Madinat Jumeirah Living Asks Where Harvey Spectre Would Live in Dubai
Madinat Jumeirah Living – This is Living is a 2019 film campaign created by FP7 McCann, Dubai for Dubai Holding, positioning the Madinat Jumeirah Living residential development as the destination of choice for professionals who value discretion, tranquility, and understated prestige over visible excess in the United Arab Emirates.
The campaign launched in February 2019 and is built around a single creative question: where would Harvey Spectre — the fictional titan attorney from the television series Suits — choose to live in Dubai? The answer, implied with quiet confidence throughout the film, is Madinat Jumeirah Living. By anchoring the campaign to a globally recognised fictional archetype of professional sophistication, FP7 McCann gave Dubai Holding a cultural shorthand capable of communicating complex aspirational values without laboured explanation. The campaign comprises one film media asset, shot entirely in Dubai, according to Filmworks Group, the production company behind the work.
Madinat Jumeirah Living is a residential development described by Dubai Holding as a 3.85 million-square-foot community overlooking Burj Al Arab, positioned deliberately away from the density of Downtown Dubai. In the United Arab Emirates, where luxury residential developers frequently compete on scale, height, and spectacle, This is Living stakes a different claim — one grounded in calm, quality, and the kind of success that no longer needs to announce itself. The campaign targets high-earning professionals and investors active in the UAE market during the late 2010s, a period in which Dubai's residential sector was navigating both rapid supply growth and evolving buyer expectations. Clapboard Score for this campaign is 63 out of 100.
Dubai Holding operates in one of the most competitive luxury residential markets in the world. In the United Arab Emirates, the luxury property sector has long been dominated by master developers deploying landmark architecture and record-setting amenities as primary differentiators. Emaar Properties — the developer behind Downtown Dubai and the Burj Khalifa district — represents the most visible competitive benchmark, with Nakheel, the creator of the Palm Jumeirah, occupying an equally prominent position in the Dubai prestige residential landscape. Against these rivals, Madinat Jumeirah Living's value proposition required a different register entirely.
FP7 McCann identified a consumer insight that cuts directly against the grain of category convention: a significant segment of Dubai's high-earning professional residents and investors had grown weary of maximalist luxury signalling. According to dubaiholding.com, Madinat Jumeirah Living was positioned as offering tranquility and connection to heritage rather than proximity to commercial towers or branded retail. The strategic decision to use Harvey Spectre as the campaign's cultural anchor reinforces this insight precisely. Spectre is not a character who lives loudly. He occupies spaces that reflect achievement without broadcasting it — a disposition that maps cleanly onto Madinat Jumeirah Living's product promise.
In the United Arab Emirates during 2019, the residential property market was absorbing a sustained period of price correction that had followed years of oversupply, a dynamic reported by property analytics platforms tracking the Dubai market at that time. This context made emotional and aspirational differentiation more commercially important than it had been in previous cycles, giving the This is Living campaign a strategic rationale that extended well beyond creative novelty. FP7 McCann's approach acknowledged that in a softening market, belonging — not ownership — is the more powerful purchase motivator.
Director Laurence Dunmore helmed the film, with production services handled by Filmworks Dubai, part of Filmworks Group, according to Filmworks Group's own published credits. The choice of a director with a background in high-production-value commercial filmmaking signals Dubai Holding's commitment to a campaign that could carry visual authority alongside its cultural conceit. The film was shot entirely in Dubai, grounding the aspirational narrative in the actual geography of Madinat Jumeirah Living rather than abstracting it to a generic luxury aesthetic.
Creative direction fell to Shelby Meale and Kartik Aiyar, working under Executive Creative Director Olly Robinson at FP7 McCann, as documented by adsoftheworld.com. Co-writers Richard Hol and Adam Fierman developed the script, which is built around the implied question of where a man of Harvey Spectre's particular sensibility would choose to call home in Dubai. Gabriel Macht, the actor who portrays Harvey Spectre in Suits, appears in the campaign, lending the creative device its authenticity and reach, as noted in the campaign credits published on adsoftheworld.com. Senior Account Director Nadine Kazan and Senior Account Manager Salim Mroueh led account management, with Agency Producer Mario Atallah overseeing production, and additional creative contribution credited to Sameh Goubran, per adsoftheworld.com.
