Agency Abu Dhabi, ‘The ‘Best Use of Social Media – Medium Budget’ award was presented to Magna, and Netizency was awarded in the big-budget category. Bagging gold awards were AXA Gulf for ‘Best Application in a Tablet/Mobile,’ PHD Media for ‘Best Performance,’ Mindshare for ‘Best Use of Data,’ Sandstorm Digital for ‘Best Search Marketing Campaign,’ LMTD for ‘Best Use of Video’, Magna for ‘Best Use of Mobile,’ Magna Global for ‘Best Viral Campaign,’ and OMD for ‘Best Integrated and Media Campaign.’ For the full list of winners, click here.

The launch of the awards in Saudi Arabia in 2023 and the addition of the MENA Influencer Awards and Digital Media Forum were also announced.

Najla Semaan Mazboudi, Founder of the MDA and CEO of SpotOn Media Services and Events, the company behind the awards, said in a statement, “In line with the UAE’s and the region’s march towards a digitally equipped, innovative future, the MENA Digital Awards was established as a reflection of this direction to recognize the work and the MENA creatives behind them. Every year, we add new categories, receive an overwhelming number of entries, and celebrate the winners for their efforts in strengthening the regional digital landscape. KSA is an expanding and dynamic communication market whose influence will also be recognized through the MDA next year. In order to tend to the changing and evolving digital environment, we’re also adding new categories to the awards. I would like to congratulate the winners, and I look forward to the next edition.”

The MDA is guided by international standards and is the only awards show with an official independent audit partner. All entries are judged by a jury of renowned digital experts from across the world, ensuring a best practice process that recognises only the best work.

OMD ranked second thanks to the wins of Dubai Expo ($43 million) and OSN Telecom ($30 million), whilst Mediacom and Mindshare share the third rank ($63 million).

Top 5 Middle East new business ranking – media agency networks

Top 3 Middle East new business ranking – media agency groups

Omnicom Media (OMG) ranks first with a total new business value of +$193 million (including $218 million of new wins). GroupM ranks second with a total new business value of +$143 million (including $73 million of retentions such as Ferrero).

In 2021, COMvergence assessed 80 media account moves and retentions in the Middle East, totaling $451 million (doubling last year's $205 million). This figure represents about 21% of the Middle East media agency billings ($2,1 billion) studied by COMvergence.

Local pitches are less dominant than previous years, with a total spend reviewed amounting to $157 million (35% of the total volume assessed in 2021), whilst the retention rate is 20%.

The top largest reviews resulted in $451 million.

Sources: Information on account moves are derived from industry news websites and then validated by all the agencies studied (all cooperating with COMvergence). Offline deflated media spend are sourced from Nielsen data where a strategic partnership with COMvergence exists – while digital media spend are estimated by COMvergence through a proprietary methodology.