Dubai – The Dubai Lynx unveils its winners for this year. As the Middle East and North Africa Advertising Awards, the Dubai Lynx International Festival, a Cannes Lions presentation, is on its fourth year. Held from March 14 to 16, the winners were announced March 17 at the Palladium in Dubai Media City. .
Twenty-one judges from ten countries rated 1364 entries, awarding a total of 156 Dubai Lynx trophies.
The Media category was the strongest with a total of 40 winners, followed by Direct & Sales Promotion with 26 and Print and Outdoor with 19 each. There were 17 trophies presented in Interactive category, 9 in TV/Cinema, 6 in Integrated and 4 in Radio.
In the new Craft category, there were 16 awards presented in total – 9 in Print Craft and 7 in Film Craft.
The Media Grand Prix went to Starcom MediaVest Group, Dubai, for Chevrolet’s ‘Confessions of Corporate Spies’.
The Print Grand Prix went to the agency Elephant, Cairo, for Sima Food Industries’ Lika Gum campaign ‘Out of this World’.
The Dubai Metro ‘Abandoned Cars’ campaign by Saatchi & Saatchi Dubai won this year’s Outdoor Grand Prix.
The Direct and Sales Promotion Grand Prix was awarded to Memac Ogilvy & Mather Dubai for the entry ‘Dustvertising’ for BP Visco Engine Oil.
This year’s Interactive Grand Prix went to Memac Ogilvy Label Tunisia for SFTP’s ‘Boga Cidre’ ad.
Leo Burnett Cairo won the TV/Cinema Grand Prix for the Melody Entertainment ‘Arabic Films – The Mother of all Foreign Films’ campaign.
The Integrated Grand Prix went to Elephant, Cairo for ‘89 Fans from 89’ for Coca-Cola.
Leo Burnett Cairo was awarded the first Dubai Lynx Craft Grand Prix in the TV Craft category again for the ‘Arabic Films – The Mother of all Foreign Films’ campaign for Melody Entertainment.
There was no Grand Prix awarded in Radio.
Memac Ogilvy & Mather Dubai was honoured with 2010 Agency of the Year, with 2nd place going to TBWA/Raad Dubai, and 3rd place to JWT Dubai.
Media Agency of the Year was awarded to Starcom MediaVest Group, Dubai, for the second year. Runners up were OMD Dubai, and 3rd place went to Leo Burnett Beirut.
New for 2010 was Network of the Year, which went to JWT. Memac Ogilvy & Mather were awarded 2nd place, and Y&R were in 3rd.
The winners of the Young Creatives competitions were also revealed during the Ceremony with the team from Leo Burnett Dubai winning the Print competition, and the team from Starcom MediaVest Group Dubai winning the Media competition.
Also honored during the ceremony was STC, the national telecommunications services provider in Saudi Arabia, and the largest in the Middle East, which was awarded with the prestigious title of Advertiser of the Year and collected on stage by Mohammad Al Faraj, General Manager Corporate Communications.
Ramzi Raad, Chairman, Chairman and CEO of TBWA/RAAD Middle East was presented with this year’s Advertising Person of the Year award.
This year’s Dubai Lynx is a fresh re-emergence from a somewhat tainted 2009. Following the discovery of a number of scam ads, the Dubai Lynx withdrew seven major awards from Fortune Promoseven Doha (FP7), plus 10 shortlisted entries. FP7 Doha submitted 18 entries.
FP7 Doha submitted entries supposedly from Nissan and Samsung Electronics, as well as Aramex, a Middle East shipping company. Nissan had tipped off the Dubai Lynx organizers early that the company had not commissioned the FP7 entry. Samsung Electronics, on the other hand, became the subject of controversy that reached Lebanese national papers because of the FP7 Doha ad that Samsung had not commissioned.
For Aramex, FP7 Doha won a Gold and a Silver in Press and, another Gold in Outdoor in Cannes Lions 2008. The Aramex ad bore a striking resemblance to a FedEx ad.
Visit www.dubailynx.com/winners/2010/ for more details.
adobo magazine. The Word on Advertising.
