Table of Contents
Frequently Asked Questions
What does this activity cover?
It covers the full range of advertising services: advice and strategy, creative services, producing advertising material, and media planning and buying across all channels.
Who are the typical clients?
New brands building an identity, established companies running campaigns, and businesses launching products, across the UAE.
Does this include media buying?
Yes. Media planning and buying across print, broadcast, outdoor, and digital channels is part of the full-service advertising this activity covers.
Is this the same as public relations?
No. Public relations is a separate activity, as is market research. This activity is the full range of advertising: creative, production, and media.
Does this include producing TV commercials?
Producing the commercial messages for radio, television, and film is a separate activity. The agency creates the campaign and arranges production.
How to Start an Advertising Agency with Meydan Free Zone
A new brand needs a name, a look, a message, and a plan to get noticed. A growing company wants a campaign that runs across billboards, television, social media, and print. An advertising agency is who they hire to do all of it: the ideas, the creative, the production, and the media that carries it.
Advertising is a vast industry, and agencies sit at the centre of it. Global advertising spending reached around USD 1.0 trillion in 2025, with the advertising agencies industry climbing towards USD 529.0 billion by 2030, according to IBISWorld1.
In the UAE, the advertising market was worth USD 3.6 billion in 2025 and is forecast to reach USD 5.8 billion by 2034, according to IMARC Group2. For a full-service agency, that is a broad brief: brands need ideas, creativity, and the media to carry them across every channel.
Advertising is one of the world's largest commercial industries, and full-service agencies handle the ideas, creative, production, and media that brands pay for. The UAE market is growing steadily. The headline number is the size of the global advertising agencies industry.
Sources: IBISWorld (2025); IMARC Group (2025).
Picture an agency juggling several accounts. A creative team develops a campaign concept for a new product launch. A media planner maps where the ads will run, from billboards to social feeds. An account manager presents the work to the client and refines it.
A production team turns the concept into the finished adverts. The agency earns on retainers, project fees, and media commissions, so the work is a steady cycle of pitching, creating, and running campaigns. In a crowded market, the agencies that win are the ones whose ideas cut through and whose campaigns move the needle.
Whether it is a brand identity, a product launch, or a multi-channel campaign, an advertising agency turns a brief into ideas, creative, and the media to carry them.
Who is this for?
- Full-service advertising agencies: Businesses handling creative, production, and media for UAE brands.
- Creative and campaign agencies: Operators developing advertising campaigns across all channels.
- Media planning and buying agencies: Firms planning and buying advertising space and time.
Meydan Free Zone offers 100% foreign ownership, zero percent corporate tax on qualifying income, full profit repatriation, and a fully digital licensing process, providing a regulated and cost-efficient base from which to operate an advertising agency in a market where brands are spending more on getting noticed every year.
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7310.87 - Advertising Agency
Under this activity, your business is licensed to provide the full range of advertising services, including advice, creative services, producing advertising material, and media planning and buying.
An advertising agency provides the full range of advertising services for its clients. The work spans advice and strategy, creative services, producing advertising material, and media planning and buying across print, broadcast, outdoor, and digital.
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The clients are mixed: new brands building an identity, established companies running campaigns, and businesses launching products. It is an ideas-and-execution business: the agency is paid to come up with the campaign and then put it in front of the right audience through the right channels.
The activity is the full range of advertising services. Public relations (7020), market research (7320), and producing the commercial messages for radio, television, and film (5911) fall under separate activities, as do graphic design (7410) and advertising photography (7420).
The line is precise. If your business provides advertising advice, creative, production of advertising material, and media planning and buying, you are in. If you mainly run public relations, conduct market research, or produce film commercials, a different activity applies.
Third-Party Approval: No third-party approval is required for this business activity.
Anti-Money Laundering Compliance: This business activity is exempt from AML compliance requirements.
Citations
1 IBISWorld. Global Advertising Agencies Industry Report. IBISWorld, 2025.
2 IMARC Group. UAE Advertising Market Report. IMARC Group, 2025.
