By Shereen Shabnam
Abbas Al-Hazeem is not your typical CEO. As a Kuwaiti-born serial entrepreneur, media strategist, and the visionary behind On The Way Media Agency, Abbas blends Eastern values with Western innovation to create purpose-driven campaigns that connect deeply with audiences.
From his early ventures selling candy in school to spearheading dynamic, cross-cultural marketing content, his journey reflects a rare balance of business acumen, emotional intelligence, and social consciousness.
In this exclusive interview, Abbas shares how his agency is redefining short-form content, integrating AI ethically, and fostering a company culture where mental well-being is just as important as creativity. With a strong personal brand and an unwavering commitment to authenticity, Abbas exemplifies the kind of leadership that inspires trust, innovation, and lasting impact. We find out more from Abbas about his career and his strategies for the progress of his company and the industry.
How do you integrate purpose and social impact into your business decisions at On The Way Media?
At On The Way Media, I tend to always aim to integrate my purpose deeply in every decision I make. My goal when starting this agency was to empower entrepreneurs by transforming their ideas into influential brands. Every campaign we create prioritizes authenticity, innovation, and meaningful storytelling. Byconstantly asking ourselves, “How does this project enhance our client’s purpose and positively impacttheir community?” My team and I ensure that our business strategies contribute not only to profitability but to societal value. My team and I view ourselves as partners in our clients’ journeys, guiding their brands to become impactful and socially responsible entities.
What does purpose-driven entrepreneurship mean to you personally, and why do you think it’s becoming such a powerful trend among today’s founders?
To me, purpose-driven entrepreneurship means building ventures anchored in passion, energy, and genuine intent. It’s about harnessing one’s skills and vision to make tangible differences beyond profit margins. Personally, having lived “a life within a life,” I’ve learned the power of meaningful endeavors overpurely monetary pursuits. Today’s founders resonate deeply with this trend because they crave significance, legacy, and social accountability. Purpose gives businesses clarity, direction, and emotional resonance, aligning company success with community betterment.
Short-form video is dominating digital engagement. How is your agency adapting contentstrategies for platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels to capture attention quickly and authentically?
On The Way Media specializes in short-form content, understanding that attention spans have drastically reduced. Our strategy revolves around three core pillars: immediacy, visual quality, and emotionalengagement. By incorporating high-production visuals reminiscent of cinematic or Netflix-like experiences, we immediately capture viewers’ attention. Our videos leverage
dynamic sound scaping, crafted by our talented DOP, Joseph Scott to heighten viewer immersion. Additionally, we meticulously follow trending content and technical analytics, ensuring each video is culturally relevant, visually appealing, and strategically optimized to maximize reach and authenticity.
What are the key elements that make short-form video content not just viral— but meaningful—from a brand storytelling perspective?
Meaningful short-form video content integrates several critical elements. They are:
- Authenticity: Genuine narratives that resonate emotionally with audiences.
- Clarity: Immediate visual and narrative clarity, hooking viewers within the initial three seconds.
- Cultural Insight: Tailoring content to reflect and resonate with specific cultural or demographic groups.
- Technical Excellence: Exceptional video quality, sound design, and editing that enhance storytelling.
- Human Connection: Storylines focusing on relatable, human-centric experiences rather than merely promotional content.
By aligning these elements, we ensure that our videos don’t just go viral but also leave a lasting impact on audiences, reinforcing brand loyalty and deeper consumer engagement.
AI is now deeply embedded in marketing. How is On The Way Media leveraging AI tools for hyper-personalized campaigns, and what ethical considerations come into play?
We actively leverage AI at On The Way Media for optimizing backend marketing processes such as ad analytics, hashtag efficacy, content personalization, and editing workflows. AI significantly enhances ourefficiency but prominently using it as tool and not as a big form in our processes. Freeing our creative team to focus more on innovation and strategy. However, ethics remains paramount. We constantly evaluate AI-generated content for authenticity, transparency, and cultural sensitivity, ensuring we never misrepresent brands or compromise consumer trust. Ethical AI use means maintaining data privacy, being transparent about AI usage, and ensuring the generated content aligns with genuine human values and creativity.
