Analysis of digital media in the Middle East and North Africa Region

                                                                   
    Fig 1: logos of various social media. Source: http://www.middleeastsocialmedia.com/

Introduction

The competitive dynamics of the media industry is being transformed throughout the world. All across the world, the popularity of traditional media channels such as print media, TV broadcast and Radio broadcast are depleting and is being replaced by the digital media. Not only is the digital medium encroaching upon the space of the traditional media; but also changing the dynamics of revenue model- so far enjoyed by the traditional media. Even in the digital media itself, lot of changes are happening. The traditional boundaries, between media companies, telecom operators, handset manufactures and internet service provider is getting blurred. Everyone is trying to encroach upon each other’s space.

The digital media in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is still in its nascent stage, as compared to other developed parts of the world such as Western Europe and North Africa; but given the fact that huge investments are made in ICT infrastructure, internet and mobile penetration are increasing at a rampant speed and a new wave of political change is happening all across the region, digital media seems to have a huge potential to grow in the region. The following research article will do an analysis of Digital media, its present state and its future prospect; in the MENA region. It will take help from reports from sources such as: Booz and Company, PWC, Arab Media Outlook, Spot On PR, Neilson etc.  

Advantages of digital media:

Digital media offer some unique advantages, which traditional media such as TV & Radio broadcast and print media cannot offer.  Some of the unique advantages are:-

·         Economical: digital media is very economical. Having a brick and mortar shop will cost a lot; in contrast to this having a web presence is much cheaper. It does not cost much to develop and market a website.

·         Curtails geographical barriers: a very remarkable feature of digital media is that, it could be accessed from any part of the globe. Geographical barriers often create challenge for traditional media sources such as newspaper and magazines in disseminating information, but digital media, which has a virtual presence, could be accessed from any part of the world.   

      

Convenience: Digital media is always convenient to use. With the help of a laptop,i-pad or other hand held device plethora of content could be consumed. 

·         Content can be consumed as well as produced at the same time: with the help of web 2.0 platforms, content can be viewed/consumed as well as produced at the same time. Web 2.0 provides two way communication platforms. Not only does it communicate directly to the end users, but also allow the consumers to share their opinion, feedbacks etc.

·         Consumer Insights: with the help of web based analytics, digital media can give a lot of detailed insights, pertaining to consumer behavior and demographics- consumption pattern, duration, geography etc. One remarkable feature is that, all such valuable data could be obtained at a negligible cost.

 ·         Target Marketing: digital media helps in capturing the target audience.

Disadvantages of Digital Media:

Along with advantages, digital media also has some disadvantages such as 

          

·         Revenue from advertisements is not easy in the digital media. It’s easy to have a web presence/ digital presence, but it is as difficult to generate revenue out of it.Monetization of digital media is a challenge, through out the globe.  

·         Generating revenue always takes a large amount of time. Revenue can follow only, after creating a sizeable customer base. For instance, even Facebook took five years to break even. The revenue from marketing could be generated only after securing huge customer base.  

·         Not everyone is very comfortable with digital media, especially when it comes to money transaction. A large number of individuals are wary of transferring money over the internet. More over the web medium has also been the source of lot of frauds.

·          Consumers expect a lot of free content on the web. When it comes to paying for the content, many individuals are not very willing to pay. They just want stuffs for free.    

DIGITAL MEDIA: global trends

Globally more than 50% of the internet consumption comprises of 5 nations: USA, China, India, Brazil and Russia. As described earlier a lot of creative rearrangements are happening in the media sector, all across the globe. Some of the major global trends in the digital media are as follows (Morgan Stanley, 2009)

·         E-commerce: major products which are purchased online globally are- computer products, electronic items, event tickets, hotel bookings, tour packages, books, music/video etc, toys etc.

·         Consumptions of internet on mobile are catching up fast with consumption on desktop. According to Morgan Stanley report, by 2013-14 more users will be consuming internet via mobile devices, rather than desktop computer.

·         Social Media: social media users are surpassing the regular email users. People refer spending more time on social media rather than on regular emails.

·         Adoption of newer and better telecom services such as 3G will further consolidate the stronghold of mobile medium.

