BPA Middle East has released its semi-annual report. Included in this is the release of brand data across the region for the six-month period, which ended June 30, 2014. The brand data reports on figures for newspapers and magazines that have opted to be BPA-audited, and include the headline average qualified circulations and other channels such as web traffic “average unique browser”, social media and apps downloads from the most recent June 2014 – ending brand reports. The figures cover media with operations based in seven Middle Eastern countries: Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman, Qatar and UAE.
The semi-annual report also shares which communication agencies BPA Middle East has been engaged with throughout 2014, as well as the activities they have been involved with, in a bid to educate the market-place about the importance of a third-party audit. These include Starcom Mediavest, OMD, Mindshare Media, Drive Dentsu, Magna, Carat, Dubai Healthcare City, Four Communication and Mediabourne.
BPA Middle East touches on moving towards greater transparency in its semi-annual report, stating the need for accurate data to allow advertisers and media buyers to make valid decisions based on well-calculated return on investment. Significantly, the report notes how few Arabic publications have taken the opportunity to follow the international best practice of opening their processes to independent audits. Of the 95 media brands in membership at BPA Middle East, only nine (9.5%) are ‘Arabic’ publications.
As of January this year, the BPA Middle East office has 105 members and applicants, broken down into the following representation:
Consumer magazines – 50%
Business publications – 19%
Events and expositions – 15%
Consumer applications – 9%
Newspapers – 7%
Events/expositions confidential – 1%
Newspaper applicants – 1%
To access the complete data, refer to the BPA Worldwide Reports Library at www.bpaww.com.
