Without technological adaptation, no company can maintain its competitive advantage. Moreover, no company has time to lose in the face of this rapid transformation. Every day we witness the birth of a new digital platform and device. Generation Y and Generation Z can not only anticipate the needs of the generation and determine their needs, but also create the need to keep up with the pace of change. In order to understand the impact of technological developments on consumer behavior and predict the changes that this change will bring across the entire value chain, companies need to focus on the issue of digital transformation. At this point, companies have to develop comprehensive digital strategies and restructure their businesses.

In an environment where customers discover, compare and buy products without leaving home where customers shop with multiple digital devices, companies will be doomed to disappear in this rapid transformation unless new business models can be established where interaction between customers, suppliers, employees and investors can be established.

The point of technological developments in our age is spreading information much faster than in the past and the response time to this new information is getting shorter. In fact, at this point, it is mentioned that technology trends have started to spread out of linearity and exponentially. In other words, a new technology that is emerging immediately reaches maturity and is rapidly beginning to disappear in the face of the destructive effects of another new technology.

Digital Demolition, Continuous Innovation, and Valuable Brands 

When we look at the common points in the success of names such as Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, Richard Branson, and Elon Musk, we see that they are all names that have quickly brought up companies and brands they have established in the last decade. When we look at the world’s most valuable brands today, it is no coincidence that Google and Amazon are at the top of the list.

According to Diamandis and Kotler, the concept of exponential entrepreneurship lies at the heart of this success. Kotler argues that the way to achieve exponential entrepreneurial spirit is to understand the growth cycles of exponential technologies. Kotler and Diamandis also call this cycle of 6 phases a digital destruction cycle. 

6 D Model in Digital Transformation 

6D Model in Digital Transformation (Diamandis & Kotler, 2016) 

1. Digitization: No idea or technological innovation enters the exponential expansion trend without being digitally expressed. The rate of spread of everything digitized from music to biotechnology is much faster than that of the non-digitized.

2. Deception: Technological trends are not exponentially propagated at a linear rate. Although the diffusion rates of exponential technologies are not noticed at the beginning depending on their usage rates, the destructive effects of these new technologies, which are becoming more and more popular day by day, are in proportion to the diffusion rates.

3. Disruption: New technologies begin to spread and rapidly replace their predecessors. One of the best examples of this could be the devastation that DVD technology inflicts on the VHS market.

4. Demonetization: A large part of the industry starts to use the new technology and it is getting cheaper to produce/develop.

5. Dematerialization: Technologies are made easier to achieve physically.

6. Democratization: Technology is increasingly cheap and accessible to everyone. It can completely disappear under the destructive effect of a new technology.

Although Kotler and Diamandis have defined the digital destruction cycle as 6 phases, we should also know that this cycle starts and ends very quickly. At this point, the reasons for the failure of brands that make successful brands even more successful or are exposed to destruction and disappearance meet in a common area. The most important reason that makes brands valuable and successful is to understand the importance of providing continuous innovation and continuous innovation. If Amazon, which is an undisputed success, remained only as an online selling website, would it be possible to reach this point? By constantly improving its service, Amazon Prime has changed people’s understanding of shopping, and thanks to the technologies it uses, it has revolutionized the creation and use of Big Data. With the data she collected, she was able to analyze consumer behaviors in detail and produced entertaining technologies that would lead the consumer to buy again. Last but not least, Dash Button and Alexa have been developed by Amazon, giving the consumer the message that they already know what they need and this adds stability to the brand loyalty of Amazon users.

Winners and Losers in Continuous Innovation

Behind the success of Google, which became the second most valuable company of 2019, similar to Amazon’s success secrets are available. When we consider each of its products, such as Google Chrome, a browser designed to be fast enough for a mobile application or the modern web, we see that Google takes into account the speed of each new product. In fact, Google’s main strategy is to make things even faster. Every new technology is used brutally, quickly digests and the new masses waiting for the new audience to meet the different needs, satisfying the different problems, the fastest way to introduce the market, quickly update and market again better. In short, it has realized the speed of the digital transformation and has no problems at the point of fitting.

