The comprehensive report on the global Muslim population conducted by Pew Research Center projects that it is expected to rise from 1.6 billion in 2010 to 2.2 billion by 2030. Growing almost twice the rate of non-Muslim population, it is estimated to reach 6.2 million in 2030 in the USA only, which will surpass the number of Muslims in any European country.

European Muslim population is also going to constitute a growing share by rising from 44.1 million to 58.2 million by 2030. The notable Muslim population share is projected to reach 8.2% in the UK, 9.3% in Austria, 9.9% in Sweden, 10.2% in Belgium and 10.3% in France.

The young demographic trend of the Muslim population will continue throughout the next two decades. The number of the Muslims under age 15 will considerably increase from today’s 500,000 to 1.8 million in 2030.

Read the original article on Pew Research Center Publications http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1872/muslim-population-projections-worldwide-fast-growth

Halal reaches fever pitch

Netherlands has built first halal warehouses in Rotterdam, Europe’s biggest port, where halal goods are not stored next to pork and alcohol. MISC, world’s leading logistics provider, practices halal express service designed to serve this specific growth sector. Swiss leader in pharmaceutical sector Novartis has captured halal medicine industry providing meningitis vaccine made without pig-related byproducts in its production process. Looking at the examples of Carrefour, Tesco and Asda, retail sector is also switching its focus and becoming certified Halal, declares Darhim Dali Hashim, CEO of Malaysia’s International Halal Integrity Alliance.

Internet industry goes Halal

The internet is shinning on halal arena as well. I’mHalal has become first search engine built based on halal standards. Innovative approach filters the content and shows the search results permissible under Islam. Already after one year of activity, US stands for 22 % of its traffic and accounts for the second largest traffic source after Pakistan.

Muslim women in Halal world

Muslim women are also becoming great influencers on global Halal industry. Increasing number of Muslim women working and running own businesses has resulted in launching women-only bank services. This factor has also accelerated the growth of Halal cosmetics and frozen food industries. Already today Halal cosmetics counts for $ 560 mln annually and continues to grow rapidly, underline Epoc Messe Frankfurt consultants.

Global diverse communities

Marketers claim that Halal, being identified as ethical product worldwide, appeals to a wide range of multicultural consumers including Muslims and non-Muslims. A great example is Al Jawhara Group of hotels and apartments, the 30-40 % of its guests are non-Muslims, who are attracted by hotels’ unique family-friendly atmosphere. This indicates that halal is no longer a minority trend. Brands have realized that halal is dynamically engaging with global diverse communities and becoming a symbol of quality assurance.

Marketing to Muslim consumer segment

Lisa Mabe from Hewar, Social Communications, points out that the most effective tool for companies to increase product acceptance within Muslim community is marketing communications.  Applied strategically with the use of market expertise, companies get the opportunity to position their brand in minds of global Muslim consumers and win their loyalty.

Read the original article written by Joanne Bladd and Claire Ferris-Lay on Arabian Business http://www.arabianbusiness.com/596759-planet-islamic-the-2trn-battle-for-the-halal-market

Some multinationals have already acknowledged Muslim market sensitivities. They went deep into the core of Islamic lifestyle and emphasized on what Muslim community values the most, interconnectedness, sense of belonging, and equality. These brands show the examples of successful marketing practice:                       Conglomerate Unilever speaks directly to Muslim women and corresponds to their unique needs and lifestyle through targeting commercials.

Colgate-Palmolive has put its efforts into ensuring officially that their products appeal to Muslim consumers by acquiring Halal-certification for all the production processes.

Nokia showed having “Islamic values” when introduced a line of mobile phones with the various applications such Islamic Organizer and Islamic e-books that were warmly welcomed by consumers of Middle East and North Africa.

Read the article written by Liz Gooch on NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/12/business/media/12branding.html?_r=3&pagewanted=1

“They’re young, ambitious and worth at least $2 trillion globally. A new Muslim consumer called “the futurist” is set to change the face of business. The futurists are crucial to marketers, because they are so influential, have considerable spending power and are more “connected” than their older more traditional counterparts. They are also willing to speak loudly and proudly about their identity.

Muslim consumer is predicted to account for 30% of the world’s population by 2025. As such, ensuring these consumers are spending could help nations repair some of the damage of the recent recession. “The financial crisis has accelerated the need for finding new markets,” says El-Fatatry.

