The Jordan Web Awards Committee in association with Media Scope are launching the Jordan Web Awards. The competition is open to all designers, developers and websites owners in Jordan. The competition will cover 24 categories including a category for Blogs & Forums.
The deadline to submit a website is 31st of October 2006, winners will be announced in 1st of December 2006 in Amman, Jordan. Winners in Jordan Web Awards will compete with winners from other Arab countries for the prestigious Pan Arab Web Awards.
I had the chance to attend this year’s Pan Arab Web Awards that was held in Amman last April representing Maktoob.com, we won the Golden award in the Directories And Info Services.
It turned out that we Arabs being fascinated by foreigners (especially Europeans & Americans) and Arabs who either worked or studied there is not happening in Jordan only, I was reading an article in Campaign ME about clients in Gulf who turned their backs to local agencies and decided to work their major projects with agencies overseas.
Etisalat, the UAE’s telecom operator granted their re-branding process to a British company based in London called Rareform (which already handled the re-branding of Saudi Mobily). While Emirate’s new telecom operator DU recruited another London based firm called Turquoise to develop its brand identity. I guess Jordan Telecom hired a French agency to do their re-branding couple of years ago; they are re-branding again but this time with Team Y&R – Amman.
And it’s not only about branding and identity, Etihad Airways which is based in Abu Dhabi needed the services of a London based firm called Carlson Marketing to create its online presence. Moreover, a German firm; Plenum, Stoll & Fischbach was assigned to lead a multi-billion dollar project for Dubai Roads & Transport Authority which is Dubai Metro railway project.
And it’s not only about branding, identity, online presence or project management, reading more in the news, the UAE Chapter of the International Advertising Association (IAA) needed a respected partner such as the Cannes Lions to gain credibility for their annual advertising awards as many agencies accused the IAA of being injustice and bad organizer for such an event, the IAA totally denied that saying that agencies who didn’t win will never be satisfied.
Local firms don’t believe in local expertise for strategic project, but on the other hand the daily work is being assigned to local agencies; Etisalat’s day-to-day work is handled by Promoseven - Dubai, while DU’s daily work is being handled by Leo Burnett - Dubai; so in other words local expertise are good for simple jobs only.
This outsourcing phenomena might be resulted by the weak belief in local expertise or the lack of agencies, but certainly not the lack of talents. Many agencies in the Middle East have been awarded by international advertising festivals. Lots of brands have been created by local expertise, creative campaigns are being rolled-out more and more and the results were amazing.
Speaking about Jordan, I saw many creative campaigns totally created by Jordanian agencies such as Team Y&R, Publicis-Gaphics, Intermarkets, Wunderman, Adpro and many more. There are many examples of local clients who believed in local expertise, who I believe are more qualified to build our brands rather than someone living overseas.
And what applies on Marketing Communications & Advertising applies on all sorts on life, don’t you think?
Omnicom Media Group and Intel have agreed on a deal in which Omnicom will fund experiment with advertising in IP-delivered content — video delivered to TVs via the internet. Viiv is a new technology by Intel enables users to access content like movies, music, videos and games online and marketed itself on being a chip that allows users to send internet content to the TV. Intel Viiv technology is Intel’s premier brand for consumer PCs designed for digital entertainment.
The first test will involve three Omnicom clients and they are FedEx, Hilton and Nissan and will be in Manhattan, New York City where Intel has set up a CompUSA store. The first content company involved in the experiments is AOL and the group also is using ZeTools, a content-publishing solution. Among the other potential partners are Yahoo and movie companies.
The potential of this deal is high due to the huge content available online and to the potential feedback that can be gained from the viewer. This experiment reflects the desire that media companies and advertisers have to develop new methods to expose more and more consumers to more customized messages and build more awareness on specific brands.
September 24th, 2006
7:04 am
Jazar
The brilliant Jordanian actor Nabil Sawalha is going to do a stand-up comedy show that will be broadcasted live from Amman on MBC. The show is 40 minutes long and will feature 5 celebrities from the Arab world who will be performing live in front of the audience. I like stand-up comedy and I believe in Nabil as he is so funny, he made me chuckle so many times. I wish him good luck.
As far as I know bars, discos, night clubs and liquor stores in Jordan close their doors during the holy month of Ramadan or at least are prevented of selling alcohols; restaurants as well are not allowed to serve food before Iftar time. You feel Ramadan in Jordan and I really like that.
I was reading the newspaper the other day about the mechanism that hotels and restaurants should follow and it was mentioned that bars in 3, 4 & 5 hotels will work regularly during Ramadan. Restaurants will serve food as well but inside the place, they are not allowed to use terrace and outside yards before Iftar, they are also allowed to serve alcohols except of restaurants that are ranked 1 & 2 stars.
Tourism is important and tourists are not supposed to fast with us, but they are in an Islamic country and they should respect the holiness of this month, let them live this feeling with us. There are many ways to solve it; they can eat and drink in their rooms and problem solved, its only one month.
September 23rd, 2006
8:11 am
Ads
Nestea, a Coca-Cola owned Iced Tea brand is being promoted as refreshing and thirst-killer drink. Enjoy some refereshing ads created by Lowe Roche agency.