Most Valuable Brands List of 2019 (Forbes,2019)

The opposite of Google and Amazon success examples, which we can look at an example of failure, which is the sad story of how Kodak ended in 2012. Although Kodak invented the digital camera in 1975, it did not invest enough in new developing technologies, or it was too late for these investments. Although Kodak developed a digital camera in 1975, the first of its kind, the product was dropped for fear it would threaten Kodak’s photographic film business. In the 1990s, Kodak planned a decade-long journey to move to digital technology. Kodak continued its traditional camera and film production with a sweaty strategy. However, Kodak didn’t realize the answers to the question of why people take photographs changed. Indeed, people did not take photographs just like they used to save memories for themselves and their loved ones. People took pictures of themselves to show people what they are doing, how they spend time and how they enjoy life. There was a new medium called social media, and now people were using their cameras unrestrained to see and be liked. The most ironic part of this story was that Kodak invented the digital camera, but didn’t take his hand quickly and took no risks to complete the whole digital transformation process for their brand. In short, Kodak has always tried to be an innovative company, but has not been able to take the necessary steps fearlessly and timely, taking into account the speed of digital transformation.

In short, in a world where customers buy image, reputation, service quality, speed and lifestyle rather than just products and services, Muslim companies have to put the issue of digitalization at the top of their agenda in order to build closer relationships with their customers and achieve higher profitability. Companies should understand the importance of digitization, develop new business models, follow new technologies and implement them at full speed, and Muslim business owners should be aware of this necessity. Otherwise, they will lose their competitive advantages and will be sentenced to be deleted from the market by being far behind their competitors who are rapidly adapting to this new order.

As known, digital advertising and marketing are two of the most significant components of recent digital transformation. In this digital transformation age, people are always online and it makes digital advertising tools much more crucial than before. In other words, as part of the digital transformation, Muslim business owners need to use digital advertising and marketing tools to reach their target audiences and let them know their product, brand or services because of higher competition and fast-paced environment in Muslim consumer market just like other markets. Muslim Ad Network helps Muslim business owners attract and keep their customers with a holistic suite of advertising solutions service. By partnering with Muslim Ad Network, you will be provided an opportunity for your digital advertising to reach the highly coveted Muslim online consumer and to adapt to this era of digital transformation 

Go ahead and contact us to reach a wider range of Muslim audiences. 

The post Why Should Muslim Business Owners Adapt to Digital Transformation? appeared first on Muslim Ad Network.

Considering the advertising budget, digital advertising is quite economical compared to advertising channels such as television and radio and is a very efficient marketing method having the power to reach the masses. Therefore, in terms of marketing, digital advertising enables the product, brand or service to be promoted saving both time and money. For these reasons, advertisers began to prefer the internet medium more.  Furthermore, the budget allocated to internet advertisements now surpasses the TV advertising budget.

According to research carried out by IAB and PwC, the market share of internet advertising increased by 21.8% between 2017 and 2018 and reached $107.5 billion in the US market.

In addition, this change in the preferences of advertisers was also reflected in the distribution of advertising revenue according to the type of media, and the internet advertising revenues reached the $28.4 billion limit with a huge increase since 2015. Digital revenue for Q1 2019 estimates rose 18% over Q1 2018 at $23.9 billion and maintain the year-over-year growth trend.

The continued growth of digital advertising spend indicates that it has increasing credibility and the ability to help brands and advertisers reach consumers and build stronger one-to-one customer relationships.

As previously mentioned, digital advertising is able to reach a wider audience with a lower cost compared to traditional advertising channels.  It provides brands with quick and easy promotions to boost brand awareness and desire which creates a rapid balance of demand and sales. Generally, internet advertising is much more advantageous in terms of different features. 

Advantages of Digital Advertising

Measurability

Internet advertising is miles ahead compared to traditional advertising methods in terms of measurability and ease to track conversion rates. There are many analytics tools such as Google Analytics to measure online advertising campaigns’ effectiveness accurately. These tools help get a clear picture regarding who viewed ads, who clicked, the number of leads generated and the amount of money spent so far for internet advertising activities.

Wider Ad Coverage

Online advertising can assist with reaching a much wider target audience and higher global coverage which leads to getting better results through online advertising campaigns. It also gives the ability to specify the range of advertisement coverage with internet advertising, which increases the efficiency of the online advertising campaign.

