I spent the last week in Dubai, and have chanced upon an interesting new business model. Since the lifeblood of Dubai is currently real estate — 30% of the world’s building cranes are in Dubai right now — and because Dubai is generally a culture that is more brand-centric than your normal city, we’ve started making a few deal that integrate brands into real estate in Dubai.

Interestingly, all the same principles that we use to integrate brands into entertainment hold true, especially for properties that are based on specific conceptual ideas — thinking about the right brand fit becomes not just a competitive advantage, but a potential business driver.

I’ll keep you posted on these developments.