But brands can’t simply chase the Islamic pound without genuinely understanding what Muslim consumers want, he says, adding: “You have to go after people in their own language and think about that consumer’s needs.”

Read the full article on Marketing Week http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/in-depth-analysis/cover-stories/young-connected-and-muslim/3014934.article

Despite the clear benefits of Muslim-oriented strategy there is a notable lack of halal-certified brands for daily use (health and beauty products, household utensils, etc). Even though world Muslim population is over 1.5 billion being distributed widely across the globe, the majority of existing halal-brands is geographically limited targeting mainly centers such as Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, and Qatar, where the disposable income is the highest. Thus, companies tend to underestimate Muslim minority countries that have strong need in Muslim-friendly brands. Moreover, people from these areas have a strong belief in brands being part of their lives and they go through psychological brand selection process, which can be influenced and directed by excellent marketing strategies. This knowledge will encourage companies to jump into the game and introduce their brands to the wider Muslim audience, and hence win the best prize, the loyalty of the global Muslim consumers.

Read the full article on Ummah Talk http://www.dailybaraka.eu/the-ummah/is-brand-important-for-the-muslim-community/

Read the full article on Media Asia-Pacific http://www.media.asia/searcharticle/Five-things-you-need-to-know-about-The-global-Muslim-market/2008/39994?src=related

Here is a re-post of the Summary of the Report.

Executive Summary

A pioneering research study by Ogilvy & Mather, in partnership with TNS, has revealed the emergence of the ‘New Muslim Consumer’: young, proud of their religion and emblematic of the remarkable spending power embodied by the world’s fastest-growing religion.

The ‘Brands, Islam and the New Muslim Consumers’ Report serves as the launch pad for Ogilvy Noor, a multidisciplinary global Islamic Branding practice that aims to help brands better engage with Muslim consumers worldwide. The Muslim market is viewed as a critically important playground for marketers, with the halal segment alone worth $2.1 trillion, and growing by $500 billion annually.

Polling consumers in four key Muslim markets – Malaysia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan – the research study has identified the New Muslim Consumer as a critically important development for brands hoping to build successful relationships with the Islamic world.

In doing so, the report debunks many of the stereotypes that surround Muslim consumer attitudes towards brands and their marketing communications. For example, halal stickers, while important to showcase certification, are no longer sufficient to persuade the New Muslim Consumer of a brand’s belief in Islamic values.

Similarly, despite the massive sums spent by financial services brands on Shariah-compliant banking services – Ogilvy Noor can reveal that the vast majority of consumers view this category as the least effective in terms of Shariah-compliance.

The findings become particularly important given the risks that exist once Muslim consumers are alienated. Despite the evident economic potential, for example, Muslims are often neglected or misunderstood by global brands. The report highlights examples of brands that have inadvertently got it badly wrong, and provides guidelines on how to avoid the same fate. It also explains how brands should react when affected by forces outside of their hands.

‘We didn’t really have much thought of Denmark, until they started the photos that depict Prophet Mohammed when we started to boycott them’. (Respondent, Egypt)

According to estimates, Danish exports of about $ 2.6 billion a year disappeared with that particular boycott. It’s unsurprising that many brands believe the area is fraught with risk. Brands that get it wrong are commonly boycotted. Brands that engage effectively, though, are able to develop long-lasting relationships with a global Muslim community that is almost 1.8 billion-strong and are some of the most loyal consumers in the world today.

For these reasons, the research incorporates the groundbreaking Noor Brand Index which, for the first time, benchmarks the appeal of specific brands to Muslim consumers. The Noor Category Index repeats this exercise at a category level.

The study analyses the factors that drive beneficial relationships with Muslim consumers, distilling the findings into an eight-step toolkit for branding success. It is required reading for all brands that want to deliver more effectively against the needs of the New Muslim Consumer.
The New Muslim Consumer

The global Muslim community stands at almost 1.8 billion people. By 2050, more than half of the world’s population will be Muslim. Significantly, 52 per cent of the Muslim community are under  24 years old, pointing to the enormous cultural influence that will be wielded by Muslims in the years to come. Young Muslims are already starting to stamp their influence on the consumption habits of  the wider global Muslim community, known as the Ummah.

The assembled portrait of the New Muslim Consumer explodes the lazy stereotypes that commonly surround this area. Modern Muslims are undergoing a major reassessment of their relationships with religious structures, cultural assumptions, authority, consumption and technology. This can be quite confusing for observers who are not familiar with these trends.