Affordability

One of the most significant advantages of online advertising is affordability when compared with traditional advertising costs. Advertisers can reach a wider range of audiences in different geographical locations with a much lesser cost. Furthermore, it gives more control over digital advertising budget spending for digital advertising strategies.

It is Fast

Internet advertising is faster than any of the traditional advertising tools where one can launch their online campaign whenever. Considering the time spent to initiate online and traditional campaigns to reach any audience, it is clear that online advertising has a time advantage.

Payments are Flexible

Payment flexibility is another important advantage of online advertising. For the traditional methods,  the full amount needs to be paid to the advertising agency to launch the campaign in addition to huge amount of agency fees. However, online advertising has the advantage of flexible payment opportunity to only pay for qualified leads, clicks or impressions. This helps to manage ad budgets in an efficient way.

Messages are More Informative

In internet advertising, the advertiser is able to provide more detailed messages about the product or services to the audience. Most of the online advertising campaigns are composed of a clickable link to a specific landing page, where users get more information about the product mentioned in the ad. Once the visitor reaches the landing page, they will get a clear picture of the product or services and decide whether to purchase it or not.

Hıgher Return on Investment (ROI)

As mentioned above, internet advertising has the main focus on performance-based payment and this provides a higher return on investment (ROI) compared to offline advertising. Since it is easy to track, analyze and adjust the performance of online advertisements, it also improves the ROI. Following the right strategies for online advertising, there is a better ROI.

Easier and Better Audience Engagement

Online advertising enables have easy engagement with the target audience. Online advertisement platforms make it easy for the audience to engage with ads or products. By online advertising, advertisers are able to get more feedback from the audience and thereby improve the quality of their ads going forward. Based on the engagement levels advertisers can take necessary actions and update their online advertising campaigns.

Re-marketing

Today, 87% of consumers search the internet before buying a product. Re-marketing offers the opportunity to reach users who have already entered a site again. Remarketing can be used to promote a specific product or offering, or to achieve a certain conversion goal such as lead generation. In eCommerce, for example, remarketing ads can be used to recover an abandoned cart by displaying the product the user added to the cart but left the site without purchasing which increases the ROI of each online campaign.

All the advantages listed above are also the reasons why advertisers should use online advertising methods to promote their brands. By partnering with an internet advertising platform, such as Muslim Ad Network (MAN), it provides Muslim advertisers an opportunity to reach the highly coveted Muslim online consumer. By working with MAN, you can take advantage of the following features and benefits including:

• Display ads of all standard sizes, including rich media, video, and banners
• Opt-in email advertising
• Maintain control over where your ad gets displayed. Full geotargeting capabilities (by zip code, city, country, or region)
• Complete visibility of publishers in network
• Reach new customers and increase the overall impact of your media dollars
• Quality Reporting. MAN offers full reporting and analysis ensuring optimum return on investment

Go ahead and contact us to reach a wider range of Muslim audiences.

The post The Inevitable Rise of Digital Advertising Continues appeared first on Muslim Ad Network.

“Halal” is an Arabic word that means “permitted” and it is generally used to describe foods that Muslims are allowed to eat according to Islamic guidelines mentioned in the Qur’an. In Islam, most food and drinks are considered halal unless they are clearly stated as forbidden in the Qur’an and hadith.

Muslim consumers prefer that all the products they need and consume in their lives be halal. They pay attention to the halal certificate while purchasing products from food and beverage to cosmetic materials. Due to this need and concern, the halal industry grows at the same rate as the Muslim population grows. In fact, many non-Muslim consumers now prefer halal products since they associate halal with ethical consumerism.

The global halal market is expanding especially with the economic development of leading Muslim countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Iran. Moreover, countries such as China, Thailand, Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines have been investing heavily in the halal industry and the market size is expected to reach USD 9.71 trillion by 2025. In addition, the growing number of halal-certified products is expected to drive the global halal market over the projected period.

In fact, although the halal industry is perceived only as the food industry, today it has gone beyond the food to become a concept that encompasses many product groups and services ranging from pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and toiletries to medical devices and even marketing services.

