It has been a great honour to have had the opportunity to interview Ali Bin Zayed Al Falasi, who is the mastermind of a unique and first-in-the-world project developed and deployed by EMARAT: Project Landmark, consisting on providing the opportunity to commercial brands to name a service station after their brand and much more sponsorship assets (engagement with their clientele, unique experiences, branding, business opportunities, etc.). Along with other senior members of EMARAT (including Amjad Alasadi, Zayed Abbas and Hadeel Al Bastaki), the project has already signed the first sponsor (MBank) only a month after the official launch, and more are in the pipeline. SPSG Consulting (along with Peregrine&Co -Greg Sproule and Alex Makkis-) is proud to be part of the project from the very beginning of it.
You are the Senior Manager Corporate Loyalty at EMARAT and, for almost 2 years, you have been at the Federal Youth Authority in the UAE as Vice President of Dubai Youth Council. In addition, you have been listed as part of the “ 30 under 40 Loyalty Royalty “ at the International Loyalty Awards 2024. Can you granulate a little bit about your professional career as well as about EMARAT?
Coming from a Civil Engineering background and had the pleasure of working on major structural projects in Dubai previously such as Dubai Frame, Mohammed Bin Rashed Library, in addition to owning multiple companies in FnB , CrossFit gym, apps and IoT patent owner.
Serving as Vice President of Dubai Youth Council under the Federal Youth Authority from 2021-2023 period was a way to give back to country, voicing the needs of the Youth in Dubai with the team to better create opportunities and future for them.
At Emarat started with the Engineering team to create the comeback of Emarat with the new station appearance and growth that it reach today, moving under strategy and business development at 2019 as a senior manager of Corporate Loyalty had the pleasure to deliver alongside the team Emarat’s loyalty program (the award winning and most generous loyalty program for Oil & Gas in the UAE).
My responsibility thanks to the leadership is to lead Innovation, Marketing and Loyalty which created new opportunities for our beloved corporation and serve the continuous growth of it. Being listed “ 30 under 40 Loyalty Royalty “ from International Loyalty Awards gives a great boost for me and the team verifying the great work done and allowing us to even work harder to provide the best customer experience for them through our Loyalty Program “ EmCan “.
EMARAT is undertaking an extremely innovative project, first-time-in-history in a global basis: “Project Landmark”. As the visioner of the project and leader of it (along with your colleagues at Emarat, including Zayed Abbas), can you share with the audience the origin of the project?
The idea came from the vision of our leaders in the country that allowed us to always think boldly and innovatively, HH Shk. Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Vice President of the United Arab Emirates, Ruler of Dubai our role model and leader paved the way for us to think with this ambition, from there the idea came to us on how can we differentiate Emarat to lead the market with innovation and add more value to companies and customers through our strategic locations across the United Arab Emirates, then from there we embarked on the journey on bringing it to reality under the support of our management, and onboarding the experts that were pillars in doing such successful projects to add that value and credibility to “ Project Landmark “ Peregrine and SPSG.
“Project Landmark” was publicly presented on March 2nd, in Dubai, at the amazing building of the Museum of the Future. The event was attended by almost 100 professionals in the UAE and it was well covered by media. In a nutshell, we can say that “Project Landmark” is about naming a service station after a commercial brand, adding a quite nice list of ancillary sponsorship ingredients to the naming right opportunity. How holistic is the sponsorship approach of the program? What are the key sponsorship rights that “Project Landmark” offers to brands and companies?
Project Landmark is much more than naming rights, it is a brand partnership a way to give a brand opportunities to display their brand and products in a stations that has millions of customer yearly visiting it and having that dwell time to actually recognize and acquire those customers, it is a unique and innovative way in the advertising landscape on top the that the companies can also benefit with through internal partnerships and business growth, thus keeping their brand an actual Landmark pinned to our customers destination throughout the years.
MBank has been the first company-brand in agreeing to be part of “Project Landmark” sponsorship program. At the same time, Emarat is engaged with numerous commercial conversations from a diverse universe of industries and economic sectors. Why do you think companies / brands would be interested in associating with Emarat in regards to this iconic and innovative project?
We are extremely happy to announce Al Maryah Community Bank as the first company to join us at “ Project Landmark “ they saw the true value of the project and as partners decided to join, with many other to be announced soon, Emarat is a leading and reputable brand in the UAE energy sector, that has been serving its customers since 1980, being part of its network will position companies/brands on each of the customers journey on a daily basis, that adds great value for their brand and products recognition and offering, showcasing and acquiring customers on a daily basis will have great impact to them and tangible returns throughout the tenure of the partnership.
UAE has rapidly evolved in a very positive way over the couple of decades, from an economy and business perspective but also from a social and environmental perspective. How do you envision the future of Dubai -and, generally speaking, the UAE- within the next 5-10 years?
Dubai and the UAE has set ambitious targets for the country and the Emirate from economic perspective with its FDI and D33 agenda to double its GDP by 2033 to further grow the economy scale throughout all pillars and industries, with its COP28 commitment and under UAE consensus, all parties committed to an unprecented agreement to transition away from fossil fuels for the first time in COP history they have set time-bound targets to expand renewable energy with a goal to triple global capacity, end deforestation, and double energy capacity by 2030.
From a social agenda Dubai has set its Social Agenda under “ Dubai Social Agenda 33 “ with a budget of 208 billion AED with a comprehensive plane for its community until 2033, gathering the 3 aspects this will further grow Dubai and the UAE to keep leading and having opportunities for companies and individuals to become part of it.