Dubai Brings Influencers to a Drone Fight
How the UAE decided to shake up the influence game
There’s a new, very effective communications playbook being used to project state-level influence; and I think I know how it started.
In 2006, I was in the middle of a stint at the Reuters bureau in Dubai, where the wire service sent Arabic speaking correspondents for downtime in between assignments in warzones like Iraq and Sudan. The job involved sitting at a desk monitoring Arabic media; and was mind crushingly dull. I wasn’t a fan.
Then, one day, a real story broke. A state owned Emirati company, DP World, was looking to buy P&O, a British shipping and logistics company founded in the early 1800s. P&O, it turns out, had a contract to manage six major ports in the US. US authorities were fine with an old school British company running US ports, but an Arab company five years after 9/11 managing major American ports raised eyebrows. However, the deal was greenlit by the US administration and the port leases went over to DP World.
When the deal was announced in the US, things went a little haywire. Several Congress members said they might veto the deal. This annoyed George W. Bush, the US president at the time, who said it sent a “terrible signal to friends and allies” (link) and threatened to veto Congress’ veto. Keep in mind Bush was a Republican president (like Donald Trump) and had only a couple of years earlier launched invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. The stand off was settled by DP World voluntarily calling off the deal (spoiler alert: it went through later).
At the Reuters Dubai bureau, I had a front-row seat to a very familiar scenario. Multiple colleagues chasing responses from DP World or Emirati government sources got totally stonewalled. Whether you covered business or conflict in the Middle East this was very common. Officials hardly ever spoke on record to the press; press releases were exercises in self praise that explained nothing; and spokespeople would only ever tell you that they had “forwarded your comments to head office and it will be up to them to respond” (spoiler alert; they never did).
This Middle East wide phenomenon was a massive own goal. The bureau’s star business reporter pinpointed the problem with this archaic mindset when he said “If they (DP World) tackled this head on, they could probably have calmed the Americans down and got this deal through. Instead, they just don’t answer their phones”.
In the years since, the UAE’s approach to strategic influence has gone through nothing short of a revolution. In the 20 years before 2005, the UAE government probably spent about $2 billion on influence activities, mostly on local media outlets, and PR/advertising by state-run companies. In the 20 years after 2005, that figure was nearer $18 billion, and included “Nation Branding” events such as Expo 2020 Dubai, foreign lobbying, and contracts with international PR firms.
Friends who have spent the last couple of decades working in PR in the Gulf say that the numbers don’t tell the whole story. The increased funding is part of a mentality shift that was triggered by the events of 2005.
In 2005, the UAE, with Dubai at the forefront, was “stepping out into the world”. In the wake of the regional wars and boom-bust economic cycles, the country’s leadership had decided that they wanted the country to be a participant in the global economy, not just a passenger on the oil-price rollercoaster. The acquisition of P&O, a British heritage brand with global infrastructure, was a key stepping stone. From the perspective of the UAE’s decision makers, they had discussed plans with their opposite numbers in Washington DC, London, Brussels etc (the global centres of power at the time) and everyone was on board. So the DP World debacle was a shock. What they hadn’t factored in was the role of public opinion in Western political decision making. (In an absolute monarchy public opinion matters less on a day-to-day level, but matters you do risk a popular uprising situation - something for a future post).
The new consultants, advisors and friendly governments suggested to the UAE that it needed to up its PR game. It needed to follow the tried and tested Western playbook, they said. This involved a communications infrastructure based on more transparency, a freer press and decentralised decision making authority. But this didn’t sit entirely well with Emirati decision makers. I have spoken to more than a couple of officials in the region about this over the years. If I were to paraphrase them, it would be something like “Our culture is different to yours. You can’t expect us to copy and paste your ways on to our context” - which is a very good point.
What the Emiratis wanted to do was maintain control while also getting good press. This was achievable in the domestic context through state control of news media. But how do you get the same result in Western countries where the press has a mind of its own and the court of public opinion is often the final arbitrator of whether a major decision is carried out, or dumped like a soggy mattress on the side of the road?
The answer to that question has been brewing for a few years. The US/Israel war with the UAE’s near neighbour, Iran, brought it starkly into view.
Personal safety is a key pillar of the UAE’s pitch to the world; alongside good weather, no tax and sunshine. Social media images showing physical symbols of that pitch, such as the Burj Al Arab, burning due to rocket fire (or its debris) is a serious threat to the ambition the country’s rulers have been working on for the past 20 years.
Iran’s rockets puncture the carefully curated image of luxury and safety. The way the country’s rulers decided to mitigate the damage was a sort of ‘coming out party’ for the influence playbook it has been building since the days of the failed DP World deal.
While the iconic buildings were still smouldering, hundreds of influencers with audiences across the world had jumped on a video trend that started with the question “are you scared” before cutting to heroic slo-mo footage of the country’s rulers with the words “No because they protect us” (or some version of that phrase) over it. At least 6 of the videos, which all used the same official PR footage, had more than a million views. With a couple at around 10 million. This is not a coincidence.
The UAE has been courting (or incubating) influencers since the early 2010s. It is currently home to around 2,500 officially registered influencers from 149 countries (link). A decade ago, the UAE made influencers into an officially recognised business class when many were complaining of being treated like hobbyists in Europe and North America. Registration meant a clear and easy path to long-term visas, generous grants and business support. It also integrated them into the influencer toolbox alongside the traditional PR machines and big ticket international events.
The latest rules (in force since February 1, 2026) require influencers to obtain a commercial licence and an advertiser permit. Content standards come with the new permits. The permits include content rules. Influencers must not post “misleading news” and respect the UAE’s Islamic values, national symbols and foreign policy (link).
“Misleading” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. According to the Telegraph an influencer who posted and then deleted images of burning debris in Dubai told them; “The Dubai authorities want to control the narrative, that’s for sure. There are strict rules about what you can say here.” (link)
What the UAE has done is beyond “influencer marketing”. It has invested in making itself a global hub for a new industry that is more effectively aligned with the economic, technological and social realities of today than legacy communications/entertainment industries. By deploying its influencers in support of governmental objectives, the UAE has shown it has invested in not only an economic asset but a statecraft one too. Although the UAE is not the first country to use social media for governmental goals, the strategic way it has done so contrasts wildly with the crude methods used by states such as Russia.
Social media was initially seen as an extension of the internet’s promise to democratise information. Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web, said it was “humanity connected”. But freer access to information has been a nightmare for PR agencies, companies and governments obsessed with “message control”. The Arab Spring, at the time referred to as the “Facebook Revolution”, and the violence and chaos that followed, was a case in point for those who believed more information was nice in theory, but a mess in real life.
While the prevailing logic was that transparency was a necessary evil to achieve a positive reputation, the UAE has made it clear that freedom isn’t a prerequisite to success. And, in the process, it has achieved its desire from back in 2005 to secure a positive image without giving up control.
Leaving aside the ethics of the freedom vs control argument, the “Dubai Playbook” works with the grain of today’s information environment and will give the UAE an advantage when it competes in the global market place - whether that is for tourist dollars, investment or contracts for its state run businesses. The question is whether other organisations and governments will continue to employ outdated models or develop their own new ones to keep up.
The observations in this newsletter are the author’s own and do not reflect the views of Valent’s clients or partners