Acquisition to boost Telfaz11’s advertising and marketing capabilities
Updated 20 June 2023
Arab News
DUBAI: Saudi studio Telfaz11 has announced the acquisition of SHIFT, a regional creative advertising and marketing agency.
The acquisition will see the two companies combine their talent and client base to deliver creative campaigns.
“This acquisition creates many advantages for our marketing clients through the strength of our complementary offerings,” said Alaa Fadan, CEO and co-founder of Telfaz11.
“The combination will both streamline operations and enhance efficiencies across the board while allowing us to serve an even larger group of local and international clients,” he added.
The move will merge SHIFT’s marketing expertise with Telfaz11’s film, TV and storytelling capabilities, “further positioning Telfaz11 as a formidable force in the growing local marketing services industry,” said Fadan.
The newly merged company will continue to be based in Riyadh with offices in Dubai and an upcoming one in the Kingdom’s media production hub NEOM.
Earlier this month, Telfaz11 signed a deal with NEOM to cooperate on at least nine TV and film productions over the next three years, as well as set up an office in NEOM by the end of the year, which is “part of a strategic move that will facilitate our vision for expansion in the Kingdom,” Fadan told Arab News in a separate interview.
Founded in 2013, SHIFT’s portfolio of clients includes over 100 local and international brands such as STC, Alinma Bank, and P&G.
LONDON: Few cultural imports have crossed borders as unexpectedly, or as powerfully, as Grendizer, the Japanese giant robot that half a century ago became a childhood hero across the Arab world, nowhere more so than in Saudi Arabia.
Created in Japan in the mid-1970s by manga artist Go Nagai, Grendizer was part of the “mecha” tradition of giant robots. The genre was shaped by Japan’s experience during the Second World War, and explored themes of invasion, resistance and loss through the medium of science fiction.
But while the series enjoyed moderate success in Japan, its true legacy was established thousands of kilometers away in the Middle East.
The anime “UFO Robot Grendizer” arrived on television in the region in 1979, dubbed into Arabic and initially broadcast in Lebanon during the Lebanese civil war. The story it told of the heroic Duke Fleed, a displaced prince whose planet had been destroyed by alien invaders, struck a chord with children growing up amid regional conflict and occupation by Israel.
While the series enjoyed moderate success in Japan, its true legacy was established thousands of kilometers away in the Middle East. (Supplied)
Its themes of defending one’s homeland, standing up to aggression and protecting the innocent were painfully relevant in the region, transforming the series from mere entertainment into a kind of emotional refuge.
Much of the show’s impact came from its successful Arabization. The powerful Arabic dubbing and emotionally charged voice-acting, especially by Lebanese actor Jihad El-Atrash as Duke Fleed, lent the show a moral gravity unmatched by other cartoons of the era.
The theme song for the series, performed by Sami Clark, became an anthem that the Lebanese singer continued to perform at concerts and festivals right up until his death in 2022.
By the early 1980s, “Grendizer” had spread across the Middle East, inspiring fandoms in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and beyond. For many, it was not only their first exposure to anime, it also delivered lessons on values such as justice and honor.
By the early 1980s, “Grendizer” had spread across the Middle East, inspiring fandoms in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and beyond. (Supplied)
Grendizer was so influential in the region that it became the subject of scholarly research, which in addition to recognizing the ways in which the plight of the show’s characters resonated with the audience in the Middle East, also linked the show’s popularity to generational memories of displacement, particularly the Palestinian Nakba.
Half a century later, “Grendizer” remains culturally alive and relevant in the region. In Saudi Arabia, which embraced the original version of the show wholeheartedly, Manga Productions is now introducing a new generation of fans to a modernized version of the character, through a video game, The Feast of The Wolves, which is available in Arabic and eight other languages on platforms including PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch, and a new Arabic-language anime series, “Grendizer U,” which was broadcast last year.
Fifty years after the debut of the show, “Grendizer” is back — although to a generation of fans of the original series, their shelves still full of merchandise and memorabilia, it never really went away.
