OMD walked away the biggest winner at this year’s Gemas Effies, bagging more than a third of the 30 category awards handed out on the night.
The media agency’s haul included two golds, five silvers and five bronzes, with its work for Henkel and PepsiCo the most awarded. However, the grand prix went to Interesting Times Beirut for its ‘Courage is Contagious’ campaign for Snowball SAL. A total of seven golds were handed out, including one for Memac Ogilvy Label and Mindshare Tunisia’s ‘June 16th 2014’, which won gold at Cannes. Other golds went to Leo Burnett Beirut for its Bank Audi ‘Loubnani Card’; Mindshare for its ‘Tiida Troops’ for Nissan; and Impact BBDO Beirut for its ‘Cheyef 7alak’ for LBC.
The Gemas Effies, which are organised by Mediaquest, unite two initiatives – the global Effies and the GMR Effectiveness in Marketing Awards. They honour excellence in marketing effectiveness.
“The winners of the Effies awards are brands that could prove they had met a marketing challenge with an idea big enough and effective enough that won the hearts and minds of their consumers,” said Judd Labarthe, chairman of the judging panel, representing Effie Worldwide, and executive planning director at G2 Germany.
Elie Khouri, CEO of Omnicom Media Group MENA, the holding group that includes OMD, said: “Effectiveness is something we take as seriously as our clients and have had a tradition of challenging the status quo to raise the bar in this area. Be it through research initiatives, planning and data management systems or specialist services such as digital planning, social media or branded content, this has considerably helped us take our clients to new heights, as these accolades amply demonstrate.”