·             

Digital media in Middle East

In contrast to other parts developed world, digital media in MENA region is still not very matured but is surely one of the sectors, which is poised for a high growth in the coming time. As a region, MENA has its own advantages and its own challenges. Presently there are 65 million internet users in the MENA region, which is expected to increase to 80 million by 2012. (AMIR, 2011) Other than global heavyweights such as Google, Yahoo, Facebook and regional players such as Kooora, Maktoob etc; the region is also witnessing the arrival of online marketing firms such as Al click, Eastline Marketing etc.         

   

Advantages of Middle East

The Socio Economic structure of the entire Middle East has lot of inherent advantages, which can boost the growth of online media companies in the region. Some of them are (Booz & Company, 2009):

·         A uniform, homogeneous market: the Middle East might have many small nations, across the region but, all share the common Arab heritage and enjoy high degree of commonality across various socio-cultural dimensions. Hence the Middle East could be considered as a homogeneous mixture of around 300 million individuals. The idea of uniformity becomes more apt in case of digital media because; unlike regular media such as print and broadcast which are restricted to national boundaries due to regulatory barriers; online media can have a pan Arab presence.

     

·         High mobile penetration: these days a large amount of digital contents are being viewed with the help of mobile devices. MENA region enjoys a high degree of mobile penetration with states like UAE and Saudi Arabia enjoying a mobile penetration of 200 and 125 percentages.

·         High literacy rate: Many of the MENA states are taking education, high up on their agendas. Some of the MENA states enjoy a high degree of literacy. For instance: collectively the six gulf state enjoys a literacy rate of more than 75 percentages.

·         Several MENA nations are extremely rich: many of the oil rich MENA nations, especially Gulf States are extremely rich and enjoy high per capita GDP. For instance: Qatar, where per capita GDP is around US $ 78,000.  By 2015, Gulf States and Egypt are expected to have 13 million households in middle to high income brackets.

·         Investments in the ICT infra structure: rather than depending on oil MENA nations are realizing the urgency of economic diversification. One thing which is high up on their agenda is ICT infrastructure. All across the MENA huge investments are being made to develop state of the art ICT infra structure.

·         Demographics: the younger generation is more inclined towards the digital media. Somewhere around, 55 percentages of Arab population, is less than 25 years of age, which shows that there is a huge potential for the digital media to flourish in the Arab world.

  Challenges for digital media in Middle East & north africa

Along with advantages, MENA also has lot of challenges, providing hindrances to the growth of digital media in the sector.

·         Low broad band connectivity: it is expected that broadband connectivity will increase in the coming years; but the present penetration of 12 percentages is much lower than other developed parts of the globe. 

   Fig2: broad band penetration in different geographies. Source: Arab Media Outlook 2009-13

·         Dissimilarity in ICT infrastructure across the region: even though the region shares socio cultural heritages, there is a high degree of economic asymmetry across the whole region. There are cash rich small Gulf States; North African bigger states like Egypt and Morocco which are comparatively more integrated with the world economy; developing states like Jordan and Syria with almost no oil and reserve and states like Libya and Algeria with high oil deposits but high population as well. This asymmetry is also reflected in a wide range of economic parameters such as mobile penetration, internet penetration, broad band connectivity, kind of network technology being used etc. For instance, in emerging markets like Syria and Sudan broadband penetration is less than 1 percentage; in Morocco and Jordan it is 12 and 15 percentages respectively where as in rich Gulf States like UAE and Qatar it is 69 and 84 percentages respectively. This inherent heterogeneous nature of the ICT infrastructure across the region makes it difficult for organizations to adopt a single digital marketing strategy. (Arab media outlook 2009-13, 2009)

·         Gap between presence and revenue: any business model does not make any sense, until unless it cannot generate constant stream of revenue. In the MENA companies are finding it tough to en cash their digital presence. For instance: 85 percentages of Arab newspapers have digital presence as well, but digital media constitutes just 2 percentages of their advertising revenue.                       

Fig 3: shows the breakup of digital media revenue (in US $ million) in the MENA region, for 2009.  (Source: Booz & Company)  

Fig 4: percentage wise break up of online advertisements in MENA region. Source: Booz & Company, 2009.

