United Arab Emirates National Chapter

Advertising market size (USD): 1.13 billion

Launch date: November 2020

Strategic priority: Broadening the representation of women and men in non-traditional roles in media and advertising.

Strategic industry events: Dubai Lynx

Members: Accor Middle East & Africa LLC, APCO Middle East, Etihad Aviation Group, Google, Impact BBDO, Kantar Middle East DMCC, Media Quest Plus FZ LLC, Meta, Mondelēz, Omnicom Media Group MENA, Publicis Groupe, Snap Inc., Unilever, VFS Global

Allies: Advertising Business Group, Dubai Lynx, IAB MENA, Zayed University

Milestones

“Rethink Bias… Unstereotype!” event

The event hosted by APCO Worldwide—brought together industry leaders to explore strategies for eliminating harmful stereotypes in media and advertising. The event featured insights from the global Gender Equality Attitude Survey and expert analysis from Zayed University, offering a comprehensive view of gender stereotypes from both global and local perspectives. 

At the June 2023 Women to Watch Conference in Dubai, the chapter hosted thought-provoking roundtable discussions, including the Invisible Barriers to Workplace Gender Equality: Women's Perspectives Workshop, a collaboration between UN Women, the Unstereotype Alliance, and ABG. This workshop explored critical topics such as the impact of women’s work on children, gender pay disparities, imposter syndrome, and workplace micro-aggressions. These discussions led to practical recommendations for fostering gender equality in the workplace and received widespread media coverage, including features in Marie Claire and other leading publications. 

Second Wave of the Gender Stereotype Study

In partnership with Zayed University, the UAE National Chapter conducted the second phase of its Gender Stereotyping in Advertising in the GCC study in October-November 2022. Building on the 2018 research by Zayed University and the UAE-based Advertising Business Group (ABG), the 2018 study shaped the Unstereotype Alliance UAE Chapter’s priorities and ABG’s gender representation guidelines. While the 2018 study highlighted the persistence of traditional gender roles in ads, with women often portrayed as homemakers despite their 46.54% labor force participation, the 2022 follow-up found limited progress. Analyzing 85 GCC television ads, it revealed that women remain stereotyped as caregivers, though more men now appear in domestic settings compared to 2018, signaling modest shifts in gender portrayal.

Launch: The UAE National Chapter launched on 9 November 2020 with a core group of seven national and global companies, the UAE’s leading advertising industry alliance and the premier festival of creativity in the Middle East and North Africa region. This chapter represents the first outpost of this global UN Women initiative in the Middle East region, and the sixth National Chapter of the Unstereotype Alliance, following those in Brazil, Japan, South Africa, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.

Strategic priority: Recent research conducted by the UAE-based Advertising Business Group and Zayed University concluded that the majority of television ads in the Arabian Gulf region continue to perpetuate traditional gender stereotypes and do not realistically portray the increasingly progressive role of women in the region. Eighty-five percent of those polled in this study believe that it is the responsibility of brands to depict women and men positively. UN Women’s Gender Equality Attitudes Study conducted in the UAE finds similar results: Eighty-eight percent of people in the UAE believe that it is essential for society to treat women and men as equals, and over half of people in the UAE believe that the media only portrays women and men in certain traditional roles. Drawn from this research and data, the UAE National Chapter will focus its efforts in its first year of operation on broadening the representation of women and men in non-traditional roles in media and advertising.