Helping firms grow

A brand consultant and advertising agency based in Qatar, grow, opened its doors seven years ago with just a mobile phone and a desk. Today its clients include some of the leading Qatar companies and government organisations, such as Qatar Islamic Bank and the Qatar Chamber of Commerce & Industry, helping design their logos and give them their “flavour”.

Anthony Ryman, founder and director of grow, said in an interview with Gulf Times that in the past decade Qatar has gained in prominence.Ryman believes that with grow’s help, companies and instructions can move towards a brand identity with a core set of values that can be easily recognized and disseminated to a global audience, building towards a lasting legacy.For many years businesses in Qatar enjoyed only limited competition from foreign firms, but foreign investment and the opening up of the Qatari market has sent signals to local firms to change and prepare for the future, he said. Family businesses, said Ryman, are aware of the need to “move towards a more corporate level without losing the family DNA”.
“These are companies that want to build powerful brands, because they see the competition coming in and they want to compete with them, not just in Qatar but internationally”.
“A lot of the international (advertising) agencies pay lip service to the Qatari DNA, but for me it’s central. For me the rallying cry is ‘buy Qatar, buy local’”.

Traditional values such as the importance of family and the thirst for education and modernization of the rather sizeable youth population are the core values for defining Qatar as a nation, he stressed.

“International agencies, just come in here and they don’t understand that, they have a different agenda. So if you like there is an altruistic, idealistic element to my agenda, but obviously it’s also a business”. grow has recently worked with and advised a group of Qatari women who were interested in establishing their own creative services companies and Ryman often lectures at the Virginia Commonwealth University.

Youth development and ambition, as well as traditional values and heritage are “building blocks for defining a nation, and defining a nation is scientific, it takes years to do. It’s an evolution and Qatar is moving towards this definition of itself”, Ryman said.
Ryman sees the FIFA World Cup as a valuable opportunity to build connections and elevate Qatar.

“Part of the DNA of Qatar is this ‘Ahlan’, this welcome. We open our doors to you, come visit, come advise us, come work together with us, help us build our stadiums, help us build our infrastructure, work together with us to make this the best games ever. We are open for you.”

Inclusive collaboration with Qataris and this openness to receiving the best that the outside world has to offer will allow the Qatar brand to launch itself onto the world stage through a single event and help cement Qatar’s brand identity with an international audience, Ryman said.