 Fig 5: percentage wise break up of mobile advertisements in MENA region. Source: Booz & Company, 2009.

·         Online shopping activity is abysmally low: according to a research conducted by Neilson (comprising of 1,246 individuals from four countries- UAE, Egypt, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia) less than 1 percentage of individuals prefers engaging themselves in online shopping. (Arab Media Outlook 2009-13 , 2009)

·         Monetization of the online content, which is somehow a challenge all across the globe, is quiet challenging in the MENA region. The prevalence of a cash based culture and low penetration of credit & debit card penetration makes it more difficult. (Arab Media Outlook 2009-13 , 2009)  

       Internet consumption behavior of MENA users

In order to analyze the prospect of digital media in MENA region, it will be helpful to have a brief overview of internet consumption behavior of people from the region. In order to understand this better, the blog will be taking the help of a research conducted by, Effective Research in conjunction with Spot on PR, in July 2010. The research has been conducted over a base of 2587 individuals, out of which 69 percentages comprised of Egyptians and 20 percentages comprised of individuals from GCC. 

Fig6: shows the common activities on internet in the MENA region. Source: Neilson, the survey comprised of 1,810 individuals from 4 countries- Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Lebanon. 

Education level of individuals surveyed:

 Fig7: shows the education level of respondents surveyed, in terms of percentages. Source: Effective Research and Spot on PR.

Place of internet access

Fig8: shows the place of access of internet, for the respondents, in terms of percentages. (Source: Effective Research and Spot on PR, 2010)   

Respondent’s, Usage of Social Media Platform:

Fig9: shows respondent's usage of various social media platforms.(Source: Effective Research and Spot on PR, 2010)  

Respondent’s daily consumption of other  media channels.

Fig10: shows percentage of correspondents consuming various media channels on a daily basis (in case of magazine, weekly figures have been taken). Source: Effective Research and Spot on PR.

Disposition towards Internet Marketers:

Fig11: respondent's disposition towards internet  marketers. Source: Effective Research and Spot on PR. 

Important Conclusions:

Important conclusions, drawn from the report are as follows:

·         Majority (more than two third) of internet users from the region seems to be, graduate or above.

·         Internet is primarily used from home.

·         Facebook seems to be very popular across the region. The tremendous popularity of Facebook is followed by other local brands such as Kooora, Maktoob etc.

·         Internet users from the MENA region simultaneously use a wide range of other media channels as well, such as newspaper, magazine, radio, TV, mobile applications etc 

   Challenges for Digital Media:

·         Less ad spending on digital media: so far digital media contribute a miniscule share of just 2 percentage of overall ad spending in the MENA region. In 2008, the digital advertisement investments per capita in the MENA region was just US $ 2 compared to the global average of US $ 27. (Booz & Company, 2009) 

Fig 12: shows per capita digital ad spend across various countries in 2008. Source: Booz & Company, 2009.   

·         Internet penetration is comparatively low: internet penetration is increasing in the Middle East region at a very fast pace and the present penetration of 28.8 percentages is higher than the global average of 26.6 percentages. Although when compared with other developed parts of the globe; it appears to be very low.

Fig 13: shows internet penetration in various geographical regions (Source: Internet World stats, 2010)

Social media angle

The understanding of digital media in the MENA region will be incomplete without understanding the “Social Media” angle. Social Media is one of the fastest growing segments of media in the MENA. Not only does it make sense for business in present as well as in future; but also plays a pivotal role in socio-political sphere of the region. The best exemplar could be the latest Arab revolution, which started from Egypt & Tunisia and spread across the entire region. Social Media sites such as Facebook and Twitter played a major role in the revolution, eventually forcing the incumbent governments to step down. In a wide range of activities such as; creation of popular pages such as “We are all Khalid Said”, meant for addressing the political concerns of the common people; communicating across the user network to stage a mass protest on 25^th January to post revolution analysis and public opinion building on key issues; everywhere social media has been the key player.

Facebook

Facebook or FB is the most popular, social media in the MENA region, very much in line with the general popularity, which it enjoys across the globe. The region has somewhere around 15 million FB users, with GCC countries accounting for some 5 million users (Spot On, 2010) Other than English, other popular versions of FB are French and Arabic.

