How to Get Featured in Esquire Middle East

Esquire Middle East is a name that gets misunderstood more than almost any other in regional PR, usually in the client's favour and rarely accurately.

Here is the honest version.

What Esquire Middle East actually is

Esquire Middle East is a licensed regional edition of the Esquire brand, published in the region under licence by a local publisher. It has its own editorial team, commissions its own stories and makes its own decisions.

It is not the US edition, and it is not a bureau of it. The two are editorially separate operations that share a brand name.

Why the distinction matters

Because most readers assume "Esquire" means the American magazine, and some agencies are happy to let them.

Appearing in Esquire Middle East is a genuine achievement in a competitive regional market. It is not the same as appearing in Esquire US, and describing it as though it were will eventually be checked by someone who matters: an investor, a journalist, a partner's legal team.

Stated accurately, it still does its job. Overstated, it hands someone a reason to doubt everything else on your page.

The same applies to every licensed edition in the region. Several international magazine brands publish local editions here under licence, each with its own team and its own commissioning, and the accurate claim is always the edition you actually appeared in.

What it publishes

Men's culture through a regional lens: style, watches, cars, food, film, fitness, business figures, and interviews with people who are interesting rather than merely successful.

Its readership skews affluent, urban and international, a mix of long-term residents, expatriates and visitors, in a market where luxury and lifestyle spending is a serious commercial category rather than a niche.

Business figures do appear, but usually as people rather than as companies. The framing tends to be what someone is like, what they believe and how they live, rather than what their organisation sells.

The bar is character. Editors are looking for a subject who says something, not a founder who lists achievements.

The routes in

• Earned editorial. An editor decides you are worth an interview or a mention. Free, competitive, and their call.
• Advertising and branded content. Commercial products in a magazine category that runs substantially on luxury advertising. Legitimate, labelled, and not editorial.
• Agency-assisted pitching. An agency shapes the angle and takes it to the right editor. The work is buyable; the outcome is not.

Commercial material is expected to be clearly labelled here as elsewhere in regional media, which is worth knowing before you agree to anything.

Print and digital are separate opportunities too. Online sections move quickly and carry more, while the magazine works to much longer lead times.

What makes a strong pitch

A person, a point of view, and a reason to run it now.

That might be a launch with a cultural angle, expertise readers would actually find useful, or a personal story with something at stake in it. Timing helps: a regional event, a season, a subject the title is already circling.

Access matters as well. If you can offer time, images, a location or a person genuinely worth an hour of an editor's attention, you are much further along than a pitch that only describes itself.

What does not work is a profile request with nothing behind it. Magazines at this level are not short of people who would like to be in them.

What we do

Digital Networking Agency develops the story and positions it where it fits, and we will tell you which of the routes above you are actually looking at.

We will also tell you when the fit is wrong. A men's lifestyle title is a poor home for a B2B software story, however good the brand name looks in a footer.

Frequently asked questions

Is this the same as being in Esquire US?

No. It is a separately edited regional edition published under licence. Say "Esquire Middle East" rather than "Esquire" and you stay accurate.

Can I buy an editorial feature?

You can buy advertising or branded content, which is labelled as commercial. Editorial commissioning is the editor's decision.

Who fits this title?

Founders and figures in lifestyle, luxury, style, hospitality, sport, entertainment and culture. If your work has no consumer or cultural dimension, look elsewhere.