It is tempting to view younger Muslims through the Generation-Y prism so favoured by global marketers. However, the Ogilvy Noor report reveals that the New Muslim Consumer is fundamentally different because of a strong reliance on faith.

62 per cent of these respondents, for example, agreed with the statement: ‘I am proud to be a Muslim’. This high proportion reflects that that the new generation of Muslim consumers is proud to be a Muslim first and foremost. This sense of pride, the research finds, is driven by a desire for inclusion. Rather than distance themselves from religion in order to progress and succeed, 38% of these consumers  say that Islam is what ‘gives life purpose and direction’.

45% of this new generation believe that ‘religion should be adapted to suit individual lifestyles’ –  but crucially, they’re finding their own ways of doing so, with 27% agreeing that ‘protecting Islamic values from Western lifestyle and media influence’ is important to them.

They feel that Muslims have been misrepresented by the global media, by politicans and by educators, and they are keen to redress that balance.

The move towards conservatism should not be mistaken for a rejection of high-tech lifestyle products. Instead, New Muslim Consumers are often highly technically literate. At the same time, though, they do not believe in an automatic acceptance of Western technology, particularly if they reject the underlying ideas and values.

They believe in crafting ways forward out of their own faith, believing that religion and progress,  far from being mutually exclusive, are practically inseparable. 22% of them appreciate ‘flexibility within boundaries’ and 25% see Islam as ‘adaptable to suit individual needs’.

They want to stand up, be heard and make an impact – ‘I want to be a useful person for my society and prove my presence’, said a Saudi Arabian female respondent.

The New Muslim Consumer is particularly wary of the kind of tokenism that continues to masquerade as an effective engagement strategy. Stamping products as halal or Shariah-compliant is not enough.

They ask more questions, and aren’t satisfied with glib answers.

In fact, the research shows that despite the millions invested in Shariah banking, the financial services category is least trusted by Muslim consumers.Instead the New Muslim Consumer is highly interested in the authority and provenance of brands and the companies behind them. They are more educated, more questioning, more challenging and more discerning.’ ‘We need to look at the halal logo, yes, but also at the ingredients’ said a young respondent in Malaysia. ‘And we need to know where the profits go’, agreed her friend.

While their trust is difficult to win, once achieved it is deeper and longer-lasting.

Noor Brand Index
The groundbreaking Noor Brand Index benchmarks the appeal of specific brands to Muslim consumers, by ranking consumer perceptions of their Shariah-compliance. Chief among its findings are that global brands can forge highly successful relationships with Muslim consumers if they approach the task in  a sensitive, honest fashion that is consistent with the core values of Islamic Branding.

The first Noor Global Brand Index throws up some fascinating questions. Why do Nestle, Lipton and  Kraft all appear among the top five ranked brands? And why is Emirates, the flagship airline and pride  and joy of the United Arab Emirates, in the bottom ten?

Answers are to be found in sensitive analysis that starts from an understanding that Islamic Branding  is not like any other kind of branding. A different kettle of fish, it requires a specialised set of practices.  In personal care, Lux is the clear global winner, with a top five performance in each of the surveyed markets.  The report reveals that branding success is less about provenance, and is instead based on whether brands  can fundamentally empathise with the needs of the new Muslim consumer through tailored offerings  and communications.

‘I think of Nokia as an Egyptian company… they did research and produced products that suit the  Egyptian consumer… they have Islamic values and know how to deal with Egyptians’ said a respondent  in Egypt.

The Noor Category Index provides a similar analysis of category appeal to Muslim consumers, including  such important areas as food and finance. For example, what effect does the healthiness of the category  have on the consumers’ demand for it to be halal?

The Noor Category Index also investigates a number of other critical questions, such as the difference  between products used daily, and products used a couple of times a year. Or whether a product is for  individual or collective consumption. The Noor Category Index is designed to answer these questions  by breaking down the insistence of consumers on halal compliance into tiers, and explains what brands must be specifically mindful of in any of these tiers.

Good business practice
The Ogilvy Noor Report has enabled Ogilvy Noor to formulate an effective definition for Islamic branding: ‘Branding that is empathetic to Shariah values in order to appeal to the Muslim consumer, ranging from basic Shariah-friendliness to full Shariah-compliance in all aspects of the brand’s identity, behaviour and communications.’

Brand, Islam and the New Muslim Consumer’ report provides invaluable insight into Shariah values,  from the perspective of consumers and marketers, clearly explaining how businesses should navigate this area. Significantly, it finds that Shariah practices are closely aligned with the existing universal ideals of good business practice.