Fig14: shows the percentage wise break up of FB users in the MENA region. Source: Spot On

The Arabic interface has been added in March, 2009. It helped FB capturing a whole new range of user segment. With a year of its inception, it added 3.5 million users to the existing base. The French version of FB has a total of 3.7 million users and is more popular in francophone countries such as- Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia etc. The top five user communities of FB in the region are- Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Tunisia and UAE. These five countries, comprise of 70 percentages of FB’s market in MENA region.

Fig 15: percentage wise break up of FB using population of various MENA nations. Source: Spot On

Conclusion

As discussed earlier, the online media/digital media segment in Middle East is in its nascent stage but the future seems to be bright. The following factors will drive/influence growth of digital media in the future:

·         Young Demographics will influence growth: one of the biggest advantages that MENA is having is its young demographic. More than 55 percentage of population is aged less than 25. This young generation will be heavily influencing the growth of digital media in the region.

·         Broad band penetration: broad band penetration, especially in comparatively bigger states like Egypt and Saudi Arabia will drive growth of digital media in the region.

·         Europe could be a role model: though digital media has enough presence in both social as well as economical spheres of the region, the advertisement revenues are still not very high. In this regard Europe of 2000s could be perfect role model, when the advertisements revenue where low there as well. But with the growth of more and broadband and mobile penetration, it got emancipated. With increasing broadband penetration and adoption of better mobile technologies; MENA can undergo the same growth trajectories.

·          Arabic and local Content: in order to digital media (as well as other media sources to an extent) to succeed, one area that needs to be addressed is developing local content. According to survey conducted by Neilson, 62 percentages of respondents prefer browsing the web in Arabic rather than English; but the region has dearth of Arabic/local digital content. (Unlike newspaper, where 90 percentages of content are local in nature). In spite of the fact that international brands like Yahoo and Facebook enjoy a high degree of popularity in the region due to their brand value and 1^st mover’s advantage; the fact cannot be discounted that there is a penchant for local content both on and off the web. Hence in order to succeed in the coming future, it is essential to emphasis on the development of more and more local content. This requires funding, govt. support as well as developing local talent. (Arab Media Outlook 2009-13, 2009)

·         Creating right cultural environment for web entrepreneurs to succeed: in order to develop the online media sector in Middle East, a possible step could be developing something similar to Silicon Valley. This will help nurturing young talents to develop web based start ups. In the MENA region one possible role model could be Jordan, which is taking similar initiatives. Jordan is transforming itself into a knowledge economy by- generating 6000 ICT graduates every year, attracting venture capital for web based start ups and taking a comparatively tolerant stand on media sector including the blogosphere. (Arab Media Outlook 2009-13, 2009)

·         Nurturing Talent: one of the most essential pillars for developing the digital media in the region could be having the right talent base. Though many of the Arab/ Gulf countries are taking initiatives, but there is further room for improvement. The students from the region need to be trained on a wide range of subjects such as- digital media, gaming, animation etc.           

·         

Reference

1>    Morgan Stanley, 2009, Internet trends report

2>    Arab Media Outlook 2009-13, 2009, simulating local content in Arab Media Industry, p-169

3>    Arab Media Outlook 2009-13, 2009, simulating local content in Arab Media Industry, p-172

4>    AMIR, March 2011, P-3

5>    Booz & Company, 2009, Winning in MENA new media scene

6>    Booz and Company, 2009, Winning in MENA new media scene,  p-17

7>    Arab Media Outlook 2009-13, digital media, p-68

8>    Spot On, 2010, Middle East and North Africa Facebook demographics. 
9>  Arab Media Outlook 2009-13, digital media, p-169 

1>    Arab Media Outlook 2009-13, digital media, p-181 

Branding blunder that Vivek oberoi does:diffrent offscreen and onscreen image

Well it had been a week over here at Sheffield and the author is off to write his second blog & the topic is related to one of his favourite areas of interest: Indain film industry.
The author intends to talk about one of the most talented but most wrongly marketed Bollywood actors Vivek Oberoi, the kind of roles that he plays and the kind of media image that he maintains. One must understand that in a nation like India where both films and actors are adored heavily,every actor is a brand in himself.Every actor has both real as well as latent brand value that can be cashed in the form of asking price for films, stage show charges, endorsements etc.Media plays a very important role in deciding the exact brand value of these actors in the eyes of there customers that is the general public. Many a times there are actors like Ritesh Deshmukh,Arjun Rampal who are over rated in the media and then there are actors like akshaye khanna and vivek oberoi who are grossly under rated.*

