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 For some reason, the office of Starcom MediaVest Group Dubai was full of happy people at the end of last week. Even the receptionist was eating cake.
Two of the reasons for the general feeling of goodwill were casually on display at SMG’s fifth-floor offices in Dubai Media City; two tapering glass shapes, with gold colouring inlaid – just a couple of the 17 awards, including Media Agency of the Year, that SMG took home from the Lynx on Tuesday 17 March.
Coming from last year’s win of a big fat nothing from its uninspiring total of four entries, SMG’s overwhelming success in the media category this year is impressive – although as this is only the second year Lynx has run the media awards, it’s clear that agencies are still finding their awards feet.
And according to Tarek Daouk, executive veep at SMG Dubai, this was indeed what hampered his agency last time around: “Frankly, we were not prepared. We didn’t have time to submit enough entries last year – we had a lot of work, but the work as you present it to clients, you need to put it in the format that the awards organisers are requesting.
“But obviously this year the work is done, finished, presented to the clients a long time ago. So we had a little bit more time to prepare,” he added.
Going from what, judging by the numbers and Daouk’s assessment of SMG’s entries, was a slightly faltering start for the Media category in Lynx in 2008, to this year’s impressive haul of 39 awards for media agencies, the region’s players have now launched whole-heartedly into the competitive fray.
Daouk in fact argues that it is now media, more than creative, where much of the pioneering work in marketing is happening, and that the rise of media-focused awards in competitions such as Lynx is recognition of this.
“It’s following who is driving more innovation. If you look at it, a bit part of the innovation now is how you use the media, whereas innovation used to be 100% in the message, in the TVC that was produced, in the radio copy. This obviously still exists, but innovation, how you communicate with the consumer, the perspective, is getting a lot more attention,” said Daouk.
“This is why you find a lot more creative agencies entering the media sector. Creative agencies are discovering that unless you know how to deal with this, it’s not enough to develop the message – you need to know how to deliver it,” he added.
As far as its strategy for fostering potential winners – and, therefore, effective campaigns – SMG focuses on both internal competition and reward, as well as eager participation in external award ceremonies such as Lynx.
“We try to participate in as many events as possible – the sophisticated one, the less-sophisticated, the regional, the international. Everything. Yes, all events are not the same, not the same quality – but, frankly, who cares? Any way of motivating all these advertising people to be more creative, any way of motivating the client – let’s do it,” explained Daouk – although some might take exception to the apparent lack of discrimination between award ceremonies.
Daouk is also keen to highlight the growing diversity of the winning campaigns, moving on, he says, from the days when most in the industry assumed award-winning work came from Dubai, and came from big accounts.
“Over the years we started seeing a lot of award-winning work coming from markets that were not traditionally considered to be like Dubai. Then it becomes contagious, because more and more people want to be involved,” he said.
“If you look at media awards, 95% used to come from Dubai, 95% used to come from multinationals. This year if you look at our list, you have local, multinational, FMCG, telecom, bars, toothpaste – a wide diversity of clients,” added Daouk.
In the increasingly-unpleasant economic situation (we’re statutorily obliged to mention this at least once a day), Daouk sees a certain amount of opportunity, rather than threat, and points out that in harder times, clients are more likely to look at innovative ways to approach media buying.
But there are threats on the horizon, he explained: “Keep an eye on companies like Geant, Carrefour, the big supermarkets in Saudi Arabia like Panda – if these businesses go down, then people aren’t buying. They’re going down in volume and value – it’s not just the number of products, it’s the value of products.
“The biggest threat that’s facing marketing is consumer demand. When it’s a shared game, someone will lose and someone will gain. But when the whole demand is shrinking, it’s a big problem,” Daouk concluded.
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