About Alissar Diab, Consumer Marketing Manager of M.A.C Cosmetics, The Estee Lauder Companies Middle East

Alissar is a marketing and communications enthusiast with over a decade of experience in the luxury beauty industry. She currently leads consumer marketing in the Middle East for the global MAC Cosmetics brand under the Estee Lauder Companies. Having started her career in advertising and PR she has worked on over a dozen brands including Tom Ford Beauty, Estee Lauder & Clinique before finding her passion in marketing. Alissar is dedicated to driving local relevancy, disruptive campaigns and is passionate about brands that adapt to progressive marketing methods and new age storytelling. Leading a diverse team across all aspects of marketing, she believes that ideas and inspiration can come from anywhere and encouraging an open dialogue is crucial to nurturing creativity. 

Over the past 5 years at MAC, Alissar has led multiple campaigns that were global best practices and firsts for the brand in the Middle East in addition to introducing new initiatives tied to locally relevant storytelling & influencer marketing which have influenced global brand programs.

In her personal time, Alissar enjoys mentoring young graduates through a youth program she’s enrolled in and loves to explore hidden food gems in Dubai.

About her thoughts for the industry

Evolving the narrative on Local Relevance: Championing local representation & storytelling within campaigns is essential to creating an emotional connection with regional audiences. In the Middle East where the consumer base is so diverse and predominantly young like UAE & KSA, spotlighting different talents and stories offers validation and support to different communities, helps inspire the youth and bring the brand closer to consumers. Brands are expanding on the cultural moments and nuances being featured in campaigns, taking an individual market approach vs. what was traditionally a one size fits all approach across the region. Additionally, they’re tapping into moments apart from Ramadan to spotlight heritage such as founding day in KSA. It will be exciting to see how brands will continue to interpret local relevance and disrupt from the traditional narratives once used, to break through the clutter.

The future of content marketing:  Platforms like Tiktok have democratized content creation and caused a seismic shift in the way audiences search and consume content, this new behavior has transcended the platform and disrupted how brands drive their content strategies & market to wider audiences. In 2023, It will be interesting to see how brands will adapt their creative storytelling by tapping into the creator economy to leverage user generated content, test long form content opportunities and hone in on the platform’s search capabilities.

On a broader scale, relatively newer platforms are changing the way audiences create and engage digitally. For example live streaming platform Twitch is helping brands tap into a new consumer base, while predominantly centered around gaming, brands are leveraging the platform’s other content pillars to test interactive broadcasts to launch new products. Other examples include AI powered tools that will help brands analyze, personalize and optimize content to connect more with consumers or even through AI generated art, simulate desirable consumer goods that will likely influence the future of product design.

Experiential Marketing making a comeback: Over the last two years we’ve seen an increased appetite for people wanting to engage with brands through events, pop-ups or even physical & digital stunts. 2022 saw multiple brands redefining retailtainment and building mixed reality experiences integrating AR, VR & 3D artwork across campaign touchpoints to create something unique. These experiences have now become the standard consumer expectation so it will be interesting to see how brands and agencies will innovate around this to compete for conversation, disruption, and consumer attention.

The views and opinions expressed in this feature are those of the contributor and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent.