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Yahya Assaf is a creative director and brand strategist based between Dubai and Beirut, working primarily across Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the wider Gulf. Fourteen years in regional agencies leading brand identity, integrated campaigns and retail and shopper experience for FMCG, retail, mobility and service brands — including the Gulf arms of US-headquartered brands such as Hertz, Kraft, Ford, Polaris and Chuck E. Cheese. He works bilingually in Arabic and English and is available for creative director and creative strategy roles in Riyadh, Jeddah, Dubai and Abu Dhabi, or remote.
Yahya Assaf is a creative director and brand strategist with fourteen years in regional agencies, working between Dubai and Beirut on brands in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman and Lebanon. He leads brand identity, integrated campaigns and retail and shopper experience, and has held creative director and executive art director roles at Above & Beyond, Mindfield Digital, Webedia Arabia and M&C Saatchi MENA.
In Saudi Arabia: Arla Foods brands (Puck, Kraft, Lurpak), Cinnabon, Decathlon, vivo, Chuck E. Cheese, Sela, SAMACO Automotive with Audi, Bentley and Porsche, and Jeddah Fintech Week. In the UAE: MOOV by Al-Futtaim, Hertz, Emirates NBD, Ford and Polaris. Regional work also includes Oman Post and Apec in Lebanon.
Yes. Campaigns, retail systems and social content are art directed bilingually, with Arabic-first layouts where the market requires it — including Arabic-first service communication for Oman Post and bilingual shelf and forecourt systems for Saudi retail and Apec stations.
Creative director and creative strategy roles, in-house or agency, based in Riyadh, Jeddah, Dubai or Abu Dhabi, or remote across the GCC and with US teams. He has led creative teams of ten or more and run multiple client accounts at once.
He directed the shopper programme for Arla Foods brands in Saudi retail — modular in-store display systems, chiller and shelf branding, sampling activations and occasion-led retail key visuals in Arabic and English — as well as shopper experience work for Nutella Biscuits and full station retail design for Apec.
Yes. Much of the work shown is the Gulf execution of globally owned brands — Hertz, Kraft, Lurpak, Ford, Polaris, Chuck E. Cheese and Decathlon among them. The job in each case was adapting a global platform to Arabic-speaking audiences and Gulf retail conditions without breaking the brand system.
He is based between Dubai (GMT+4) and Beirut (GMT+3), and works regularly with teams in Riyadh, Jeddah, Abu Dhabi and Muscat. The working day overlaps with European mornings and the first half of the US East Coast day, which is how previous remote accounts were run.
FMCG and dairy, food and beverage, retail and sports retail, automotive and mobility, car rental, consumer electronics, health and beauty, fintech, construction, entertainment, and postal and public services.
Five questions in order: the business objective stated as a number, the audience insight the category ignores, a core idea that survives translation into shelf, feed and forecourt, the channels that earn attention, and what gets measured and changed after launch.
By email at hello@yahyaassaf.com or by phone and WhatsApp on +961 37 57966. Additional work is published at behance.net/YahyaAssaf.
Brands fighting for shelf space in Gulf hypermarkets that need shopper strategy, display systems and bilingual retail creative handled as one brief.
Teams that need a creative director who can run several accounts at once, present to Gulf clients directly and art direct in Arabic and English.
Global platforms that need regional adaptation rather than translation — work that holds the brand but lands in a Saudi aisle or a UAE feed.
Organisations whose communication is procedural — postal, mobility, utilities — where clarity in Arabic matters more than brand voice.
Open to creative director and creative strategy roles, and to brands entering the Gulf market.