 Interestingly,  the halal food market has become one of the most profitable and effective market areas in the world. Halal food has mainly three types which include fresh products, frozen salty products, processed products, and others. With the increasing Muslim population and economic development, consumers will need more halal food products. Globally, halal foods are more in demand in East Asia and the Middle East, and North Africa and halal and the market size is expected to grow by 6.1% in the next five years.

As stated, the halal food market has become a growing, promising, and highly demanding market. For this reason, many international companies are investing in the halal food market and are expected to increase these investments day by day.

Multinational and global companies are expanding their facilities to find opportunities in this market. For example, in 2018, Haribo, a gummy producer, opened a halal candy store in the UK. In the same year, Japan’s Mitsubishi Corporation invested in Al Islami Foods, a halal manufacturer based in the UAE. This strategic investment will not only increase Al Islami Foods production but will also meet the demand for halal products at home and abroad.

Not only the halal food and beverage market is increasing in popularity but so are halal tourism, halal media and recreation, Islamic finance, modest fashion, halal pharmaceuticals, and cosmetic products and services. For instance, the halal media and recreation industry has more than 4% of the global market share.

According to the Global Halal Market 2018 Consumption Analysis, the demand trend for this type of content from Muslim countries is on the rise. Furthermore, the halal pharmaceutical and halal cosmetics together had 4% of the overall market share in 2017. In the last decade, the halal pharmaceutical and halal cosmetic market have gained prominence and more products are manufactured with halal standards. Likewise, the number of Islamic finance and banking institutions is increasing every year all over the world. So, the Halal consumer market is growing rapidly and still has many opportunities for investors. The most critical thing that needs to be done to get into these markets or to increase success in the market is to reach the right audience with the right tools at the right time. In this digital era, it is a must to use digital marketing tools in order to understand the demands of the developing halal consumer market and the changing needs and wants of Muslim consumers accurately. At this point, working with digital marketing agencies seems to be a logical alternative. Muslim Ad Network is able to reach more than 100 million Muslims around the world monthly with its digital products and strategies such as “Reach Muslims Anywhere”. It is one platform to reach millions of Muslim consumers wherever they browse online, including the Internet’s most popular websites, social media platforms, mobile apps, and more. Through Muslim Ad Network, brands can effectively target ads to Muslim consumers instantly across thousands of websites and apps. 

The post How the Halal Consumer Market is Developing with the Growing Muslim Population and Islamic Economies appeared first on Muslim Ad Network.

One of the issues that has been on the agenda for those who have been interested in green marketing during the last few years is sustainability in fashion. What is sustainability and what are the steps taken by brands in this regard?

Nowadays, terms such as sustainability, environmentalism, and recycling are frequently brought up. But it is clear that people have lost respect and sympathy for nature. As a result of this insensitivity, mankind has become prone to consuming too much and too fast. This situation caused a change in our understanding of fashion. In the past, people used to wear a limited number of clothing made of quality fabrics for years, and fashion did not change so often. In today’s world, almost every day a new fashion trend emerges and nowadays whatever is fashionable, may become outdated tomorrow. The development of the industry, changing fashion trends, the swirl called ‘fast-fashion” and the rapid consumption of ready-made garments, have made us forget to be green.

Then the concept of sustainability emerged. Sustainability has been defined as  “meeting our own needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. In addition to natural resources, we also need social and economic resources. Sustainability is not just environmentalism. Embedded in most definitions of sustainability we also find concerns for social equity and economic development.”

So, can fashion be sustainable?

In order to cope with many environmental problems, fashion sustainability has become very important today. The sustainable fashion concept includes eco-fashion, recycled fashion, or green fashion terms. At a time when respect and care for nature are greatly lost, everything we consume must be obtained through recyclable and sustainable means, including the clothes we wear.

Obviously, the main objective of the sustainability approach is to ensure the supply of environmentally friendly green products with high quality but low production costs. In this way, it will be possible to slow down the fashion industry, which has fueled the rapid consumption frenzy.

In fact, sustainability can be considered in 3 main dimensions. These dimensions can be classified as ecological dimensions with non-toxic, convertible fashion products; economy dimension with products that add value to consumers and producers, and social dimension with the goal of a better future for new generations.