This has become particularly important for global business given the massive erosion of trust in bodies  of authority, including corporation, in recent years. Shariah values can offer brands a roadmap back to  the kind practices that build credibility with all consumers. 32% of Muslim consumers agree that ‘respect’  and ‘responsibility’ are still the fundamentals of a good brand.

Islamic values, in fact, can champion the cause of corporate social responsibility in both the Muslim and  Western worlds. Values such as transparency, discipline, humility and purity are universal in their appeal.  Shariah-friendly practices – which commonly relate to food – include such factors as ethical sourcing,  humane treatment of animals, cleanliness, nutrition and fair trade practices. Values such as these are obvious assets for a food industry that has experienced numerous crises related to contamination and  negligence.

The Ogilvy Noor Report has further distilled its research into Shariah values and how consumers want  to see them lived by brands into a toolkit for branding success, focusing on the following eight factors,  and providing an invaluable list of do’s and don’ts.

• (1) A brand’s role in the community: including all aspects of a company’s corporate citizenship
• (2) Product: including both the range of offering, ingredients and manufacturing processes
• (3) The brand story and its PR strategy: focusing on the tactics brands can employ when talking
• about themselves, to better appeal to the New Muslin Consumer
• (4) Corporate business practice: every aspect of how the business is run internally
• (5) Visual Identity: the specific needs of the Muslim consumer when it comes to visual information
• and appeal
• (6) Brand communication: a success guide built on decades of Ogilvy experience in Muslim markets
• (7) External endorsement: who to partner with and who to avoid
• (8) Customer service and delivery: why getting this right is so important and how to do so.

Ogilvy Noor
Ogilvy Noor is a multidisciplinary practice focused on Islamic branding, drawn from across the breadth and depth of Ogilvy & Mather Group’s global network. It is the world’s first bespoke Islamic Branding practice, offering expert practical advice on how to build brands that appeal to Muslim consumers, globally. Ogilvy Noor is led by a team of experts based across our key Muslim market offices worldwide: Dubai, Pakistan, Malaysia and the UK and our core team: John Goodman, President of Ogilvy Action Asia Pacific and President Ogilvy & Mather South and Southeast Asia, and strategically by Nazia Hussain, Director of Cultural Strategy for Ogilvy & Mather globally. They are supported by Tanya Dernaika, Planning Director for Memac Ogilvy across the Middle East, Zayn Khan, Regional Business Strategy Director for South and South East Asia, and Shazia Khan, Associate Planning Director at Ogilvy in Karachi. A wide network of communications professionals supports the core team across all the Muslim markets in which Ogilvy operates across 450 offices in 171 markets.

Original Post Here

Halal Becomes Big Business

Halal fast food certainly sells. For a start, in many parts of Europe the late night staple is the kebab. That it is halal hardly matters to non-Muslim partygoers who stumble out of nightclubs hungry for a meaty sandwich in the early hours. It’s a noteworthy trend that extends beyond the humble kebab: Halal food is popular with both Muslims and non-Muslims.

But the main market is clearly Muslims eager to eat in line with their religious precepts. And a big market it is. There are 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide. In Europe alone, there are 18 million Muslim consumers with an estimated market value of $2.63 billion per annum according to Halal Journal.

That’s an attractive and growing market that the big multinationals have been quick to cash on. Nestle was among the first to identify the potential. It started selling halal versions of their most popular products such as kit-kat chocolate in the 1980s. Halal products now account for five percent of Nestle’s annual sales, or 5.3 billion Swiss francs. Eighty-five of their factories have halal— certified production lines and of these 20 are in Europe. More important, it is a fast-growing and highly profitable sector. Nestle reports that its latest marketing campaign for halal products led to 50 percent annual growth and double-digit profitability.

Several fast-food chains have been quietly incorporating halal food onto their menus or sourcing halal meat and chicken. KFC, for instance, uses halal chicken. Others have done so not so quietly. There was uproar last year when Dominoes Pizza turned one of its outlets in Birmingham halal. Similarly in France last month, even politicians joined the outcry when Quick — a Belgo-French hamburger chain similar to McDonald’s — turned eight of its outlets into halal restaurants. It was discrimination, they argued. It is one thing to sell halal food, it is another to deprive non-Muslims of pork products.

