Sheikh Zayed Road has always been the crown jewel of Dubai’s Out-of-Home landscape - a place where brands compete for visibility along one of the most influential urban corridors in the Middle East. With “The Helix,” Backlite Media is elevating roadside DooH in the UAE to a more connected, scalable, and strategically unified format.
Sheikh Zayed Road: Backlite Media introduces DooH network
Backlite Media’s The Helix replaces the traditional location-by-location approach that has long defined roadside DooH in the Emirates. While competitors such as JCDecaux and Al Arabia are already market their indoor digital screens as networks, Backlite is now following on premium outdoor visibility. The Helix brings together seven iconic digital billboards along a 12‑kilometre stretch of Sheikh Zayed Road, from the World Trade Centre to Mall of the Emirates, capturing the daily flow of 300,000 to 400,000 vehicles. Traffic along this corridor is heavily skewed towards professionals, executives, and high-income households – a valuable audience segment for brand advertisers seeking reach and prestige.
What distinguishes The Helix is its unified DooH-structure. Each of the seven screens follows standardized LED specifications, enabling consistent creative delivery across all locations. Instead of treating each billboard as an isolated site, Backlite has built an integrated platform – a continuous ribbon of high-impact visibility. By bundling these landmark displays into a single network, the company offers media buyers true scale along a road where scale is notoriously hard to achieve.
With an estimated reach of more than 65 percent of Dubai’s population and an average monthly delivery of around 60 million impressions, The Helix positions Backlite Media at the top end of the UAE’s digital Out-of-Home market. The company is clearly pursuing a premium network strategy, not only locally but also internationally following its recent expansion into the UK. In a market where roadside DooH has traditionally been fragmented, The Helix marks a first step toward networked, data-aligned digital infrastructure along the UAE’s most prestigious urban artery.
