Video Marketing Trends in the Gulf Countries

Explore the latest video marketing trends across Gulf countries — from short-form content dominance and live streaming to Arabic video SEO strategies and platform preferences shaping how Gulf audiences discover brands.

Video Dominates the Gulf Digital Landscape

The Gulf countries have embraced video content with extraordinary intensity. From YouTube's massive viewing hours in Saudi Arabia to TikTok's rapid adoption in the UAE, video has become the primary way Gulf audiences discover brands, consume information, and make purchase decisions. For marketers targeting the GCC region, understanding where video is going — not just where it is — is a competitive necessity.

This article maps the major video marketing trends reshaping the Gulf in 2024 and 2025, with practical implications for brands operating in the region.

Short-Form Video Has Changed Audience Expectations Permanently

TikTok entered the GCC market and rewired how Gulf audiences expect to be entertained. The format — vertical, sub-60-second, fast-paced — has now migrated to Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and Snapchat Spotlight. The result is a fragmented but unified expectation: content must earn attention in the first two seconds or lose it entirely.

For brands, this creates a real creative challenge. Gulf consumers — particularly in the 18–34 demographic that dominates social media usage — are sophisticated viewers who can immediately identify overly produced, scripted brand content. Authenticity, speed, and relevance to current cultural moments perform far better than polished campaign videos.

What works in Gulf short-form video:

Snapchat Remains a Distinctly Gulf Platform

While Snapchat has declined in most Western markets, it retains extraordinary strength across the GCC. Saudi Arabia consistently ranks among the highest Snapchat usage markets globally, and the UAE, Kuwait, and Qatar show similarly strong engagement. Snapchat's Stories format — ephemeral, personal, and vertically oriented — resonates with Gulf social norms around privacy and authenticity.

Brands that overlook Snapchat in Gulf video strategies are missing a platform where Gulf users often spend more daily time than Instagram. Video ads on Snapchat in the Saudi and UAE markets have demonstrated strong click-through rates, particularly for retail, automotive, and food and beverage categories.

Snapchat Discover sections in Arabic provide a native-language environment that Arabic-speaking users find more comfortable than platforms where Arabic content is secondary. Investing in Arabic Snapchat Discover content is an underutilised opportunity for brands that are serious about Gulf market penetration.

YouTube Arabic is a Primary Discovery Engine

YouTube occupies a unique position in Gulf media consumption. It functions simultaneously as a social platform, a search engine, and a television replacement. Gulf users — including older demographics — use YouTube to watch long-form tutorials, news content, entertainment shows, and product reviews in Arabic.

The search-driven nature of YouTube makes it particularly valuable for video SEO. Unlike TikTok or Instagram Reels, which are algorithm-pushed, YouTube content can rank in searches and drive organic traffic for years after publication.

Arabic video SEO on YouTube:

Live Streaming is Growing Rapidly

Live video is gaining significant traction across Gulf platforms. TikTok Live, Instagram Live, and YouTube Live are all used actively, but the Gulf has developed its own distinctive live commerce behaviour — particularly in Saudi Arabia, where live shopping events on TikTok and Instagram drive significant impulse purchases.

Ramadan presents the largest live video opportunity in the Gulf calendar. During the holy month, evening hours after Iftar see peak social media activity. Brands that run live content — product showcases, Q&As with influencers, charity auction streams, exclusive Ramadan offers — during these evening windows capture audiences at their most engaged.

For B2B brands and professional services, LinkedIn Live is growing in the UAE specifically, where LinkedIn penetration is among the highest in the world. Webinars, panel discussions, and thought leadership live sessions on LinkedIn perform well for professional services, technology, and financial sector companies.

Influencer Video: Gulf Creator Economy Matures

The Gulf influencer landscape has moved beyond follower counts as the primary metric. Brands that achieved strong results three years ago by partnering with mega-influencers (1M+ followers) are now finding that micro-influencers (10,000–100,000 followers) in specific niches deliver better engagement rates and more qualified audiences.

Saudi and UAE creators have developed highly polished video production standards. The quality bar for influencer content in the Gulf is now comparable to branded production — audiences notice and reward high production quality, but they also punish inauthenticity. The best Gulf creators have developed a style that looks premium but feels personal.

Trends in Gulf influencer video:

Arabic-Language Video Production Quality Rising

There has been a noticeable increase in the production quality of Arabic-language video content across the Gulf. Five years ago, many brands treated Arabic video as a dubbed or subtitled version of English content. Today, top-performing brands produce original Arabic video — scripted in Gulf dialect or Modern Standard Arabic depending on the target audience — with production quality that matches or exceeds their English content.

Gulf dialect versus Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is a meaningful creative decision. Gulf Khaleeji dialect creates warmth and local authenticity but limits reach to GCC audiences. MSA reaches the broader Arab world but can feel formal and distant in consumer contexts. Most successful Gulf brands use a hybrid approach: MSA for text and subtitles, Khaleeji or Egyptian Arabic for spoken content depending on the target demographic.

Video in the Sales Funnel: Beyond Awareness

Video marketing in the Gulf has historically been concentrated at the awareness stage — brand films, campaign videos, awareness-driving social content. The emerging trend is video moving down the funnel into consideration and conversion stages.

Product explainer videos on landing pages are increasing conversion rates for e-commerce brands in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Video testimonials from Gulf-region customers are particularly effective in building trust, as social proof from recognisable local figures carries significant weight.

FAQ videos, comparison videos, and "unboxing from a customer perspective" formats are growing in effectiveness for consideration-stage content. These formats answer the specific questions buyers ask before purchasing and reduce friction in the conversion process.

Measuring Gulf Video Marketing Performance

Vanity metrics — views, reach, impressions — tell an incomplete story in Gulf markets. The metrics that matter for business outcomes are:

Looking Ahead: AI-Generated Video in the Gulf

AI video generation tools are beginning to appear in Gulf marketing budgets. The primary use case currently is localisation — using AI to generate Arabic-language versions of English video content with culturally appropriate visuals. This is not replacing human-produced content but supplementing it at scale.

For brands operating across multiple Gulf markets with distinct cultural sensitivities (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar each have distinct norms), AI-assisted video customisation allows market-specific versioning at a cost that was previously prohibitive.

The Gulf video marketing landscape will continue to evolve rapidly. The brands that win are those that commit to genuine Arabic-language content creation, build real relationships with Gulf creators, and measure results with the sophistication that the region's digital maturity demands.