23 Aug 2026
The market has become an industry but not a system: it is growing faster than its standards, rules and culture of effectiveness — and the next step for Uzbekistan is exporting methodologies of its own.
Diyor Mirzaakhmedov is the chairman of the board of the Marketing Association of Uzbekistan. On why the industry has not yet become a system, and what Uzbekistan is capable of offering the international market.
Marketing and advertising in Uzbekistan have already grown into a full-fledged industry, but they have not yet become a full-fledged system. Our market is growing faster than its internal standards, rules and culture of effectiveness are taking shape.
The critical weak point today no longer lies in a shortage of specific marketing tools, but in a deficit of systemic thinking — deep strategy, analytical data, professional competencies and methods of measuring results objectively.
Legislation and the regulatory environment are improving rapidly, yet business and the advertising industry still run into ambiguity in particular provisions, differences in how they are interpreted, and insufficient predictability of decisions.
The next critically important step is to move from a generalised dialogue between the state and business to a permanent industry dialogue between regulators and the professional marketing, advertising and media community. Only with this approach will the rules of the game be shaped together with the market and grounded in international best practice, rather than after the fact.
Social responsibility is already felt in domestic marketing, but it has not yet turned into a single industry-wide standard. Major brands increasingly take reputational risk, the ethics of their communications and their impact on society into account. Responsible marketing today should rest on three basic principles:
The question is especially acute in advertising aimed at children, in financial and medical services, in gambling mechanics and in the handling of personal data. Ultimately, responsible marketing is not charity — it is an honest, transparent set of rules governing the relationship between a brand, a person and society.
The intellectual potential of marketing in Uzbekistan is considerably higher than its current international visibility. A generation of strong marketers, entrepreneurs, creators and agencies has emerged in the country, fully capable of competing at a global level.
The main thing Uzbekistan can offer the international market is a unique experience of building brands in a fast-growing market where traditional culture, a young digital audience and high entrepreneurial energy come together at once. It is an ideal environment for creating new brands and original marketing solutions.
We are already moving from simply borrowing global practices to adapting them. The next stage is creating our own methodologies: research, standards, models, professional terminology and technological solutions that are in demand beyond our borders.
Uzbekistan should become not merely a consumer, but one of the region’s key sources of contemporary marketing thought.
Marketing in Uzbekistan has decisively outgrown the confines of a closed professional community. Today it directly shapes the competitiveness of domestic business, the country’s export potential and investment appeal, and the capitalisation of national brands.
That is precisely why the industry discussion needs to be raised to a new level, bringing in business, government bodies, sector associations, academia and the media. What we need is not a conversation about individual ad carriers and promotional tools, but a full strategic dialogue about the role of marketing across the whole economy of Uzbekistan.