Though the author does not intend to go into very details of every actor but will like to point out a very big blunder that Vivek as well as other actors do too often: Maintaining an altogether different image on and off the screen.One must admit that though these days actors in Bollywood are experimenting a lot with there roles, but in spite of that there is a specific kind of roles for which every one is known for. For exp:- Ajay devgan is known for playing serious roles,Salman Khan is known for playing roles of strong headed guy, roles that require throwing lot of tantrums and attitude,Sanjay dutt is known for playing mafia kind of roles and Sahrukh khan for romantic roles.Though Vivek himself had played so many different kind of roles but primarily he is some one who had always been appreciated for rough and rash roles. Be it the role of a dreaded criminal in shoot out at lokhandwala, an aspiring gangster in Company, and the no non sense young guy of Road.Vivek is some one who looks best when he has to play an earthy character, a character which does not reside in some fancy world but comes from the world of darkness,some thing that exemplifies the baser instincts of the human character.Even in his upcoming film Raktha Charitra where he is playing a south Indian feudal lord he is looking magnificent.He is some one who is always associated with grave and grey kind of characters, but when it comes to his off line life he has altogether a different image.He pretends to be too good and humble. Here the problem arises. People in India have a fixed image for every actor, they love to see them in that only. If an actor is rash and grave on the screen then they expect the same off the screen too.If he is a goody goody kind of guy on the screen then the same is expected from him off the screen too. The author is not saying that there is any harm in being a good boy but in case of vivek oberoi it creates an identity crisis. At one hand when he plays the role of a gangster and on the other if he tries to flatter Salman Khan in some media conference then it's obvious that normal public will find it tough to relate with him.He must understand the commonsensical fact that a hero who plays the role of a bhai or a gangster is not expected to plead in public, to try impressing some one knowing the fact that the other person do not even care a damn. Based on the type of role which he does ,Vivek really needs to change his way of behaving in public.There is no harm in showing humility but the essence of a mafia should not be missing nor should the style.The gravity with which he plays his role should not be found missing.The silent arrogance needs to be there not only on the silver screen but also in the real world. After all a brand is what the world perceives you.
(*:- Views are personal in the particular case)

PR Blunders: Vivek Oberoi presents a good case to study

                                                                      
Vivek oberoi made a bombastic debut in 2002 with his films Company and Sathiya, very soon he was touted as an actor with huge potential . But his career path didnt go the way it was expected, soon after this ,flops like Kyon ho gaya na,Kisna & Home delivery followed as a result of which Vivek's career graph took a downward turn. Though in the due course of time he gave hits like Omkara & Shoot out at Lokhandwala but since these films were multistarer the credit had to be distributed among a larger lot of actors .As an actor he had always been a reservoir of fresh talent but in spite of that things were not working out for him . Though inability to perform at the box office was definitely a factor but poor marketing & pr along with extremely bad man management skills were also equally responsible. Some of the very big PR blunders which he did were:-

1> Having differences with each & every one that came across him:-
He had troubles with his mentor ramgopal verma, had troubles with Shaad ali during Sathiya's making, had trouble with Sanjay dutt and Aporva lakhia during Mission istanbul's making, with Salman khan, bachans etc over Aishwariya rai. Now if someone has such a large no. of fights then there is definitely something wrong with him. One must understand that Bollywood is a place where personal relationship matters the most, & in such an industry if you make an image of a trouble child for yourself you are definitely going to make a big loss. The same happened with Vivek. His attitude problem compelled good makers to keep distance from him.

