Salua and I have just come back from the Jordan Advertising Awards 2005. Jordan’s ad agencies had a ball. Everyone was pretty charged up and ready to go Wheeeeeeeeeeoooooooooooooooo” when their agency won an award. The ever dynamic Zeid Nasser is the man behind this event and tonight was the fourth time his company, MediaScope, organizes the event in cooperation with ArabAd magazine. As usual Zeid was moving among the tables, greeting everyone and, later on, sternly ordering people to their place to allow the show to begin :) .

The rather flowery opening speech was given by ArabAds’s Walid Azzi, who actually had to tell the audience to keep it down. The advertising crowd are just so noisy!

The big winners tonight seemed to be Team Y&R (who’s group of companies reportedly had 13 tables in the hall), Adpro and Publicis, with decent showings by Objects Advertisng and Saatchi & Saatchi.

One thing I have to say is that Jordan’s advertising industry is definitely growing and improving. The first show, as far as I can recall, was just full of really horrible ads. Tonight we saw some decent work. The visual design of the ads is improving too. Just don’t expect too many groundbreaking ideas. As a society, we are relatively new to marketing driven consumer culture. We still have to use ads that sell through product benefit explanation, and the ‘wow-now-you-can-get-two-burgers-for-the-price-of-one’ technique.

But the rising production values of the ads, as well as some forays into creativity, cheekiness and humor, are giving Jordanian advertising better overall scores.

The Jordan Advertising awards seem to be one hell of a morale booster for agency staff. Those guys and girls slave away day in, day out, and the Awards are a nice night out for the team. The concept of winning awards gives the whole thing a competitive sport spirit. “Whhhhhhhoooooooooooooeeeeeeeeewwww”!!

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Incidentally, at the Zara Expo, the MAD (Media and Advertising) show (as in ‘expo’) was held during the past few days. I didn’t attend that, but Roba did.

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6 responses to “Jordan’s ad agencies got their night at the awards.. whhoooooooaaaaaahhh..”

  1. Roba Avatar
    Roba

    Oh, wow, interesting. I really wanted to go, but found out about it after all the tickets were sold out. Oh, well, yalla next year :)

    It’s good to see that our advertising industry is improving, and ya3ni, having this sort of motivational award show is a good step forward.

    A lot of times I find the local lack of awareness when it comes to target design completely shocking- it really doesn’t take a designer or a marketer to avoid some of the design/concept mistakes that happen.

  2. Ibrahim Avatar
    Ibrahim

    in the past i had a thought that all Ads on satellite TV was produced by jordanian Agencies, coz i always thought that jordanians are the best :D
    but then when i arrived to Riyadh and went inside this business, i discovred that all Ads done by Saudi or Dubai Ad Agencies but they take it and produce it in Lebanon offices … so my idea changed about jordanian Agencies and i realised that jordanians are a way behind lebanese in this business … but when you look at it from diffrenet angel, you will see that jordanian Agencies are doing great comparing to Lebanese agencies whom are taking lots of money on their ADs from Saudi and Emirtes market …
    coz what i know that in jordan companies dont pay well to their Agencies …

    but i think with the booming in the jordanian market now the chance will be open to jordanian Agencies to prove their self and compete with other Agencies in the region …

    about the jordanain ADs Awards, someone told me once that beside Zaid company MediaScope there was other orginser which is Telemax, and they were always take the Awards for theirself …even if it was crap, i dont know if this is right but i heared it also from many pepole.
    but as i see now their name is not mentioned in your post so maybe things changed :)

  3. Ahmad Avatar
    Ahmad

    The “WOW” effect, Indeed!

    My first time at the Adv Awards night was surreal! it felt great, everyone was in their greatest mood and form!

    Yes, the agencies have raised the bar on the standards of the quality of the presentd Ads!

    We, Objects Adv, won 10 (4 gold), and it felt GOOOOOOOD, it was the festive spirit of the team, the joy of coming back and harvesting awards as this great agency does every year! the biggest hit was the “Corporate identity image TV ad” that we won the gold for … Man! i want to go again!

    OBJECTS, Team Y&R, Saatchi&Saatchi, Puplicics, AdPro, Promo7, Wunderman, Intermarkets and Elite Design have shown an edge and that means only one thing … Next time is going to be absolutely Ground breaking!

    congrats for all the winners, and those who participated in, the old big pitchers, the new junior league, the seat warmers, the lovely celebrating audience, the outfits, the hair do’s, Hyatt, Zied Naser and the patient host Taleen … :)

  4. Global Voices Online Avatar
    Global Voices Online

    From the Jordanian Blogosphere

    On International Affairs:
    On the Jordanian blogging front, talk related to Katarina can still be heard. Jameed mentions an opinion that suggests that the focus on looting by “violent gangs” was a means “to divert attention from the t…

  5. nandor stamenkovits Avatar
    nandor stamenkovits

    hello everybody ,
    i’m a advertising photographer specialised in food.
    i would like to work overthere.
    can you help me ?
    i like to know some more , if tther are enough good photgraphers etc.

    please send mail ,sincerly yours ,
    Nandor Stamenkovits

  6. Jabar Avatar
    Jabar

    Wow! that’s good to know. Jordan’s ad agencies won an award. According to what I’ve read and had known that the rapid development of Jordan’s information and technology industry has promoted by the government. They have found skilled designers to handle the technical know-how. And that sounds great!