Ramzi Raad named Dubai Lynx advertising person of the year

TBWA\Raad’s chairman and CEO, Ramzi Raad, has been named this year’s Dubai Lynx Advertising Person of the Year.

Only the third person to receive the accolade, Raad will be handed the award during the Dubai Lynx Awards Ceremony on 17 March at The Palladium in Dubai.

The Advertising Person of the Year award, which was previously won by Joseph Ghossoub, president and CEO of MENACOM, and Tanvir Kanji, head of Inca Tanvir, honours someone who by their efforts, energy and dedication, has lifted the presence and profile of the region within the international advertising, marketing and communications community.

Terry Savage, chairman of Cannes Lions, who, with Motivate Publishing are joint organisers of the festival, said: “Ramzi has been, and continues to be, an instrumental figure in the development and growth of the advertising and communications industry throughout the Middle East and North Africa. We are delighted to pay tribute to his dedication and success.”

Raad, who founded TBWA\Raad in 1999 and has been in the industry for 40 years, said: “I am extremely humbled and flattered to be acknowledged by the Middle East ad industry with this award, which I consider only partly personal, as most of the credit goes to my TBWA colleagues who have earned this honour along with me. I am so pleased that this comes to me on the 10th Anniversary of TBWA\RAAD, confirming that we have fulfilled the TBWA mantra to ‘Change the Rules of Arab advertising’ something I had promised to do, and we have done it in record time.”

The 3rd Dubai International Advertising Festival and accompanying Dubai Lynx takes place from 14-17 March.

Night of a 1000 Drawings to get its Dubai debut

The global doodling phenomenon Night of a 1000 Drawings is coming to Dubai for the first time, aided by Flip Media, TBWA\RAAD and Tonic Communications.

The agencies are working in tandem with the creative collective LEGION DXB for the art exhibition and one night event, to be held on November 24th from 7.00pm, at Art Sawa Gallery in the Al Quoz area of Dubai.

The event will see 1000 A5-sized original drawings by established artists and members of the public, auctioned off to benefit the charity Gulf for Good. Proceeds will then be distributed to the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund towards medical equipment.

The evening will also feature live drawing ‘Doodle Showdowns’ and sets by UAE bands Juliana Down, Sandwash and The Recipe.

Senior members of each agency have contributed to the available artworks, with Yousef Tuqan Tuqan, CEO of Flip Media, commenting: Flip Media is proud to be associated with Night of a 1000 Drawings Dubai. It’s a wonderful initiative by our creative industry to give something back to our community.”

The hugely succesful doodling evenings that have contributed to artworks, were held at a variety of venues including art spaces The Jam Jar and The Fridge.

TBWA\Raad and Grey Beirut strike gold in NY… Lowe and Y&R grab silver

TBWA\Raad Dubai has struck gold at the New York Festivals courtesy of its self-promotional work ‘2009 Holiday Card’.

The award is one of a handful won by the region, including a silver for Lowe MENA’s ‘chewing gum’ for MTV International’s Staying Alive 2008.

Also taking home gongs is Y&R Dubai, which was handed one silver for its ‘splatter’ campaign for Land Rover, and two bronzes – one for client Harvey Nichols and the other for Xerox.

Talking from Cannes, Reda Raad, group managing director of TBWA\Raad Middle East, said of the gold win: “We are delighted with the gold trophy. It’s a testament to the wonderful creative culture that we are building across the TBWA\Raad network.”

TBWA\Raad Saudi Arabia is also celebrating after scooping two bronzes for its ‘Miniature Magazine’ campaign for Masa Pest Control – the first ever wins for Saudi Arabia at the New York Festivals. A number of other agencies walked away with finalist certificates.

UPDATED
Grey Beirut has walked away with gold in the outdoor category for its ‘Split ends’ campaign for Pantene.

Dubai creatives join forces for good of industry

A group of Dubai creatives have come together to establish a club designed to break down agency barriers and represent the community with a single voice.

The new ‘Creative Club’ had its inaugural meeting last night and included creative directors and executive creative directors from Y&R, FP7, Tonic, JWT, Lowe, TBWA\Raad and Brandcom.

The group, which has found a home courtesy of Sam Ahmed at Studio Central, will be meeting monthly. It will also be forming an executive committee and has elected Marc Lineveldt (pictured), executive creative director of FP7 Dubai, as the inaugural chairman.

The aim is for the forum to become a focal point for senior creatives, all of whom are being encouraged to join the club and help combine the opinions of Dubai’s creative community into a single voice.

The Creative Club follows on from the defunct Creative Directors Forum, which was formed in 2005 by many of the creative directors present last night, including Lineveldt, Vincent Raffray from Tonic, and Manoj Ammanath from Brandcom.

“This is very much what Marc and I wanted to do in the first place,” said Raffray. “What’s different is that in Studio Central we have a great place to meet and a real commitment. It’s a better environment and with all the issues that have been happening recently it’s a good time to get together for the benefit of the community. The goal is to give a voice to the region’s creatives and to raise creative standards.”

Disappointment at D&AD, optimism at Clios

Middle East ad agencies have failed to gain any nominations at this year’s D&AD Awards despite D&AD nominating a record 165 entries.

DDB London and BBDO Proximity Malaysia are the two most shortlisted agencies, with 10 and five respectively.

Of the 20,000 pieces of work judged, 717 entries have gone In-Book and will be included in the D&AD Annual as a record of the best work in advertising and design this year. The annual will be published in September and the only Middle East entry will be The Classic Partnership Advertising in the graphic design/stationery category for Tearproof for Prasad Karmarkar.

There was more positive news from the Clios earlier this week, however, where six pieces of regional work are shortlisted. Y&R is shortlisted three times for its ‘Cause & Effect’ work for Harvey Nichols and its ‘Graves’ ads for Eye Bank Association of India; while TBWA\Raad Dubai has two shortlisted pieces of work and Grey Dubai one. TBWA\Raad Saudi Arabia also picked up the country’s first shorlisted entry for its ‘Miniature magazines’ work for Masa Pest Control.

Lynx predictions – ‘Khede Kasra’ to win the day

The TV and integrated shortlists are out and it’s easy to see where international judge Steffan Postaer was coming from when he let rip at the quality of the TV work earlier this week. However, while this may not be a vintage year for TV, there is the odd little nugget of gold if you dig deep enough.

Eliot over at AdNation tells us he’s got the winners list in his hands, but we’re going with our gut. So, here are our favourites for gold in the TV: FP7 Dubai’s ‘Bird’, ‘Cake’ and ‘Dog’ for Sony; Leo Burnett Beirut’s ‘Stop the suffering’ for P&G; TBWA\Raad’s ‘Long-time-no-see Saudi kiss’ for MTV Arabia; and Lowe’s ‘Staying alive’ for MTV.

In the integrated, Leo Burnett Beirut’s ‘Khede Kasra’ for The Hariri Foundation, and Memac Ogilvy’s ‘Fight breast cancer’ are our top tips. But ‘Khede Kasra’ to steal the glory.