Ahead of ATS Dubai, Terry Kane, managing director for Middle East, Africa, and Turkey at The Trade Desk, explains why MENA's media plans haven't followed its audiences, which channels are paying for it, and how 2027 budgets should differ…

MENA's digital ad market grew 17.8% to USD$8.185bn (£6bn) in 2025, according to IAB MENA, with social video up 23.6% and CTV growing faster from a smaller base. The Trade Desk thinks too much of that money still goes where it always has, and that the reason is behavioural.

Terry Kane, the company's managing director for Middle East, Africa, and Turkey, describes an efficiency loop in which familiar, easy-to-measure channels keep winning budget while audiences spend their time elsewhere. Ahead of ATS Dubai, and with 2027 plans being set now, he spoke to ExchangeWire about what that loop costs brands, which channels it starves, and why AI makes trusted environments more valuable.

Where the money goes

How much of MENA's digital media time goes to the open internet, and how much of the ad spend follows it?

74% of people's time with digital media in MENA is spent on the open internet: premium streaming, trusted news sites and digital audio services such as Spotify and Anghami. Yet only 28.8% of digital ad investment in the region goes there. The imbalance is costing brands more than they realise.

In the next few weeks, we will unveil new research that shows what that imbalance means for effectiveness. Together with PA Consulting, The Trade Desk Intelligence measured how people's brains respond to different media strategies. Balanced media strategies, which spread ad exposure evenly across CTV, audio, digital, and social, drove much better results in advertising persuasiveness than campaigns that over-invest in social.

If consumers have moved, why haven't media plans?

Research carried out with PA Consulting asked why media plans stay the same when consumer behaviour has changed. In a survey with marketers, 72% said channels that are easier to measure often get more credit for business outcomes. Three quarters feel more confident investing in social because they are familiar with how it works, and 68% said cutting social spend feels riskier than maintaining it, even when strong alternatives exist.

The result is an efficiency loop. Familiarity bias, risk aversion, and easily quantified results reinforce existing choices, so plans favour short-term success over long-term impact. Brands create less future demand, recall, and trust weaken, and acquisition costs rise.

How do those instincts show up in MENA?

In this region, the same instincts show up as caution. Advertisers want evidence before they test a channel, yet building that evidence needs someone to commit first. We heard that in the audio discussion at the Open Forum, and we see it in identity and data activation, where buy-side adoption stays cautious until there are clear regional proof points. DOOH is still bought largely market by market, much CTV and DOOH runs on guaranteed deals that limit flexibility, and there is a lingering perception that programmatic means lower quality. Each of these makes the familiar option feel safe.

The region has had a disrupted year. Has that made buyers even more likely to play it safe?

Uncertainty tends to push budgets toward what feels easy and defensible, and part of what makes familiar channels feel safe is the effort involved. AI is lowering that barrier. Kokai Zuma, the latest release of our platform, brings agentic AI into the workflow, with Koa Agents supporting campaign creation, audience building, and performance analysis. That means testing a new channel takes less time and less manual work.

The channels that lose out

Which MENA channels get the least spend relative to the audience they reach?

Audio is one of the clearest examples. YouGov's UAE Podcast Advertising Report 2026 found that 81% of UAE respondents consume podcasts, the highest rate of any market in the study. Investment has not kept pace, held back by assumptions that audio is small, niche, hard to measure, and expensive.

CTV is another. In the UAE, 65% of residents watch streaming content daily. Until recently, available premium advertising inventory was the main constraint, but that is changing as major streaming platforms open to advertisers through partnerships such as The Trade Desk's collaboration with OSN.

Where does programmatic out of home fit?

Programmatic out-of-home capability is ahead of awareness. Scale, measurement, and verification tools are already in the market, though standardised measurement and reporting across the region are still developing. Programmatic DOOH enables audience-informed planning and dynamic creative, but traditional buying habits limit its use, and buying remains largely siloed by market.

Across all three, buyers are held back by confidence: waiting for proof points, familiarity with existing channels, and a lingering perception that programmatic means lower quality. Programmatic gives access to premium, brand-safe inventory at scale across all of them.

AI and the safe option

AI is changing the market quickly and at scale. How does that interact with the instinct to play it safe?

AI pushes in two directions at once. Consumer AI tools compress information into short summaries that favour what is already popular. Lower-funnel channels like search are being dis-intermediated. When the information no longer sets brands apart, the brand itself and advertising that builds affinity matter more.

If consumers are discovering brands through AI, where are they deciding to buy?

Our research with PA Consulting, surveying consumers in the US and UK, shows where AI fits. Some 95% double-check AI-generated results, usually on the open internet: news sites, reviews, forums, and platforms they already know. 87% do not fully trust AI tools, and people are 1.6 times more likely to finalise a purchase on the open internet. AI handles discovery, and people typically make decisions in trusted environments, often hours or days later.

For a marketer inclined to play it safe, that changes the calculation. A brand that appears in an AI summary and nowhere else may win attention without winning the purchase. Brands that have already built familiarity and trust are more likely to be confirmed at the point of decision, which makes premium, credible environments more important.

The disruption also gives marketers licence to experiment and challenge old assumptions. The region is moving fast, with the UAE's National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence 2031 and Saudi Arabia's Year of Artificial Intelligence in 2026. Trusted environments deserve investment alongside that innovation.

Breaking the loop in 2027

With 2027 budgets being set now, will more data and education be enough to change how brands plan?

Data and education are necessary, and education was the strongest shared takeaway from the Open Forum, but they will not shift budgets by themselves. Marketers already have more data, better measurement, and more advanced AI tools than ever, yet they still tend to make the same media decisions. The barrier is in how those decisions get made.

So what should brands, agencies, and publishers do differently?

For 2027 plans, brands should judge every channel on its contribution to growth and set objectives that cover both short-term results and long-term brand building. WARC's Multiplier Effect research found ROI rose 90% when brands moved from a performance-only approach to a mix of performance and brand equity and fell 40% when they went the other way.

Brands and agencies should also set aside part of the budget for disciplined experiments with clear objectives and suitable measurement, such as trialling a channel that would not normally make the plan and measuring the impact. A 'Test & Learn' approach is as important today as it was in the early days of digital.

For publishers, flexible, outcome-driven access alongside guaranteed deals lets them optimise yield in real time and lets buyers adjust targeting, creative, and frequency based on performance. Advertisers want better from publishers. They want bidstream data, they want better measurement, they want greater transparency, and ultimately they want to invest more outside of social media. Publishers need to elevate the game and opportunity. That is also how the market builds the regional proof points cautious buyers keep asking for.

Terry Kane will be speaking at ATS By ExchangeWire in Dubai on November 26th. Get your tickets now!