With AI-generated content becoming more common, how do you maintain the human touch and creativity that distinguish truly impactful campaigns?
Maintaining the human touch amidst AI involves striking a careful balance between technologicalefficiency and genuine creativity. At On The Way Media, AI complements rather than replaces human insight. Our creatives infuse each campaign with unique narratives, emotional depth, and cultural nuance elements that AI alone cannot replicate. Regular team brainstorms, real human storytelling, and creative sessions ensure our content remains empathetic, emotionally engaging, and uniquely authentic. We keep AI on a tool basis in our operations rather than a main factor that is integrated in everything as social media platforms lately crave real stories, interactive video content, and most importantly a sense of relatedness which resonates with the outcomes that we tend to work towards.
You’re known for championing mental health in business. How has your personal leadershipapproach evolved to support wellness and prevent burnout in high-performance environments?
Mental health advocacy is central to my leadership style. Over time, I’ve transitioned from focusing purely on productivity to prioritizing holistic employee wellness. I foster open communication, encourage regular mental wellness check-ins, and actively practice empathetic leadership. Creating a supportive environment means recognizing signs of burnout early, advocating for regular breaks, and embedding mental health into our creatively free culture not as an add-on but as integral to sustainable performance and employee happiness.
I can proudly say that the Team at OTW has the work acumen that is family based and each and everymember looks out for the other and most importantly teaching each other and unlocking new skills as a collective working towards one end goal is one of the biggest accomplishments I can firmly say OTW hasdone.
In a business that is constantly evolving and in a fast paced city like the United Arab Emirates individuals can often feel like they always have to be on the run and tend to get fed up later therefore taking care of your team and guiding in the right direction is very crucial as this niche of business does not require better machinery to produce better products rather better minds to be able to deliver great services. Therefore, your human radar and emotional exposure has to resonate with who you’re getting to the team and what is there intention towards it.
What advice would you give other founders on building a culture where mental health is prioritized without compromising productivity?
To other founders, my advice is simple yet profound: Normalize mental wellness discussions. Encourage vulnerability and openness, establish clear boundaries for work-life balance, and actively model these behaviors yourself. Recognize and reward wellness initiatives alongside traditional productivity milestones. Creating a culture that prioritizes mental health naturally boosts productivity because motivated, well-supported employees are inherently more engaged and effective in their roles. Because, at the end nothing is scarier than avoiding your full potential. Embedding this culture will unlock theteam’s full potential, as individuals thrive when they are gently challenged beyond their comfort zones, rather than remaining in complacency.
You have built a strong personal brand as a speaker and entrepreneur. How important is founder-led storytelling today, and what role does authenticity play in gaining audience trust?
Founder-led storytelling is vital today because audiences resonate deeply with genuine narratives over impersonal corporate messages. Authenticity breeds trust, loyalty, and emotional connection, making it critical for leaders to communicate openly about their journeys, challenges, and motivations. Personally, sharing my story transparently has enabled deeper connections with clients, colleagues, and broader audiences, creating trust that directly enhances brand credibility and growth.
Recently, it seems that much of the media is focused on teaching and guiding people on how to live their lives. However, to me, it’s more about conveying a sense of genuineness and being able to share my experiences to more relate rather than guide people on what to do and these lessons can resonate and help the end viewer actually alter something in their lives rather than feel that they need to follow a certain “Agenda” to be able to reach their goals.
As a leader with an “East-meets-West” outlook, how do you create inclusive, cross-cultural campaigns that resonate globally while staying rooted in regional identity?
My unique “East-meets-West” approach enables us at On The Way Media to craft campaigns with broad global appeal without losing regional authenticity. We deeply research cultural nuances, employing diverse creative teams who reflect the audiences we aim to reach. By harmonizing universal themes with culturally specific insights, our campaigns achieve both
global resonance and localized relevance. This balanced integration ensures cultural authenticity, inclusivity, and heightened impact across diverse markets. Which in exchange allows the free flowing of cross-cultural brainstorming whilst embracing each other’s cultures simultaneously.
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