DDB Dubai has appointed Iris Minnema to the role of Managing Director. Having joined DDB Amsterdam as Senior Account Manager in 2007, Iris moved to Dubai and most recently held the position of Business Director, where she worked across clients such as Johnson & Johnson, McDonald’s and Dubai Parks and Resorts. In her new role, she will report to Hubert Boulos, CEO of DDB Middle East and lead the operations of the Dubai office.
SOCIALEYEZ has been appointed to handle all social media for Dubai Parks and Resorts, an integrated theme park destination scheduled to open in October this year. SOCIALEYEZ will manage all of the social media activities, monitoring and listening and content creation for the overall destination as well as for motiongate Dubai, Bollywood Parks Dubai and Riverland Dubai.
“This is undoubtedly the kind of account we love to work on at SOCIALEYEZ,” says Fadl Al Tarzi, CEO, SOCIALEYEZ. “Working with Dubai Parks ad Resorts will bring out the best of our team, we expect the account to leverage almost every part of our agency’s offerings from creative content to video to apps to launch campaigns to linking with e-commerce. We’re truly honoured to be working with such an exciting client but also one that is of strategic importance to Dubai’s current and future tourism sector.”
Vinit Shah, Chief Destination Management Officer, Dubai Parks and Resorts, adds “Our partnership with SOCIALEYEZ comes at a strategic time as we shift the focus of our communications from construction updates to announcing the installations of our exciting rides, shows, attractions and retail offerings,”
Integrated communications agency House of Comms has appointed Tryphena Greenwood to the role of Senior Account Director. With over nine years of experience in the MENA region as well as Europe, Tryphena most recently worked at ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller where she worked across accounts such as Dubai Parks and Resorts, Starwood Hotels and Resorts ME and The Walt Disney Company MENA. In her new role, she will work across a number of House of Comms key PR accounts, reporting directly to the agency’s managing partners.
“We’ve been searching for someone like Tryph for a while,” says Abby Wilks, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, House of Comms. “When you invest your blood, sweat and tears into building a business, every hire is crucial. In recruiting Tryph we have found ourselves with a solid, experienced and extremely dedicated leader, who will support Kaja and I as we head into the third quarter of the year with more ambitious growth plans than ever.”
Dubai Parks and Resorts has appointed PHD UAE to manage its domestic and international media activities. The agency will cover strategy, planning and buying for all offline media channels, covering the Dubai Parks and Resorts brand as well as its three theme parts: Motiongate Dubai, Bollywood Parks Dubai and LEGOLAND Dubai. PHD will also be working on the LEGOLAND water park, the Lapita Hotel and Riverland Dubai, a centrally located 220,000 square-foot district that will host various retail, dining and entertainment outlets.
“We were particularly impressed with PHD’s approach for our brands as well as the tools and systems they have to set their strategies,” says Vinit Dinesh Shah, Chief Destination Management Officer, Dubai Parks and Resorts. “We also found there was a great chemistry between us and the PHD team. We truly got the sense that they are people who understand our business as well as we do and we felt comfortable entrusting our brands to them.”
Elda Choucair, Managing Director, PHD UAE, adds “The sheer scale of this impressive project as well as the diversity of markets in which we will be working makes this an incredibly exciting brief for us. We’re literally contributing to building the future of Dubai as it is a landmark development that will further strengthen the city’s position on the world map. They have huge ambitions and we’re ready with boundless energy in order to make sure Dubai Parks and Resorts grows to reach its full potential.”