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Approximately1,500 guests attend glittering soiréeto celebrate top industry achievements
Dubai, UAE, November 20, 2014:This year's Effie MENA Awards, which took place on Wednesday night at The Meydan Hotel in Dubai,lived up to its billing as the largest event in the program's history. Approximately 1,500 invited guests attended the glittering soirée, regarded as one of the most important on the region's marketing calendar, to celebrate the campaigns, advertisers and agencies that have had the most measurable impact over the past 12 months.
The Effie MENA Awards 2014, the sixth edition of the annual programme,was expanded to incorporate 23 classes of achievement; with categories including: ‘Best Youth Marketing Campaign,' ‘Best Use of Social Media' and ‘Most Effective Agency Network of the Year.' Corresponding with the rise in the number of categories was an increase in the number of entrants, with submissions 75 per cent higher than last year. The organisers said that the increase in categories and nominations reflectsthe dynamism of the regional marketing industry and the innovation currently being seen in the sector.
“This year's Effie Awards was the biggest to date, featuring the largest number of nominations and the greatest number of categories for inclusion,” said Alexandre Hawari, Co-CEO of Mediaquest, the media organisation behind the event. “The diversity of marketing forms and approaches that we are now witnessing across the region necessitatedthe introduction of new classes of achievement in order to fullyacknowledge the impact on audiences that have been achieved with unique techniques,” he added.
Launched in New York in 1968, the Effies were created to honour marketing ideas that achieved the best results. The scheme rapidly gained kudos by including only those campaigns whose impacts were verifiable and measurable. The programmesoon established a reputation as being among the most prestigious of all professional marketing awards, becoming a highly regarded industry accolade through its recognition of rewarding ideas that work.
The Effies reached this corner of the worldin 2009 when the programmejoined with the GMR Effectiveness in Marketing Awards (GEMAS) –the former touchstone measure of regional marketing brilliance– to become the Effie MENA Awards. The newly-formed scheme became part of the Effie panoply,which includes the Global Effie, Euro Effie, Effie Asia Pacific, North American Effies and the Effie Effectiveness Index.
As with all awards schemes, last night was ultimately about the winners. The evening sawFP7clean up with an impressive haul of seven Gold Awards. The Dubai-based agency came in at first place in six categories, including: ‘Best Use of CSR,'‘Best Youth Marketing Campaign,'‘Banking, Finance & Insurance,' ‘FMCG', ‘Single Media Activation' and ‘Brand Experience.' The organisation's array of impactful campaigns that had measurably resonated with audiences in the region resulted in it scooping upthe coveted ‘Most Effective Agency Network of the Year'title.
Cairo-based Media Direction OMD was awarded the ‘Best Use of Social Media' award for their Barakat and Super Teta campaign,which they conducted on behalf of Vodafone Egypt. JWT DXB and Carat DXB's ‘I'm Coming Home' campaign for Microsoft Mobile Devices saw the agency come up trumps in the ‘Telecommunications, Mobiles & Internet' category, while JWT Cairo and Starcom MediaVest Group– also from Cairo– impressed the judges to winthe ‘New Product' category with their ‘Cinnamint' campaign for Mondelez Egypt Foods.
In addition to garnering the prestige that comes from being bestowed an Effie MENA award, all of the 23 category winners from last night's event are eligible to participate in the Effie Global Effectiveness Index. The scheme incorporates data from 40 worldwide Effie Award competitions to determine those in the industry who have had the most measurable success on a global scale. It may yet transpire that aregional Effie award-winning campaign is one that is also found to be a world-beater;a result that would confer the highest degree of international credibility for the agency or organisation concerned.
“We would like to congratulate all of the winners as well as the runners up from the Effie MENA Awards 2014 – the competition with so many entrants this year truly was tough,” said Hawari. “It was a night to remember for everyone who attended and one that further cemented the Effies as the benchmark standard for measurable regional marketing success. I would like to thank everyone who participated and made it such an enjoyable and rewarding event.”
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