Audience insight: UAE and KSA Mums - a needs & values analysis

PART 2 - UAE and KSA Mums: Understanding the Audience

As audience-first marketers, we focus first and foremost on understanding the people our brands need to reach - identifying the key characteristics that make up their personalities and shape their interactions with the world.

Last year, we undertook a comprehensive analysis of over 720,000 organic social media posts to develop a comprehensive personality profile of Khaleeji mums.

Our Methodology

Using Sila, our proprietary Arabic-native, AI-enabled social listening tool, we collected and analysed the social media content of 240 Khaleeji mums actively posting and sharing content relating to motherhood, childrearing and family life as part of a larger personal ‘lifestyle’ brand. Our mums ranged in age from 30 to 50, with a mean age of [NEED]. And while all of our panellists reside in the UAE or KSA, UAE mums comprised a distinct majority of our sample.

We next gathered over 3,000 twitter interactions per mum for a real-time, natural-language analysis that mapped our mums’ content against the Big Five personality traits. Unlike survey or focus group responses, which can include significant amounts of ‘noise’ and may not accurately reflect the respondents’ true feelings, organic social media content and interactions provide comparatively unfiltered insight into our subjects based not only on the content posted, but the language of individual tweets.

The result? A comprehensive portrait of the typical GCC mum developed from raw data taken straight from our subject group.

Needs and values of the UAE and KSA mums

In a Big Five personality analysis, “Needs” represent the qualities of a product or service most likely to resonate with an individual, while “Values” describe the factors that motivate decision-making. For example, a pram that receives glowing testimonials from paediatricians and features a recycled aluminium frame might end up high on the wishlist of a young mum who needs stability and values conservation.

Our research indicates that, while UAE and KSA mums prize stability, their overall orientation towards life is positive, outgoing and engaged with the world. Our mums prioritise building and maintaining close ties with family and friends while at the same time actively seeking out new challenges and asking questions about the border world.

This enthusiasm and joie de vivre, however, is tempered by an emphasis on self-control, order and resistance to change. Given the unique social context of the KSA in particular, however, our mums may express their openness and curiosity in more measured fashion than their Western counterparts.

Key Takeaways

Our research paints a picture of the GCC mum as a woman who takes pleasure in and draws energy from her relationships. Given a choice, she prefers to spend money on pursuits with a strong social component and accords the opinions and recommendations of friends and family significant weight when making a purchase. Equally practical and conscientious, she enjoys novelty, but not at the expense of safety and stability, and shies away from impulse purchases or purchases on credit.