2> Salman Khan Episode: - The entire Salman Khan episode did a lot of negative publicity for mr. Oberoi. First of all he showed his childish attitude by making the issue of personal phone calls public, but his biggest blunder was the apologizing act where he bent on his knees to apologize from Salman khan .This added nothing other than projecting him as an immature, confused & kiddish individual. One must understand that a typical Bollywood hero is someone with whom everyone tries to relate himself; he is someone who has a larger than life kind of image among his fans. So it is quite natural that they expect these heroes to be heroic, brave & matured in their real life also, apologizing in public and that to in such a stupid way can never be well received by the general public . One must understand the general sentiment that “a hero is after all a hero, how could he act foolish in public ". By acting in that manner Vivek achieved nothing but of course made a fool of himself.

3> Aishwariya Rai episode :- This is another area where Vivek showed that how kiddish one can be . Aishwariya Rai never admitted the fact that she is having a relationship with Vivek oberoi, but it was this blabbering Vivek oberoi who even went to the extent to herald that he will be marrying Ash. Not even this even when the cat was out of the box and it was very well known that Ash & Abhiseck are going to tie knot Vivek could not control the temptation to come up with stupid comments in the media. This entire episode added another feathers of immaturity in his cap.

4> Consistent insistence on showing off himself as someone terrific, someone very moralistic & someone holier than thou :- during his initial days ,In each and every one of his interview Mr. Oberoi used to put a lot emphasis on himself, starting from the fact that he is a great actor, a wonderful womanizer, a complete teetotaler to the fact that he is a big time foodie( because he is a teetotaler, now even I don't know how come there be relationship between one's gastronomic inclinations and whether one is a teetotaler or not ).His approach of projecting himself in such a good light looked very artificial and irritating. One must understand that it's essential to promote oneself in Bollywood but again point to be noted is that it's one thing to promote yourself and entirely different thing to be an ego maniac. Beyond a point bragging does a tremendous harm to one's image, both in eyes of general public as well as the media.

Website Measurment Standards

                                                                  
Web based marketing is becoming very popular these days .It provides a lot of interesting revenue generation model. It is also very significant for startup companies where due to resource crunch application of offline media and traditional marketing channels are not easy, web based marketing solutions provide easy, economical & creative media & marketing solutions. But before choosing a website for marketing a product it is very essential that the size and the type of traffic for the website should be found out . There are various kinds of traffic measurement standards that are followed to measure the effectiveness of a website, though all these standards look similar but they do differ subtly . Another point that has to be noted over here is that the choice of measurement standards also depend on the objective of the marketer .Here the author will like to high light a few important terms regarding website measurement standards.

1> Hits :- is the most common and most misleading standard of measurement. Every website/blog has some html code embedded in it . Whenever a website is visited the no. of hits are equal to no. of html code embedded plus one more ( this extra is for the website as a whole ).Thus by making a blog/website complex with added photos, videos and gadgets the no. of hits can be increased .

2> Visits :- Whenever a blog is visited once by a user there happens to be one visit.

3> Page visits :- The no. of times a website is refreshed plus the no. of individual pages in the website that had been visited (& refreshed) in an website .

4> Unique Visits :- Visits are never a very effective tool for measurement, since it can happen that a small set of users might be visiting a website throughout the day, that means though the total visits will be high but the no. of unique visitors will be very low. For a marketer it is very essential that his advertisements must be viewed by a large no. of unique individuals .So unique visits come into picture. It gives the total sum of unique visitors visiting a website.

5> Bounce rate :- If a website is a visited by an user but left within 30 seconds then this is considered as a bounce .A high bounce rate is undesirable .

6> Average time spent:- gives the average time spent by an user during a single visit to a website/blog .Though much more pragmatic than the above said standards ,should be used with a bit of caution especially when dealing with social networking sites . For a social networking sites like Face Book & Orkut these are always high because once logged in users have tendencies to be logged in for a large time but this surely does not mean that users remain active .Users are active for small time periods and remain idle for the rest of the time .An idle user though logged in is not in the interest of the marketer.

7> No. of clicks per ad:- These days this is the most commercially accepted standard . It gives the measurement of no. of individual click an add gets while posted in a website .This is quite an accurate measurement since it directly gives the measurement of popularity of the ad itself rather than platform.

8> Geographical Profiling of visitors: - Many a times it is in the interest of the marketer to know that visitors from which geographical location predominates in a website. There are various tools available these days through which the geographical profiling of the visitors can be done.