The goal of sustainable fashion philosophy is to create sustainable systems indefinitely which follow the principles of environmentalism and social responsibility. The main responsibility of fashion companies is to make production, distribution and marketing practices and strategies more sustainable. Sustainable fashion can also be regarded as a subset of the concept of sustainable design. Production in accordance with sustainable design is carried out in such a way that environmental impacts and carbon footprints are calculated and minimized.

According to the UN Alliance for Sustainable Fashion initiative indicates that the fashion industry, including the production of all clothes which people wear, contributes to around 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions due to its long supply chains and energy-intensive production. The industry consumes more energy than the aviation and shipping industry combined.  In addition to its carbon-intensive supply chain and production processes, the fashion industry consumes a great deal of other precious resources. To make one pair of denim jeans, 10,000   of water is required to grow the 1 kilo of cotton needed for that single pair of jeans. In comparison, one person would take 10 years to drink 10,000 liters of water. Cumulatively, the fashion industry produces about 20% of global wastewater. Furthermore, 85% of textiles end up in landfills or are incinerated when most of these materials could be reused.

There is also good news. Recently, one of the major fashion industry entities said they are going carbon neutral. On September 24th, 2019, Kering Group which is a Paris-based conglomerate, which owns the parent company of Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta, and Alexander McQueen claimed that its entire supply chain of entire group of brands will become carbon neutral within its own operations. Moreover, it was claimed that Kering will “offset the group’s annual greenhouse gas emissions from 2018 on top of all efforts to first avoid and then reduce them.” Going forward, Kering says it “set a science-based target to reduce all its greenhouse gas emissions related to its own operations and supply chain by 50 percent by 2025.”In addition to Kering which is the biggest name to enter into the arena with the aim to do its part to manage the emissions of carbon dioxide which is the main greenhouse gas driving climate change, Gucci, Burberry, and sustainable luxury brand Gabriela Hearst have all recently revealed carbon neutrality endeavors.

Moreover, many designers have now embraced organic fabrics and organic production. Fashion giants, even the pioneers of fast fashion, are focusing on raising awareness with their small collections and investing in our future.. Their goal is to create a better and healthier world for the new generation. Levi’s, H&M, Banana Republic, Stella McCartney Reformation, Reflect, Viktor and Rolf, and Marc Jacobs are among the leading brands that are partially adopting sustainable fashion.

What Should We Do as a Muslim Consumer?

As known, Islam forbids extravagance. The Qur’anic verses and traditions, both, confirm that wasteful expenditure is a Greater sin. The Holy Qur’an says,

“…and eat and drink and be not extravagant; surely He does not love the extravagant.” (Surah al-Ar’āf 7:31)

Also, Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) mentioned extravagance in a hadith:

“…And eat and drink and be not extravagant.”

Thus, Islam does not stop us from spending money on people’s genuine needs. It only restricts individuals from wasteful expenditures that come about by neglecting the rights of the public at-large. Excessive spending on things such as new fashion apparel is an example of extravagance. As Muslim consumers and business owners, we must follow Islamic guidelines while we are consuming. 

Also, Dr.Anna who has revealed valuable works in the field of sustainable fashion created a model called “Green Strategy”, which shows us how we can meet our need for dressing without wasting it in today’s world.

According to Dr. Anna Brismar, who is the founder and owner of Green Strategy and Circularfashion.com, which is the world’s first platform dedicated exclusively to circularity issues in fashion, companies, and consumers should adopt “Green Strategy” while producing and consuming. The figure below indicates seven forms of sustainable fashion from a consumer and producer perspective.

To avoid extravagance and participate in sustainable fashion for our environment, a Muslim manufacturer should produce all garments on-demand or custom-made, in high quality and timeless design,in an environmentally friendly manner and with consideration to various ethical aspects. Thereafter, Muslim consumers should use them long and well through good care, repair and perhaps redesign. When the product is no longer desired, it should be handed into a secondhand shop, donated to charity or handed over to friends, relatives or perhaps a swap-shop, to prolong its active life. When the garment is completely worn out, it should be returned to a collection point for the recycling of the textile material, which can then be reused in the manufacturing of new clothes or other textile products. Ideally, instead of buying newly produced clothes, one should consider renting, borrowing or swapping clothes, or buying secondhand or vintage.

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