Each industrial shift reshapes how folks devour. The primary was pushed by mechanisation, the second by mass distribution, the third by digitisation. At this time, the fourth industrial revolution is reworking one thing extra summary however equally highly effective: consideration.
Algorithms, streaming platforms, gaming ecosystems and data-driven personalisation have turn out to be the brand new infrastructure of shopper tradition. For meals manufacturers, this isn’t a advertising development to experiment with on the facet. It’s a structural change in how relevance is constructed, how loyalty is fashioned, and the way progress is sustained.
Within the Center East, this transformation is being actively engineered.
Nationwide digital economic system methods, media funding funds and gaming sector roadmaps, significantly in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, are accelerating the shift. Underneath Imaginative and prescient 2030, Saudi Arabia has dedicated vital capital to develop gaming, esports, content material manufacturing and artistic industries as pillars of financial diversification. The UAE, in the meantime, has positioned itself as a regional hub for media, expertise and digital entrepreneurship.
These insurance policies are reshaping how shoppers spend their time.
Meals manufacturers as soon as relied on geography: excessive streets, footfall and bodily visibility. At this time, they more and more depend on platforms, communities, and digital environments the place shoppers type identities and emotional connections.
At Lavoya Restaurant Group, the place we handle manufacturers comparable to Dave’s Scorching Hen, Barbar, Joe & The Juice and Em Sherif Deli, this shift is seen each day. Meals manufacturers are not competing solely with one another. They’re competing with streaming platforms, gaming ecosystems, creators, and social networks for a finite useful resource: sustained consideration.
Over-the-top (OTT) platforms and gaming environments now perform as fashionable “consideration techniques”. They’re persistent, personalised, and immersive. In contrast to conventional media, they don’t merely distribute messages; they assemble worlds that audiences inhabit.
That is mirrored within the information. The MENA OTT market has surpassed US$1 billion in annual income and continues to develop quickly as native and international platforms spend money on Arabic content material, regional productions and mobile-first distribution. Gaming has concurrently advanced right into a multi-billion-dollar trade throughout Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar, supported not solely by shopper demand however by state-backed infrastructure, esports initiatives and IP growth methods.
These figures matter not due to scale alone, however as a result of they sign the place cultural gravity now sits.
A transparent instance is Dave’s Scorching Hen’s collaboration with Amazon Prime’s Fallout collection.
This wasn’t only a brand placement or themed packaging. It was about tapping into an current fan base that already lives on-line, speaks in memes, and kinds emotional bonds with fictional worlds. When meals manufacturers enter these worlds authentically, they cease feeling like adverts and they turn out to be a part of the tradition.
This illustrates a broader structural shift: advertising is shifting from interruption to integration.
OTT platforms will not be merely new media channels; they’re narrative ecosystems ruled by tone, group norms and emotional continuity. Manufacturers that succeed inside them accomplish that by adapting to those techniques, not by imposing themselves on them.
Gaming environments take this logic even additional. They’re interactive, identity-driven and constructed on suggestions loops. Participation generates standing. Problem creates that means. Visibility is earned by way of contribution relatively than repetition.
When meals manufacturers design experiences comparable to Dave’s “Reaper Problem”, they’re successfully borrowing from recreation design: development, danger, achievement and social validation. The product turns into a part of a system relatively than a standalone providing. Consumption turns into efficiency. Clients turn out to be members.
This isn’t branding as ornament. It’s branding as system design.
The identical logic applies to experiential advertising. Collaborations comparable to Skydive Dubai or limited-edition launches on the Formulation 1 Fan Zone will not be merely about spectacle. They’re bodily extensions of digital behaviour, moments engineered to be recorded, shared, and re-circulated by way of social and streaming platforms.
On this sense, eating places are not simply retail areas. They’re media nodes inside a broader content material economic system.
This convergence shouldn’t be restricted to 1 delicacies or one viewers. With Barbar, partnering with the Saudi German Hospital Basketball Championship final 12 months adopted the identical precept: embedding the model inside a recurring system of competitors, loyalty and group, a mannequin more and more frequent in markets the place sports activities, gaming and leisure are being formalised as financial sectors.
From an trade perspective, this alerts a redefinition of distribution.
Within the twentieth century, distribution meant logistics. Within the twenty first century, it more and more means cognitive distribution: putting manufacturers contained in the digital environments the place folks already spend their time.
For this reason information, experimentation and adaptive advertising groups have gotten strategic capabilities, not tactical ones. As platforms evolve and viewers behaviour fragments, advertising capabilities are shifting from lengthy planning cycles to steady testing, studying and iteration.
For youthful shoppers in MENA, model discovery now occurs by way of streaming platforms, gaming communities, short-form video and creator ecosystems, not conventional promoting. Belief is constructed socially. Relevance is earned contextually.
The implication is obvious. Future aggressive benefit in meals is not going to come solely from menus, pricing or places, however from the power to function inside digital ecosystems formed by coverage, platforms and tradition.
OTT platforms and gaming environments are not non-obligatory advertising channels. They’re a part of the area’s digital economic system’s working system.
Meals will at all times be about style and hospitality. However the path to the desk is more and more formed by code, content material and connectivity. In earlier industrial revolutions, firms that understood new infrastructure early outlined total classes.
At this time, that infrastructure is consideration. Manufacturers that learn to construct inside it is not going to simply promote extra meals. They’ll form how folks expertise them.
By Tarek Abou Hichme, Senior Regional Advertising and marketing Supervisor, Lavoya Restaurant Group.
