Last Updated: July
16. 2008 6:49PM UAE / July 16. 2008 2:49PM GMT
Sulaiman
al Fahim sits upright in a high-backed black
leather chair tucked into an expansive wooden
desk piled with paperwork. To his right, the
national flag hangs limply from a short pole. On
the wall to his left, official portraits of the
country’s leaders stare out from behind gilded
frames.
It looks like a typical office, but it’s not. It
is a television set for the forthcoming reality
TV show, The Hydra Executives. In fact, very
little about Dr Fahim, the chief executive of
the Abu Dhabi-based international developer
Hydra Properties, is typical.
The softly spoken 31-year-old with a cherub face
framed by a closely-trimmed beard is smashing
ingrained, staid notions of how Gulf companies
should market themselves.
“I wish that people would appreciate the ideas I
come up with,” he said, “but I always feel like
I’m a kind of bulldozer, a fully insured
bulldozer that if nobody likes it, it starts
moving – even if there are cars in its way, it
has to crush the cars and move. I can’t stop. If
I have an idea, I have to do it.”
Unlike many property developers who concentrate
their marketing budgets on promoting certain
projects, Dr Fahim’s approach centres on
marketing his company, and not its almost one
dozen developments.
“You don’t have to market the project itself.
Once people have trust in you, they will come to
you and ask you what you have,” Dr Fahim said.
“If you market the project, it seems to me that
you have to market to a targeted segment. I
can’t do that.”
Instead, the chief executive – who has a
Bachelor’s degree in marketing, an MBA in
finance, another MBA in real estate and a PhD in
real estate investment – wants his company’s
brand “to reach every family”.
“I’m targeting everybody,” he said.
Dr Fahim is hoping to do that by a variety of
means, including sponsoring everything from
business workshops in local secondary schools
and national book fairs, to funding Hollywood
blockbusters. His company is also the only
corporate sponsor of the UAE’s Olympic team.
The smaller scale marketing initiatives are part
of Hydra’s “teaser campaign” aimed at creating
grassroots awareness of the brand.
“When the kids start to know Hydra...then the
people in the house start talking about Hydra,”
Dr Fahim said.
Under his stewardship the 18-month-old private
company, owned by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, has
earmarked two per cent of its undisclosed annual
revenue for its marketing budget.
Dr Fahim said he would like to see that figure
increased to four per cent.
“My auditors and my boardroom are always angry,”
he said, laughing. “They have asked me to reduce
this two per cent, but I will always keep it.”
Hydra’s in-house marketing team accounts for
more than 12 per cent of the company’s 60-strong
workforce, a reflection of the importance that
Dr Fahim places on the group’s work.
“The way I think and the way other CEOs think is
different,” he said. “They’re not really giving
attention to marketing. Most of the companies
here in Abu Dhabi are giving attention only to
the engineering department, to the
architecture.”
Instead, Dr Fahim – who has written a soon to be
published 200-page book about Hydra’s marketing
campaigns, entitled Brand Builder – has made the
innovative promotion of his company one of his
main priorities.
Rather than restrict Hydra’s promotion to
regular television commercials, Dr Fahim opted
to fund a 14-episode business reality TV series,
The Hydra Executives, to the tune of US$5
million (Dh18.3m). The series will be broadcast
on Showtime Arabia in September.
“The Doc”, as he’s known on the set, has also
signed on to sponsor the website of the upcoming
Dubai. TV, a celebrity-based channel that is
part of the blockbuster Hollywood. TV
phenomenon, for an undisclosed sum. The channel
is scheduled to be launched in December.
To Dr Fahim, celebrities in general, and
Hollywood stars in particular, are an integral
part of his company’s marketing strategy. He
attends Hollywood bashes in full national dress
and mixes with the likes of Demi Moore and her
husband, Ashton Kutcher, the Hiltons and other
paparazzi favourites.
He wants to bring several Hollywood stars – who
he declined to name – to Abu Dhabi in the next
few months to brand and endorse a handful of
property projects.
More boldly, he also wants to shoot movies with
Hollywood A-listers here in Abu Dhabi. Dr Fahim
is scheduled to meet Jerry Weintraub, the
producer of Oceans Eleven, in Los Angeles later
this month to discuss creating a movie fund to
finance “at least” eight movies a year.
“We want to get eight movies per year with
A-grade stars, like the stars in Oceans Eleven,”
Dr Fahim said. “Big movies that can be in the
Oscars. The big movies make cash – there’s no
profit in small movies and you can’t win Oscars
with them.”
Dr Fahim, who declined to disclose the details
of the fund until the deal was finalised, said
that he had another, separate movie project in
the works.
“Whether the movie fund with Weintraub goes
ahead or not, one movie will be happening here,”
he said. “I can tell you more in December.”
Dr Fahim’s entertainment initiatives are
independent of the state-run Abu Dhabi Film
Commission’s own plans to produce movies in the
emirate. The commission administers a film fund,
the value of which has not been disclosed, to
help finance Hollywood blockbusters.
Dr Fahim, who said he “always works alone”, did
not rule out collaborating with the
Government-administered fund in the future.
The property developer’s forays into the film
and television industry have quickly catapulted
him into the limelight. But his rapid ascension
has drawn scorn from some more traditional
elements of the local business community, who
deride his almost celebrity status and do not
see any value in its brand-building potential.
But Dr Fahim just shrugs off the criticism.
“It’s just jealousy,” he said, “Because I think
that if they had the power or the vision to do
it, they would have done it.
“I know many property developers now have
started talking even to my TV producer to do
[their own] reality show. That’s what I call
jealousy.
“I’m a CEO, a celebrity executive officer,” he
joked. “There’s nothing wrong with being a
celebrity and being a businessman, and being a
CEO.”
The stocky entrepreneur has often been likened
to another “celebrity executive officer”, the
American property magnate, Donald Trump.
Although Dr Fahim is the Trump figure in his
Apprentice-style reality TV series, comparisons
to “The Donald” don’t sit too well with “The
Doc”.
“I don’t want to be him,” he said. But he does
want to work with him.
The two property tycoons are in negotiations to
jointly construct a tower on Abu Dhabi’s Reem
Island. Dr Fahim said that a memorandum of
understanding or a letter of intent could be
signed within a week, if certain points of
disagreement are ironed out.
“Trump always insists on having the Trump name
alone, but I’m insisting on having Trump next to
Hydra... because I feel that Hydra is not less
than Trump,” he said.
“The problem with Donald Trump is that he wants
whatever he wants, and you have to agree with
him. He thinks that he’s a legend, and he is,
but is he the biggest real estate developer in
the world? No. Emaar is much bigger. He has done
70 towers in his life. Tamouh is building 200
towers in Abu Dhabi.
“He’s promoting himself alone, while I’d like to
promote myself and my community.”
Dr Fahim’s desire to promote his city, Abu
Dhabi, through initiatives such as The Hydra
Executives, which was filmed here, or by
sponsoring local schools, sporting groups and
business clubs does not just stem from
patriotism. It also makes good business sense.
“Since I’m in the real estate market and I have
properties mainly now in Abu Dhabi, I have to
market Abu Dhabi first,” he said. “If I manage
to attract people to Abu Dhabi, it means that I
have a higher possibility of people investing
with me. That’s my main goal.”
Sulaiman
al Fahim sits upright in a high-backed black
leather chair tucked into an expansive wooden
desk piled with paperwork. To his right, the
national flag hangs limply from a short pole. On
the wall to his left, official portraits of the
country’s leaders stare out from behind gilded
frames.
