Navigating MENA Healthcare: Strategy by Carlo Nakhle

1. How are you positioning yourself to support clients in navigating regulatory, cultural, and market-specific complexities? 

Launching our newest office in the MENA region allows us to build a team of regionally based talent, possessing an expert understanding of the diverse regulatory landscape, cultural significance, and market-specific complexities. We are positioned as true partners to our clients, so we don’t just deliver the final product; we guide them through cultural nuances and regulatory guidelines to ensure they comprehensively understand these markets. 

2. How do you plan to tailor services such as digital health innovation, patient engagement, and multichannel marketing to meet the specific cultural and clinical needs of the MENA audience? 

Central to all our work is a core understanding of how communities across different MENA markets access, trust, and act on health information. In this region, tailoring solutions accordingly is necessary, whether it’s adjusting digital tools or incorporating cultural and social considerations. From hyper-specific messaging to leveraging trusted community figures, our engagement strategies are rooted in cultural respect and clinical relevance.

3. How can you integrate global best practices with local healthcare priorities to deliver meaningful outcomes for patients and healthcare professionals?

We benefit from a dual approach. Our work is guided by the Havas Life global mission to inspire ideas and improve lives, which ensures alignment with international best practices and standards. At the same time, we operate with deep local insights, allowing us to balance global consistency and local relevance. This dual approach empowers impactful, meaningful, and localized work.

4. How do you ensure that storytelling and campaign strategies reflect the cultural values, health literacy levels, and communication preferences of diverse populations? 

Authentic storytelling starts with audience research to understand beliefs, behaviors, and cultural contexts that shape how patients in the MENA region engage with information. This localized strategy informs the tone of voice, imagery, and how we structure information within a campaign. Values, literacy levels, and communication preferences aren’t just respected; they’re embedded in every step of the creative process, influencing how the work is conceived, created, and shared.

5. What are the biggest risks or barriers to success in this regional expansion, and how is the leadership team planning to mitigate them? 

One of the key challenges in the MENA region is the fragmented regulatory landscape. Each market requires its own approval process, which can create additional complexities for clients operating across borders. We’ve addressed this by structuring an agency with regulatory fluency, ensuring we can provide expert guidance at both local and regional levels.

We are also working to overcome the uneven pace of digital impact while the demand for healthcare communications accelerates. Some markets are highly digitized with advanced healthcare ecosystems, while others are still building digital foundations. This means we tailor digital strategies market-by-market.

6. How do you see the role of healthcare advertising evolving in the next 3–5 years, and how are you preparing for this shift?

We believe healthcare advertising is shifting from transactional to transformation. As the landscape becomes more consumer-centric, we expect advertising to take on more responsibility for building awareness and providing education, empowerment, and navigation. The most successful campaigns won’t just inform; they will inspire action, drive behavioral changes, and support long-term health outcomes. We’re building teams, acquiring tools, and seeking partnerships to set us up for early success as this shift takes shape.

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