Mohammad Al Madani wore his first pair of Levi’s when he was a freshman studying engineering in the US in 1975. When he left for America, he had stopped in Beirut to buy luxury brands.
However, he found it strange that everyone on campus looked at him. It was not as if he was the first international student. “They all said, ‘You are very well-dressed, Mohammad.’ Everyone was wearing jeans and T-shirts,” he says, talking about the first step towards his journey to becoming a distributor of American brands in the UAE.
He brought in majors such as Levi’s, Hang Ten, Charley’s Grilled Subs, Dockers, Gas and Naf Naf.
“My first pair of jeans was a Levi’s 541, that I bought for $9.99 (about Dh37),” he says, diligently dropping the ‘T’ in favour of the Southern drawl. “I had to put all these nice, fashionable clothes that I brought from Beirut into my cupboard and dress up in jeans and a T-shirt. That is when I came to know of Levi’s and the American way,” he says.
Whether or not you have been introduced to them as an impressionable student, Levi’s, John Wayne, Star Trek, McDonald’s, Charlie Chaplin and Mickey Mouse — all staples of American popular culture — have become ubiquitous all over the world.
“When we brought the brand [Levi’s] to the region and had the first Dubai Shopping Festival, we had to put four cash registers instead of one in the shop at Deira City Centre — that is how popular the merchandise was,” adds Al Madani.
It translates well
There are many reasons American popular culture has had such aspirational value outside the US. The size of its consumer market, the dominance of its movies and its economic status in the world are all said to have something to do with it, along with an extroverted culture. While its economic prominence may be under revision now, the effect of its culture still seems pervasive.
“About 90 per cent of the entertainment we do is American,” says Anthony Cima, Vice-President — Projects at Abu Dhabi-based Flash Entertainment, an events company “created to put Abu Dhabi on the entertainment map as a capital”.
“American pop culture seems to be an overwhelming influence in everyone’s culture. It is something that all levels and age groups can identity with,” says Cima, whose company has brought artists and bands such as Madonna, Kanye West, Guns N’ Roses and Metallica to the UAE.
One of the main reasons that American culture finds acceptance is its universality. “One of the most influential exports that the US has had is, in fact, its culture. Hollywood movies and television shows have managed to penetrate the corners of the earth. They are appealing and high-budget with good production value. So much of it translates because it is so simple,” says Robert J Thompson, Trustee Professor of Television and Popular Culture at the SI Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University and founding director of the Bleier Centre for Television and Popular Culture.
An extrovert in culture
Citing the example of the 1980s television series Baywatch, Thompson says, “One can understand how it can transcend cultural barriers. It is so simple, with basic stories about rescuing and beautiful men and women bouncing along sands. It does not require cultural specificity,” he says.
Thompson says that a part of this comes from the history of American mass culture. “Movies were made for an American audience that itself was international and diverse. In the first decade of the 20th century, when movies just started to kick in, the people going to see them included a vast number of immigrants, many of whom spoke very little English.
“Many blockbuster movies that are made to this day are action adventures, which are not culturally specific. The very tradition of movies in this country emerged from having an audience that was going to be very international,” he says.
Al Madani finds that this approach to appeal to a universe outside of the home-ground is not restricted to movies alone. Even if it chooses to stay within its borders, a US company has access to about 28 per cent of the world’s consumers, according to the United Nations Statistics Division. As a franchise of many world brands, he says Americans have their processes defined for translation. >
“No doubt that Americans are much more advanced in franchising. They have the processes and procedures very clearly defined, with clear manuals. We are dealing with companies other than the US ones and we can see the difference. That is why their franchising industry goes into trillions of dollars.”
Give and take
However, there are differences too. The US today is more open to the outside world. After he first started bringing Levi’s products to the UAE, via wholesalers, Al Madani says the manufacturer needed years to consider the possibility of a direct relationship with a Middle Eastern company.
“It took us four years to convince Levi’s, a famous US brand, to come to this region, in 2000. It is not that they were coming and looking for the market. We pulled them through continuous contact and communication,” he says.
Now, however, American companies, he says, “are more interested in coming to the Middle East or going out of their box, which consisted of America and Canada.”
“Until 15 years ago, no one knew where Dubai was. Companies are interested in coming to the region now. They are more open to discussion.”
In music and entertainment, American companies may have to race a bit faster. “The US is trying to catch up on music festivals and Electronic Dance Music. The country has become very aware that that is the current hot trend and that they are lagging in that area. They are doing a number of things to try and catch up. The US has them but not in the quantity that they have in Europe and in other countries,” says Flash’s Cima.
The joint power of social media and emerging economies is unleashing popular icons from cultures as diverse as India and North Korea into the US, albeit ironically. America, one could say, still rules. Leave it to the academic to sum it up. Thompson says, “The US is traditionally much less accepting of cultural products as imports. Now everyone knows what Bollywood is. However, it is consumed with some degree of irony. The same is the case with Gangnam Style and PSY. There is a difference in a billion YouTube hits and a country exporting an entire body of work.”