The production's visual language stays consistent with Madinat Jumeirah Living's product identity — measured, composed, and unshowy. Rather than cutting between glossy apartment renders and lifestyle montages in the manner typical of the category, the film sustains a tone closer to prestige drama than property advertisement. This is a deliberate creative choice that reflects the strategy: if the audience is being asked to see Madinat Jumeirah Living as Harvey Spectre's kind of place, the film itself must feel like it belongs to that same world. In the United Arab Emirates market of 2019, that level of tonal commitment in a real estate campaign was relatively rare.
No independently verified performance metrics for the Madinat Jumeirah Living This is Living campaign — such as reach figures, conversion data, or tracked sales uplift — are publicly available in documented sources reviewed for this case study. What the campaign's structure does demonstrate is a set of conditions historically associated with effective prestige real estate advertising in the United Arab Emirates.
The use of Gabriel Macht as Harvey Spectre gave the campaign an internationally recognisable cultural reference point at a time when Suits maintained a substantial global audience across streaming platforms. This casting choice extended the campaign's potential reach well beyond a purely local UAE audience, addressing Dubai Holding's need to attract internationally mobile professional buyers who might be evaluating the emirate as a long-term base. The single-asset film format — one film, no fragmented adaptations — concentrates the campaign's emotional weight and signals confidence in the idea itself, a structural choice that tends to generate more sustained attention than multi-format content strategies.
FP7 McCann's decision to position Madinat Jumeirah Living in deliberate contrast to the maximalist vocabulary dominant among competitors like Emaar and Nakheel gave Dubai Holding a distinctive voice in a crowded sector. The Clapboard Score of 63 out of 100 reflects a campaign that executes its creative premise with clarity and production quality, while noting the limited public evidence of measurable business impact and the narrow single-asset scope. In the context of late-2010s UAE luxury residential marketing, This is Living stands as a composed, strategically coherent piece of brand filmmaking.
This is Living is a 2019 film campaign created by FP7 McCann for Dubai Holding in the United Arab Emirates. It positions Madinat Jumeirah Living as the residential choice for professionals who value understated luxury, using Harvey Spectre from the television series Suits as its central creative device.
Laurence Dunmore directed the campaign film, with production handled by Filmworks Dubai, part of Filmworks Group. The film was shot entirely in Dubai. Creative direction was led by Shelby Meale and Kartik Aiyar under Executive Creative Director Olly Robinson at FP7 McCann, according to adsoftheworld.com.
Harvey Spectre, portrayed by Gabriel Macht in Suits, embodies professional success expressed through discretion rather than display. FP7 McCann used this character to communicate Madinat Jumeirah Living's positioning as tranquil, understated prestige — a deliberate contrast to the maximalist luxury language common among UAE residential developers like Emaar and Nakheel.
FP7 McCann Dubai created the campaign for Dubai Holding. The team included Executive Creative Director Olly Robinson, Creative Directors Shelby Meale and Kartik Aiyar, co-writers Richard Hol and Adam Fierman, and Agency Producer Mario Atallah, as documented by adsoftheworld.com and clapboard.com.
Madinat Jumeirah Living – This is Living received a Clapboard Score of 63 out of 100. The score reflects clear creative execution and strong production quality from Filmworks Dubai, while noting the campaign's limited single-asset scope and the absence of publicly verified performance metrics for the UAE market.
Madinat Jumeirah Living, a Dubai Holding development, is positioned as a tranquil 3.85 million-square-foot community overlooking Burj Al Arab, deliberately set apart from the commercial density of Downtown Dubai. According to dubaiholding.com, this distinguishes it from high-profile developments by competitors including Emaar Properties and Nakheel in the UAE market.
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