Driving Principles

Getting the most mileage out of automotive journalism means being prepared to shift gears fast and steer a course between the legacy of Top Gear and the age of the influencer. Motoring Middle East’s Shahzad Sheikh and Imthishan Giado talk to Austyn Allison

- Austyn Allison

Motoring Middle East’s is a story of adaptation. The brand – a two-man show based in Dubai – has gone through several guises and continues to morph to keep itself alive.

At heart, MME is motoring journalism. It has a website, a YouTube channel and a Facebook page. Its founders, Imthishan Giado (pictured, standing) and Shahzad Sheikh (seated) are also regulars on local radio, at live events and even on TV.

And now they say they want to become influencers.

Giado explains: “Basically we want to do what journalists have always been doing, but in a format that marketing agencies understand now.”

Sheikh adds: “The whole point of why we are redefining ourselves, or trying to say we are now influencers, is that we are simply kowtowing to the market. We have always been what we are, and we will continue to be what we are, but if it means rebranding ourselves then we are happy to do that. We are a business and we have to attract an income, we have to attract these marketing budgets. If the marketing budgets are being allocated to these so-called influencers, then hey presto, I’m an influencer. Talk to me.”

If Sheikh takes a pragmatic view of how to market motoring journalism, Giado is just as cynical about the genre in general.

“Modern motoring journalism is basically a fading ‘80s tribute act,” he says. It’s a lounge show of a recreation of what Jeremy Clarkson [who rose to fame with the BBC’s Top Gear show] used to do in the 1990s. In fact, he wasn’t doing an homage, he was simply doing something fresh and new. And, unfortunately, that’s what influencers are [mimicking] now.”

Shahzad and Giado were editor and deputy editor respectively of a regional car magazine that was closed by its publisher in 2011. So they launched a website.