The MMA have announced the winners of the esteemed SMARTIES MENA Awards. MMA Smarties aim to honour innovative and effective modern marketing campaigns from across the Middle East and North Africa region.
The industry gala, took place at The Rixos, JBR. The annual competition aims to highlight the most effective marketing campaigns from 2022 and with 90 trophies awarded throughout the evening, with this being the organisations largest event to date.
Winning campaigns are recognised by the World Advertising Research Center (WARC).
The main marketing campaign winner of the night was Yas Island and Initiative MENA / Momentum MENA who won across 5 categories, including ‘Brand Experience’, ‘Cross Platform – Digital Only’, ‘Social Media Marketing’, ‘Audio / Voice / Sonic Branding’ and ‘Short or Long Form Video’. Together, Yas Island and Initiative MENA / Momentum MENA took home 7 trophies; 4 gold, 1 silver and 2 bronze.
The most highly scored campaign, ‘YAS YAS Baby, by Yas Island’, Initiative MENA & Momentum MENA was awarded best in show by the judging panel.
the winner of the hotly contested ‘Purpose Driven Marketing – Sustainability (Brand & Product & Initiative)’ award. The silver award went to TikTok for their TikTok Climate Action campaign.
As a result, the ‘Marketing Impact – Brand Experience’, ‘Purpose Driven Marketing – Cross Platform’ and ‘Purpose Driven Marketing – Digital’ categories were particularly competitive. Across the 3 most competitive categories, thirty campaigns were shortlisted and eighteen trophies were given out on the night. 6 companies were awarded silverware in the ‘Marketing Impact – Brand Experience’ category with Ithra by Aramco and Leo Burnett KSA / Ithra by Aramco with Inspire Your World, and Yas Island and Initiative MENA / Momentum MENA with Yas Yas Baby, both taking home gold awards.
Melis Ertem, Regional Director of the MMA said “It has been a spectacular year for the MENA SMARTIES. We saw a record number of submissions across all categories with exceptionally high quality campaign results throughout. The success of MENA SMARTIES is proof of a thriving marketing industry, demonstrating our belief that collaborative working can shape the future. I congratulate all the winners for their hard work and look forward to next year.’
