MENACOM Jordan CEO Relja Jovic discusses how the group’s integrated operations are allowing it to embrace innovation and drive business growth.

For MENACOM Jordan, 2022 has been anything but business as usual. The marketing communications group has emerged from the pandemic stronger and more resilient than ever. After relocating at the end of last year to its new headquarters in the heart of Abdali, MENACOM has been growing and progressing on all fronts: business is strong, and the group has acquired several notable new clients, in addition to expanding its services and operations for many of its existing clients. And, as always, the group continues to demonstrate why it’s been a market leader for more than a quarter of a century, embracing innovation and creativity across every level of the business.

For MENACOM Jordan’s CEO, Relja Jovic, the group’s current trajectory is simply a continuation of the business models and strategies that have always worked for MENACOM—with a few upgraded twists, turns, and pivots along the way. “For decades now, one of the cornerstones of MENACOM’s success has been our commitment to integration,” Jovic says, “and that integrated way of working continues to add value to everything we do.”

This focus on integration applies to many aspects of the group’s operations: MENACOM has long been a proponent of its unique ‘cell model’ for communication services, setting up fully integrated teams dedicated solely to servicing specific clients. This one-stop-shop approach provides immeasurable value to clients, who can have their communication needs fulfilled by one single agency. Rather than coordinating with different agencies to handle public relations, social media, marketing, advertising, and media planning, businesses and organizations are able to consolidate all these practices. Certainly, the efficiency of having one partner for all communication practices is one of the key benefits of this model, but it’s far from the only advantage. On a practical level, it ensures that communications are strategically aligned across all channels, which strengthens the efficacy of marketing and advertising campaigns and enhances a company’s brand strength.

But not anyone can pull it off. “To manage these kinds of integrated operations, you have to have robust resources, diversified operations, and a large, readily available pool of talent,” Jovic explains. As the largest communication group in the Kingdom, MENACOM is readily up to the challenge. With six agencies in its arsenal—creative advertising agencies VMLY&R and Intermarkets, digital specialists Wunderman, media agency Wavemaker, public relations practice ASDA’A BCW, and retail marketing firm Interface—the group is able to leverage a wide range of assets in order to serve its clients. And in recent years, MENACOM has been further integrating these assets. “Wherever possible, and with our utmost priority on maintaining the confidentiality of our clients, we try to centralize our core operations and assets,” Jovic says. This means that, in many cases, departments like strategic planning and content development work across agencies and practices, allowing for insights to be readily shared throughout the group. “Today’s communication sector demands this kind of integration,” Jovic insists, “particularly as the lines between practices continue to blur.” MENACOM’s PR practice, ASDA’A BCW, provides a strong example of this communication-practice overlap: as the agency pushes further into the arena of digital PR, it has increasingly begun to overlap with the world of digital marketing. For most PR agencies, that would require investing in new tools, resources, and talent: for ASDA’A BCW, it simply means leveraging the insights and capabilities of sister agencies like Wunderman and Wavemaker.

Leveraging the group’s digital assets is also proving to be an adept strategy for MENACOM’s newest agency, Interface. With the integrated resources of the group and a knack for digital innovation, Interface is transforming its services in ways that put it far ahead of other retail marketing providers. For example, the agency is in the process of digitizing how it provides its mystery shopper services—streamlining the process and creating the ability to offer instantaneous feedback to clients. As a result of this upgraded way of working, Interface is currently working to pivot and expand these services to better serve clients in industries like hospitality and tourism. “As the tourism and hospitality sector rebounds from the challenges of the last few years, quality assurance is going to be crucial to the success of businesses in these industries,” says Jovic. “As a communications group, it’s our job to adapt our services in ways that will help other industries grow and develop.”

And adapting to an ever-changing world is undoubtedly one of MENACOM Jordan’s strengths. In particular, the group has transformed some major lessons of the pandemic into opportunities to better serve its clients. One of the most important of these lessons is that businesses need to take a much more proactive approach toward preparing for the unexpected: as such, MENACOM has been working to provide clients with more comprehensive crisis readiness, conducting in-depth audits of brands’ reputational risks, and developing detailed plans for handling any issues or crises that may arise.

As Jovic explains, MENACOM’s continued success is about more than its longevity and strength in numbers: “Having many years in the market and a diverse range of assets isn’t enough, in this day and age, to guarantee continuity, let alone growth. You need to be agile enough and innovative enough to be able to shift those assets around, to identify new opportunities, and to adapt in the right directions. It takes a great deal of foresight, ingenuity, and creativity—and those, ultimately, are the real assets propelling MENACOM’s success.”