Campaign Middle East’s latest issue, Women in Advertising 2026 is out now online and on stands. The issue showcases opinions from 28 women leaders who were offered an open platform to share what’s on their mind, ranging from themes of leadership, AI, resilience, creativity and strategies.
Beyond the main focus, the issue also takes a look into agency models and age-old debate of brand vs performance alongside the annual Integrated Comms, PR & Experiential Guide 2026.
Campaign Middle East’s annual special feature, Women in Advertising 2026 brings together insights from 29 women leaders across the region’s advertising landscape. Within the pages, they call for more meaningful work, value beyond visibility, and greater trust and transparency. And make a demand for more courage and care and for the industry to listen better, think harder and build brands for lasting growth, not just output.
Covering one of the key themes of issue, this month’s cover story asks a question the industry has been circling for years: what does the agency model need to become to remain relevant? Industry leaders shared with Campaign Middle East about why the agency model is not dying but is being forced to prove its value through sharper strategy, stronger trust and accountable commerical models.
With AI, in-housing, procurement pressure and changing client expectations all reshaping the relationship between brands and their agencies, the answer is becoming less about whether agencies will survive and more about what they need to prove. Industry leaders say that the strongest models will be built around business problems rather than agency labels, and call for a greater emphasis on trust, commercial accountability, cultural fluency and the ability to challenge a brief.
On the other side looking into one of the most divisive topics, this month’s Industry Forum asks whether marketers should stop separating brand and performance budgets, with leaders making a case for both sides. Responses from the industry expert highlight a greater issue on how should marketers balance immediate results with the longer-term work of building brands.
Adding more insight into brand, this month’s brand focus contributors include Arushi Seth, former marketing and commercial director att P&G and AlMarai’s Nabil Sleiman. Seth dives into the mechanics behind the day-to-day of a brand, making a case for taking ownership of the brand’s overall business challenge. While Almarai’s Nabil Sleiman reflects on what happens when the work does not go according to plan, arguing that the original strategy is often less revealing than the gap between the brief and what actually happened.
Not leaving aside insights from the Kingdom, Jummar PR’s Ibrahim Almutawa discusses the ongoing battle for memory and stc group’s Mohammed R. Abaalkheil raises key questions about measurement in this month’s Saudi Focus.
Finally, completing the themes, the issue turns its attention to PR, experiential and communications, with the Integrated Communications, PR and Experiential Guide 2026, a directory of agencies within the sectors alongside opinions from industry experts on the themes.
Read the full Women In Advertising 2026 issue of Campaign Middle East below or here.