J. Walter Thompson MENA shone at the Dubai Lynx Festival of Creativity taking home 4 Grand Prix awards on the night, the highest number of Grand Prix won by any network at the festival.
The Grand Prix winning pieces of work were awarded in four distinct categories – Creative Effectiveness, Media, Film Craft and Radio; and for three separate teams, demonstrating the network’s unrivalled breadth and depth of offering across the MENA markets.
The Dubai Lynx Festival of Creativity recognises the most creative marketing and communication campaigns across the Middle East and North Africa. An international jury comprised of industry experts judges each individual award category and is presided over by a Jury President.
J. Walter Thompson Beirut was awarded the Grand Prix in Creative Effectiveness for The Good Note, a campaign that addressed some of the humanitarian issues of street people in Lebanon, created for its retail client, Bou Khalil Supermarkets. J. Walter Thompson Saudi Arabia was awarded the Grand Prix in Media for The Campaign That Never Saw The Light of Day which propelled use of a customer support app, and was created for Saudi Telecom Company. Winning two Grands Prix was J. Walter Thompson Dubai, the first in Film Craft for Suzy’s Beauty Salon from a campaign that parodied real life politics through the antics of daily life in a fictitious beauty parlour for their Mada Masr client; the second in the Radio category for an atmospheric campaign entitled Cost, which portrayed the personal price four prominent authors paid in order to be able to write their work, which was created for Kinokuniya Bookstore.
Winning criteria for the Creative Effectiveness category was work that demonstrated the high, measurable impact of the creative work on the client’s business. In the Media category, the jury was looking for work that amplified the creativity through game-changing channel strategy. In Film Craft the superlative techniques had to be in the service of a good idea, dramatically enhancing the execution. For the Radio category award winning work communicated the brand message through sonic innovation and superior aural storytelling.
The network also brought home a further 23 awards – three Gold, nine Silver and 11 Bronze – for work across a total of 10 categories, created by six teams in the region, for 13 clients in eight different business sectors.
J. Walter Thompson teams in Cairo and Dubai brought home the three Gold awards. Dubai landed a Gold in Film Craft in the Script sub-category, for Suzy’s Beauty Salon. Cairo landed a Gold in Design for the rebranding of the iconic Chiclets’ pack; and a Gold in Creative Effectiveness for the Power to Family campaign for Vodafone Egypt.
The nine Silver and 11 Bronze awards were further spread across the agency’s MENA footprint, with teams from Amman, Beirut, Cairo, Casablanca and Dubai delivering award winning campaigns. A total of 14 individual campaigns were recognised across 10 award categories including though not limited to Design, Film, Integrated, Interactive, PR, Print & Outdoor. The work was created for 13 different clients operating in eight separate industry sectors ranging from Telecommunications to Retail; Healthcare to Media houses; Publishing to Food & Beverage; and Charities to name a few.
The range of capabilities across the award winning communication is testament to the network’s expertise in delivering creative and effective business solutions with scale, in challenging economic conditions across markets and industries, through strategic ideas that engage consumers to deliver peak performance for clients and their brands.