The argument is not without merit. Surely locals who want to have bacon on their burgers should be able to do so, just as Muslims who would like their burgers made of halal beef and served with turkey bacon instead of pork should also be able to get what they want. Except that it doesn’t quite work that way. Adding a couple of halal items on the menu is not as successful as going halal. The first may attract one or two customers who fancy turkey bacon on their burgers. The second attracts a whole segment of society once they know all the food being served conforms to their religious requirements, not only because it is pork-free but because the restaurant has gone all out and installed procedures to ensure that Muslim hygiene standards have been maintained in the entire production line. And it works. It is rumored that Quick saw a 30 percent increase in sales in the eight stores that went halal.

The key is segmentation. To increase sales, targeting a particular sector of the market is textbook stuff. When Muslim consumers make up such a dynamic, increasingly wealthy and culturally visible segment of the consumer market, it makes sense to market products just for them. Whereas it used to be just small independent butchers selling halal meat and chicken, it has now become much more developed and highly profitable.

What surprises me most about the halal business is how it has expanded beyond the obvious sectors of halal meat and food. There are now halal cosmetics, halal vitamin pills, halal financial products, halal hotels and resorts. It is fast becoming a brand. Rather than call a hotel Muslim-friendly because it does not serve alcohol, it is branded as halal, a word I would once only have used that way about meat or food.

The halal business has become highly sophisticated. In Malaysia, there are Halal Parks, described by the Malaysian Halal Industry Development Corporation as “communities of halal-oriented businesses built on common property where they are provided infrastructure and service support.” Malaysia is building 20 such parks. And in June this year Malaysia will also host the 5th World Halal Forum in Kuala Lumpur. Last year, more than 900 participants attended the event, from more than 47 countries. One of the key questions that will be addressed is the issue of creating an international halal standard.

Going halal is the next big thing and it’s clearly an encouraging trend. However, as it stands a hefty 90 percent of the global halal market is controlled by multinationals such as the food giants Nestle, fast food outlets like KFC, or supermarket chains such as Carrefour. The halal bandwagon is out there and going fast, but Muslims aren’t running it.

Read More

By Mariya Petkova
Daily News- Egypt
CAIRO: Thomson Reuters launched earlier this month a new service that caters to the Islamic finance industry, a gateway that provides up-to-date information on the market, services and sharia-compliant companies.
“Despite its image as an emerging industry, Islamic finance has now grown to be worth around $1 trillion and the Thomson Reuters Islamic Finance Gateway opens up this world of opportunities for [the] financial market,” said Rushdi Siddiqui*, global head of Islamic finance at Thomson Reuters.

The Islamic Finance Gateway offers detailed information about and links to Islamic finance professionals, rating agencies, industry standards bodies, Islamic finance hubs, index providers, consulting firms, 400 sharia scholars and Islamic subsidiaries from over 25 countries.

Market professionals can access comprehensive, multi-asset class information on a wide range of Islamic finance instruments such as sukuks, Islamic leveraged loans, funds, the Islamic money market, takaful and currencies.

Embedded in the Gateway are real-time news stories from Reuters and correlation analytics for Islamic versus conventional market views. The Gateway also includes news of related industries to Islamic finance, such as the $641 billion halal food sector (with daily news updates from HalalFocus).

Publicly listed sharia-based and screened companies and Islamic or commodity ETFs can be traded over the Thomson Reuters Trading for Exchanges (TRTex) platform, which has been integrated within the Gateway.

Partnering with Thomson Reuters, Egyptian company IdealRatings is providing a unique heat map of sharia-compliant and sharia-based companies, which are screened according to global index providers’ methodologies as well as those of the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) and Malaysia’s Securities Commission.

They are complimented by more than 100 publicly listed sharia-based companies in regions and countries like GCC, Turkey, Pakistan, Malaysia and the UK. The Gateway also provides a link to IdealRatings sharia-compliant equity screening service.

“The Gateway is really a one-stop shop for Islamic finance. It covers all the asset matters including public equities,” Yussri Helmy, CEO of IdealRatings, told Daily News Egypt.

His company launched in Egypt three years ago backed by the Technology Development Fund, and advised by Ideavelopers. It already services a number of banks, index providers and brokers in the Islamic finance industry in the US, UK, Germany, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain.

Ideavelopers, a subsidiary of EFG-Hermes, and fund advisor for the Technology Development Fund I and II, partners with technology entrepreneurs and supports SMEs by providing venture development services.

Read More