Who is Saad Alabbassi?

Saad Alabbassi is a brand, creative and growth strategist based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, with 13 years of experience across MENA and the GCC. He has led strategy for Amazon, Procter & Gamble, Durex, BMW, Porsche, Microsoft and STARZPLAY, and has won Effie MENA Silver and SMARTIES MENA Gold.

What does Saad Alabbassi specialise in?

Creative strategy, audience planning and growth marketing. He specialises in making global brands culturally relevant in MENA markets, particularly in categories affected by censorship, restriction or low cultural permission, and in connecting brand work to commercial outcomes such as trials, subscriptions, retention and sell-through.

Where is Saad Alabbassi based?

Dubai, United Arab Emirates. He works across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the wider GCC in both Arabic and English.

Saad Alabbassi | Brand & Creative Strategy Director, Dubai UAE

Durex Records case study board showing campaign results in Saudi Arabia

View the case board

Durex · Saudi Arabia · VICE Media Group

We Were Not Allowed
To Make Ads

So we made records instead.

Advertising was the one door bolted shut in Saudi Arabia. So Durex launched a record label, built on hip hop, the language youth were already using. Anghami co-produced. Fans sent sounds from their own streets, Riyadh to Khartoum, and those became the tracks.

Creative Strategy: Refused the brief. Turned a banned advertiser into a music label and gave Saudi youth an unfiltered voice.
Audience Planning: Read hip hop as the rising register of Arab self-expression, then built for that fandom rather than the category.
Growth: Charts, streams, consideration and sell-out all moved on the back of a single platform.

No.1Saudi charts

14MViews in KSA

230KAnghami streams

+26%Top of mind

+8%Consideration

+8%Volume sell out

Effie MENA Silver · SMARTIES MENA Gold · Media Innovation

Saudi Arabia women's basketball team competing at the Special Olympics World Games in Abu Dhabi, 2019

Special Olympics World Games · Abu Dhabi 2019 · ASDA'A BCW

Saudi Arabia Had
Never Sent One

There was no playbook, because there had been no delegation.

Twenty-seven photographers across venues, filing while events were still running. No archive to borrow from, no agreed way this delegation should look. Every editorial call had to be made in minutes. Families found their kids on a timeline the same day they competed.

Creative Strategy: Built a visual language live, on a story with no precedent, calling in real time which moments carried weight.
Audience Planning: Worked out who would carry this beyond our own following, then gave them something worth passing on.
Growth: 220 million reach with no media spend behind it. When a story is genuinely new, distribution takes care of itself.

220MTotal reach

12MImpressions on X

19KMentions on X

27Photographers directed

FirstSaudi delegation

LiveReal time operation

Real time content · Social listening · Saudi market

Starzplay Subscription streaming · MENA

STARZPLAY · MENA · ASDA'A BCW

Nobody Subscribes
To A Catalogue

Their social was an inventory list.

Title cards, trailers, release dates. It spoke to people who had already paid and nobody who had not. So we left the library behind and moved into the fandom around it. Paid stopped buying demographics and started buying intent.

Creative Strategy: Threw out catalogue marketing so the brand had something to say between release dates.
Audience Planning: Replaced demographic targeting with intent models, which changed who arrived and who stayed.
Growth: Owned the trial funnel end to end. Rebuilt the analytics pixels and UTM taxonomy so spend could be tied to subscriptions.

+62%7-day trials

+15%App installs

−17%Churn

Paid social · Fandom marketing · Acquisition · Retention

Amazon MENA · Prime Day · UAE, KSA, Egypt

A Discount Is Not
A Reason To Watch

So we built portals instead.

A price cut gives somebody a reason to buy. It gives nobody a reason to stop scrolling. Nobody pictures the product anyway, only what it lets them become. So sixteen ordinary purchases became doorways: medieval battlefields, dragons, football pitches, pixel-art worlds. Live talent kept each grounded, AI environments took them where no budget travels.

Creative Strategy: Reframed a discount period as entertainment, turning sixteen products into sixteen worlds worth watching.
Audience Planning: Planned against aspiration rather than basket, then localised one architecture across three cultural registers.
Growth: Built a hybrid production model that shipped sixteen films in three weeks, cut for four platforms.

16Social-first films

3Markets

3Weeks, pitch to launch

TikTokSnapchatMetaYouTube

Retail moments · Social-first storytelling · Hybrid AI production

SaadAlabbassi

Selected Work

We Were Not Allowed
To Make Ads

Saudi Arabia Had
Never Sent One

Nobody Subscribes
To A Catalogue

A Discount Is Not
A Reason To Watch

What I Do

Creative Strategy

Audience Planning

Growth

Categories

Where I Have Done It

Creative Strategy Lead

Associate Director, Brand & Content Strategy

Senior Social Media Manager & PR Consultant

Social Media Manager & Digital Innovation

Senior Community Manager & Automotive

Product & Social Media Manager, Gaming

Recognition

F*CK Normal

Selected Work

We Were Not AllowedTo Make Ads

Saudi Arabia HadNever Sent One

Nobody SubscribesTo A Catalogue

A Discount Is NotA Reason To Watch

What I Do

Creative Strategy

Audience Planning

Growth

Categories

Where I Have Done It

Creative Strategy Lead

Associate Director, Brand & Content Strategy

Senior Social Media Manager & PR Consultant

Social Media Manager & Digital Innovation

Senior Community Manager & Automotive

Product & Social Media Manager, Gaming

Recognition

F*CK Normal

We Were Not Allowed
To Make Ads

Saudi Arabia Had
Never Sent One

Nobody Subscribes
To A Catalogue

A Discount Is Not
A Reason To Watch