These are the fundamental standards of website measurement, other than these there are various other standards. This is an emerging domain and every day newer standards and tools of measurement are coming into picture.But the author feels that going through the above standards will definitely give a fair idea regarding how blogs and websites are measured .

Image Consulting for Abahy Deol

                                                                 
PROS:-He is the deol with a difference, smart ,suave & stylish. He might not be considered conventionally very good looking but is definitely charming and enjoys a strong brand value among the intelligent audiences .He has a large female fan following too and is considered as someone really cute by his female fans .Known for delving into unknown territory Abhay is never worried of underplaying his character if the script demands .He is someone who is equally comfortable playing various different characters be it an arrogant alcoholic in Dev D , the smart yet emotional thief of Oye Lucky Lucky Oye,or the young lover of Socha na tha .
Bollywood where generally actors are not very well read and well aware he is an exception, reads extensively and had good knowledge of lot many stuffs other than acting , is quite active for social causes & had even lectured at Stanford University .With Dev D this talented actor has also tasted some commercial success & has shown that along with artistic credentials he also holds commercial potential .

CONS: - Though considered as a talented actor he is yet to feature in some A- grade main stream flick as a solo hero .One must understand that India is a country where not too many audience have knack for intelligent films, so until unless one doesn't give hits with the main stream cinema he or she is not going to be a super star. The same might happen with Abhay deol . So far he is considered for his off beat roles and  if he keeps on maintaining the same  image it might happen that in spite of having commercial potential he might not get roles in main stream films .He does a less no. of films & his fans often complain that they have to wait a lot to watch him, he is quite media shy and is not very active in media especially in off line one  .In the author's point of view he doesn't also have a very impressive voice , his low pitch voice sometimes becomes a misfit in the kind of tough roles he does .

FUTURE STRATEGY :-Abhay deol is right now in a wonderful phase of his career where not only has his talent well tested but has also tasted a bit of commercial success .It's natural that a lot of offers would be coming his way , so rather than being choosy he needs to grab this opportunity and must sign a few good no. of films .Secondly he is venturing into production which not be a very good desicion at this stage of time, film production is quite a cumbersome task that often consumes a good amount of time and energy and there is no guarantee of the end result as well, so rather than production what the author feels is that this is time where he should focus more on acting & should atleast do 3-4 films a year. There is no intelligence in making your fans wait for so long .Film production can be taken in the nearby future after establishing yourself as a big name in bollywood .As much the kind of cinema he chooses then surely he is not made for typical bollywood masala film where you don't need to bring your brain along with you to the theatres ,but still there will be a lot of scope for him in the main stream cinema from where he can easily deliver 3-4 films a year.He can surely try for genres like good rom-coms,political thrillers, suspense thrillers, psycho thrillers satirical comedies, book adaption( other than rom coms & political thrillers he has done others so far but on a small scale, he needs to scale it up).As much film makers are concern then he can surely work with the likes of Farhan Akhtar, Anurag Kashyap, Sudhir Mishra, Milan Lutharia, Prakash Jha,Dibankar Banerjee,Raju Hirani, Ram Gopal Verma along with a lot of new comers who are ready to challenge the conventions of the Main stream cinema and can yet deliver hits .Along with this he really needs to expand his visibility in the media, needs to sign more endorsements ,just one LG add is not sufficient, can very well endorse products like electronic gadgets,aparels,fmcg items, cars(not bike),tourism, watches, NGOS, can even try his hand in beverages, alcoholic drinks etc( but should avoid cigarettes & strong beer ).

To sum up what the author will like to sum up is that Abhay is an actor who definitely enjoys a decent amount of fan following, who has so far received no negative branding and there is a large mass of audience who have positive thought for him but can still not be considered as an ardent fan base . It's here where Abhay really needs to work upon,he must understand that there lies a potent base that can be easily converted into a fan following, only thing that needs to be done is that increase the visibility amongst them with the help of more no. of big banner flicks which are marketed well , more media presence and more endorsements .

In the end on behalf of the whole "MANAGEMNET GURU” team the author will like to wish Mr. Abhay deol a very successful career and hope he touches new skies in all the dimensions of his life .