Dubai: The region’s advertising industry has seen it all in the last two years. Bitter regional conflicts continue to cast a pall on society and consumer sentiments, and, more recently, the realisation that the economic upturn fuelled by $100 a barrel for oil may have run its course.
The feedback from senior ad professionals is that they will spend as much time nursing their corporate bottom-line as they would in clearing a hotshot creative idea that has a chance to break through the clutter.
But whatever be the broader sentiment, the ad industry is not about to let creativity get a downgrade in their scheme of things. On Wednesday evening, the Dubai Lynx Awards celebrated the best of the creatives that were put out through 2014, with Leo Burnett picking up honours for being the ‘Network of the Year’, while its Beirut office became ‘Agency of the Year’. Another key win also went to a Beirut entity, with Republique named the ‘Independent Agency of the Year’.
Dubai headquartered Starcom MediaVest Group became the top media agency, while the Lynx Palm Award — handed over to the most awarded production company — was for Déjà vu to take home.
But will creativity take a bit of a back seat through this year as key consumer-facing sectors such as retail feel the force of slightly depressed sentiments? While “budgets cannot inhibit creativity, they have an adverse effect on the implementation of concepts (and) eventually leading to compromising solutions,” said Charles Awad, Director of Marketing Communications at Gmasco, the in-house agency for the Al-Futtaim Group brands.
“At the end of the day, a creative solution can be only as good as the sales it is helping to generate for a brand and — more often than not — it is the simplest of ideas that usually are the more effective. So budgets or no budgets, creativity should have no boundaries.”
Last year, estimates from Cheil Mena suggest that overall ad spend in the Middle East and North Africa territory was up 13 per cent. “Digital ad spend has increased significantly and will keep up year-on-year growth by around 37 per cent,” said Sari Bou Karroum, Media Manager at Cheil Mena.
“The rise in social media’s influence, content curators and creators has sparked agencies and clients alike to pursue digital content marketing and co-creation channel investments. That is apart from search and online videos, which continue to be heavily favoured. We should also not neglect content marketing and the rise of native advertising.”
Meanwhile, the UAE Chapter of the IAA has unveiled a programme to catch them young. A competition — named ‘YOUth ROAR’ — will give four winners the chance to attend the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, in June.
The idea is that the chosen ones will have to ‘campaign their way to Cannes’ by sharing a photo or video illustrating why they deserve to be there. (In keeping with the times and the target audience, participants can submit their entries on the IAA UAE Chapter’s Facebook page or via Twitter, using the hashtag #IAATicketToCannes.) “We hope this campaign, in conjunction with numerous others that we are planning through the year, will show young professionals in the industry that we are a relevant and active organisation that works to support them,” said Hani Ghorayeb, President of the IAA UAE Chapter and Chief Operating Officer at AMS-Choueiri Group. (The UAE Chapter had earlier launched the Young Guns and #IAALynxTreat initiatives.) According to Awad, “The output of a creative person — whether graphic designer, art director, PR manager of social media executive — can find different avenues of expression and have an impact on all different types of audiences, from digital to social, outdoor to print, and in video, still or plain text.
“It is the way we express creativity that has a definitive impact on budgets. But that’s doesn’t change the fact that creativity itself should not be hindered by budgeting constraints … especially in an era empowered by the proliferation of social media and owned digital platforms. ”
But agency owners would still not mind if all those creative ideas can flourish within the confines of a budget.
