Saudi Arabia isn’t the typical starting point for new agencies. But Grammy award-winning producer Swizz Beatz was not concerned with doing things the usual way when breaking into the business. The country, better known for oil than creativity, is the launching pad for Good Intentions, a shop that Beatz—whose real name is Kasseem Dean—opened last week with Saudi native and agency veteran Noor Taher.

“The reason I love the name is because a lot of people come to the region and don't have good intentions,” Dean said in an interview. “They just want to come and take. They want to come in and exploit and do all these different things and don't have any good intentions. They don't really care about the people and [companies] send the worst people that they have on their staff to come and work there. Noor and I got tired of seeing that. Let's go there and build something that's 50 years plus rather than doing a two-year scheme or scam.”

The agency’s first project will be unveiled next week during the first-ever Saudi Arabia Grand Prix, a Formula One race, at the Jeddah Art Promenade. Good Intentions curated the art alongside international artistic producer Umberdeen Inayet. Sports and entertainment company Sela helped with planning. Dozens of pieces of art from world-renowned artists Studio Drift, Kwest, Javid Jah and Janet Echelman will be on display.

“The artwork was inspired by the nature of Jeddah because it's by the Red Sea,” Taher said. “For example, you have a falcon that's in the ocean, a huge life-size falcon. You have Janet Eshelman’s mesh sculpture, which is called the ‘Net of Wonder,’ which moves through the air and is inspired by flight, air and nature. We have over a dozen sculptures with Arabic poetry and with gem-like tones, reflecting the corals and the colors of the Red Sea.”

Taher previously spent 10 years in New York and held digital marketing positions at TBWA/Raad, J. Walter Thompson Worldwide and Giorgio Armani. Taher will now be working full-time in her home country and says she wants the company to be known as a “change agency” and not a traditional advertising agency. She also wants it to act as a “gatekeeper” for Saudi culture stories that resonate with visitors and citizens alike.

The shop has an all-female staff (outside of Dean) of about 15-20 employees that live in the country and have backgrounds working for companies like Nielsen and Nike. While the agency will hire men if it is a good fit, Taher and Dean have been intentional about giving women opportunities. The country has a poor track record when it comes to women's rights, but has made advancements of late. Women now make up 33% of Saudi's labor force—nearly double what it was five years ago, according to a Reuters article from early November. Good Intentions will continue to be intentional in hiring women, operating under what Taher calls a “matrix” model—rather than a hierarchical one that she says is more typical of finance and tech industries. 

Youth culture

Good Intentions is headquartered in the Saudi capital of Riyadh in the Jax district, which is becoming a cultural hub for creatives and media companies, Taher said. In April, Vice Media announced it will be opening an office in the same district. Taher and Dean were drawn to Saudi's youth culture. A 2020 study revealed that over two-thirds of Saudi Arabia’s population is under the age of 35.

“Saudi is a blank canvas right now,” Taher said. “There is no place in the world I've seen that has this canvas allowing the youth to have an opportunity to shape the future.”

As the agency grows it will look to form relationships with like-minded organizations, while offering freelance opportunities. “People want to be their own entrepreneurs and we want to help them do that,” Taher said. “They don't have to be signed to us to be able to create with us. It can't be a cubicle or a within four walls type of environment. Our office is going to be almost like an open gallery space where people can come and create.”

Tourism challenges

The F1 project is part of a larger push by the kingdom to emphasize tourism as it looks to diversify its economy beyond its reliance on oil, according to a "Vision 2030" plan announced in 2016. Once known as one of the hardest countries to enter, in 2019 it opened up applications for online tourist visas to citizens of 49 countries and also eased its dress code for foreign women. But the country's efforts were quickly stymied a few months later by the pandemic, which halted global travel significantly. However, the country now expects 50 million tourist visits in 2022, as world recovers from COVID-19.

These changes have been spearheaded by Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, who in October also launched a sustainable global tourism center as part of efforts for the country to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2060. Bin Salman has also been responsible for law changes that now allow women in Saudi Arabia to drive and travel without male consent.

However, Saudi Arabia is currently facing a challenge to its tourism efforts, particularly involving the F1 event. This week, the fiancee of Jamal Khashoggi—a journalist who was critical of Saudi Arabia and was murdered by a team of the kingdom's government agents in 2018—penned an opinion piece in the Washington Post urging Justin Bieber to cancel his concert which is scheduled during the Grand Prix event. Prince Mohammed has maintained he had no prior knowledge of the operation that killed Khashoggi. However, a U.S. intelligence assessment recently made public under President Joe Biden determined the crown prince approved the operation.

F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali recently defended the decision to have Grand Prix races in the Middle East by saying big events like this could actually accelerate the improvement of human rights in countries like Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

​​“If you look pragmatically at what they are doing, in terms of for example women, they have women in prominent positions in the organization, they are working and respecting the regulations,” Domenicali told BBC Sport. ​​“I believe the spotlight we are bringing will be beneficial for the will and the wishes of change that these countries are showing. I don't believe that shutting countries off and saying we don't want to be there will help the situation to improve. Actually, it will be the opposite.”

Pushing boundaries

Good Intentions isn't Dean's first venture in Saudi Arabia. In October of last year, the Bronx native became the first westerner to own a Saudi camel racing team, which goes by the name of Kaseem Abu Nasser.

Good Intentions is only the latest example of the music producer pushing boundaries. In 2020 he co-founded the popular online series Verzuz, which shows big-name artists facing off against each other in a friendly head-to-head battle. In 2019 he founded the world’s largest art fair, No Commissions. He is also not a stranger to the marketing industry—in 2011 he assumed a creative director title for Reebok. 

“Coming from No Commissions, I knew that whatever project we did in the region had to be something that was amazing, but we also didn't want to take on too much,” Dean said. “So we liked the project in Jeddah. It's a decent-sized project so we can learn as well and not just come in and try to just overdo it, let's build something organic, let's learn the region, let’s learn the inner workings of the business and grow slowly and deliver the quality. We could have done more art pieces. We could have had more artists, but this was a good starting point and  intro for many more, more things to come.”

The agency, he said, was years in the making.

“The vision has always been to take things to the next level for the creatives, by being creatives ourselves,” he said. “There's always business people leading the creatives. And I always thought ‘What if the creatives led the creators?’ Because we are the ones that go and do everything and always tailor our work after some business person that doesn’t know about creativity, some of them don't even care about creativity. Nobody's gonna take care of us, like we're going to take each other. So we were just saying, ‘Let's build this big creative empire with young and upcoming creatives around the world and show everybody something different.’”

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