The Next Great Middle East Export Is a Story

The Middle East has spent years building what the world admires: skylines, airlines, retail destinations, and a reputation for ambition. The next export is harder to build and more valuable to own. It is the story.

At Licensing Expo 2026 in Las Vegas, I walked the entire floor. Brands from every corner of the world were there, and not one exhibiting brand from the Middle East. The region has no shortage of stories. What it needs is a clear path that takes a local idea to a global property. I am now preparing to discuss stories from the Middle East at the coming Brand Licensing Europe, which I will be visiting, and the ideas below are part of how I am getting ready for those conversations.

A brand carries a promise. An IP carries a world.

Most companies in this region know how to build a brand: a name, a look, a promise to the customer. An IP ecosystem asks for more. It has characters, values, rules, and a universe audiences want to return to, whether it appears in a book, a series, a product, or an experience. Each format feeds the others. That depth is what makes licensing possible, because a partner is investing in a world people already care about, not just a logo.

Authenticity is a commercial advantage.

In The Authenticity Formula, John Lam and I treat authenticity as a condition a brand operates within, not a trait it claims. It can be strong, fragile, or in decline. It becomes visible when what a brand says and what it does line up, and it holds only when that pattern repeats. Audiences rarely ask for perfection. They watch for repeatable coherence.

One of the practitioners we interviewed put it plainly: "Authenticity is about relevance, if you're not relevant, you're not real." For creators in the Middle East, this is good news, because relevance begins with specificity. Local humor, everyday language, family traditions, and the way a neighborhood actually sounds are details no studio abroad can invent. Creators who sand these down to appeal to everyone lose the very thing that would make an international partner pay attention.

Specificity also means resisting the idea of a single regional story. As an executive observes in the book, "You cannot approach an Emirati the same way as a Saudi or a Lebanese." Each market has its own symbols, hospitality rituals, and sense of what feels refined. A global partner should meet a specific place, not a regional average.

Depth matters as much as detail. In the book we call this Narrative Depth: meaning that builds over time, so that story, design, and experience reinforce each other instead of working as surface messaging. A character who appears on a product with no world behind them is decoration. A character whose values show up in the book, the series, and the product gives a partner something to build on.

Authenticity travels through translation.

Great stories still need a way in for someone who has never visited the place they come from. In the book we call this Translation: carrying meaning across markets without assuming it arrives unchanged, and adapting practice, not only language.

The clearest example we found comes from the Gulf, and it runs in the opposite direction. Persil Abaya, developed by Henkel, began with an observation. Many women were washing abayas with hair shampoo, because standard detergents felt too harsh for the fabric. Rather than relying on localized packaging or messaging, Henkel built a product around that real habit. It earned trust through usefulness.

The same rule applies to stories leaving the region. A story that starts from lived detail travels further than one built on assumptions about what foreign audiences expect. Markets tend to reward coherence over consistency. A property does not need to look identical everywhere. It needs a core that stays recognizable while the surface adapts.

Strong properties grow in sequence.

Many of the world's strongest properties grew in steps: a story people loved, clear ownership of the rights, proof of audience at home, and then partners across publishing, entertainment, consumer products, and experiences, each one extending the world. Rights come first, proof second, partners third.

For a creator with an original character or story, the practical questions arrive early.

• Who owns the rights?

• Is the world deep enough to sustain more than one product?

• Is there proof of audience at home?

• Which partners understand both the culture and the commercial mechanics abroad?

Creators who answer these before the first meeting move faster than those who answer them during it.

The partnership stage carries its own lesson from the book: translation without equity becomes appropriation, while translation with equity becomes participation. The right partner acts as a co-author of the world, not an executor who reproduces assets. That means agreeing early on who makes the final creative decisions and how credit and value are shared.

The UAE as an example

The UAE shows what this shift looks like in practice. It has invested in creative infrastructure for years, and Emirati creators are now asking how a story rooted in local life can become a property with international reach. The country is moving from building brands to building IP, and that move requires a different set of skills: rights management, world-building, and partnerships across formats.

In the book we note that in markets such as Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, where governments are actively building creative and gaming industries, authenticity is judged by contribution rather than visibility. That standard is aimed at global brands entering these markets, and it is a useful one for local creators heading out. Partners abroad will look for depth of commitment, not only a strong first impression. The conversation is growing across the wider region as well, and the first Licensing Horizons in Riyadh in 2025 was part of it.

If the UAE gets this right, the lessons will carry well beyond its borders. Every market in the region holds stories worth exporting. The work ahead is giving them structure, ownership, and the right partners.

One question I keep coming back to: should a Middle East story earn its audience at home first, or be built for the world from day one?

The Authenticity Formula: A Practical Guide for Building Meaningful Brands Across Cultures, co-authored with John Lam, is published by Palgrave Macmillan.