Dubai Lynx Cartoons | LYNX Gives You Wiiiiings!

Paging Through the Print Shortlist at Dubai Lynx 2008

With more than 42%, Print dominated the scene at the Dubai Lynx 2008 advertising awards. This year, 863 print entries competed to be among the shortlist that has been announced earlier, only 195 ads survived and still waiting for the big night tomorrow.

I was looking through the shortlist, and I found quite interesting ads from various countries in the Middle East, representing majority of advertising networks in the region, some of the ad are really amazing, some don’t make any sense, but overall one can touch a promising level of creativity in the Middle East.

Here the ads I liked the most, but I guess there are a lot of ads that are supposed to be here, but anyway check them out!

Middle East’s First Advertising Festival, Dubai Lynx showcases an interesting work from the region

The first advertising festival in the Middle East, Dubai Lynx 2008, kicked-off with an extensive participation of creative minds from the region, as well as from the world.  The three-day event will feature a range of interesting speakers, you can find out more here, and you can still register to attend the event.

I’m really excited about the awards night where more than 2000 entries from will compete to win, after I saw the shortlisted entries I was really amazed. Unfortunately I missed the first day, but there is more to come.
I admire the management of  the festival from accepting my participation as “Press” through this blog, it’s a big step forward towards accepting blogs as media, thank you!

Here are various shots from the event, enjoy:

casualPR Announces the First Conference About Blogs in the Middle East “iBlog… iMedia”

I’m organizing the first conference about blogs is here, iBlog… iMedia!  The event will be in 19th of April 2008, the venue is not confirmed yet, but hopefully soon it will be.

The event is an opportunity for marketers and media professionals to explore the amazing world of blogging, and at the same time a chance for bloggers to realize the potential of their blogs as an advertising and PR outlet.

Attendance for bloggers is FREE! And for non-bloggers it costs only 100 $. Reserve your seat today, register here!

If you are a blogger, an online media professional or a marcom professional and you are interested in becoming a speaker at this conference, all you have to do is to contact me!

Sponsors, you are more than welcomed! Please check out the sponsorship packages here. Bloggers and media houses, your support is needed! Please come forward!

~ Below is the press release: ~

casualPR, the leading PR agency that focuses on the blogs and online journalism, announced the first conference about blogging in the Middle East, “iBlog… iMedia”. The event will be held in Amman Jordan on the 19th of April 2008.

The conference, which is the first of its kind in the Middle East, will tackle blogs from a media and marketing perspective, with a focus on potentials and risks that brands and traditional media is facing with this growing medium.

“iBlog… iMedia aims to bring media and marketing professionals closer to Blogs, and to highlight the role that bloggers are playing in changing the face of the media” said Samer Marzouq, CEO of erabia, the mother company of casualPR.

He also added: “Bloggers are competing with traditional media in attracting readers, search engines deal with blogs in the same way it deal with news sites and online media operators, and in some queries, blogs appear before well-known sites in search results.”

The event is a unique opportunity for marketers and media professionals to explore the world of blogging, and at the same time a chance for bloggers to discover the potentials for their blogs as an advertising and PR outlet.

Marzouq concluded: “Bloggers have the tools and the ability to judge brands and to give either positive or negative feedback on different products and services, this is a new form of word-of-mouth, and it’s even more effective than ever due to the wide reach a blog can achieve.”

iBlog… iMedia is expected to attract delegates and speakers from various professions, bloggers and journalists, as well as professionals from the marketing, media, PR and advertising fields.

Salam won the Jordanian Band Competition, followed by Vengo and Jadal

Last night was the final night of the Jordanian Band Competition, which was organized by Orange Red and The French Cultural Center for a whole year, Salam won the first place, followed by Zaid Hamarneh & Vengo second, while Jadal came third.

The event, which was held at The Royal Cultural Center, was full of excitement and energy, one can notice that Jadal is the most popular band among the three, and I guess the final results were not so pleasing for the majority of the crowd, who left the theater right after announcing the results and didn’t wait to see Salam in their final performance.

This event clearly shows that Jordan lacks musicians, three musicians played with both Vengo and Salam, so half of both bands was the same, could this be the reason that Jadal came last? Not only that, Salam featured the lovely voice of Sho Hal Ayam, Enass.

I guess you can’t be with two competitors at the same event, could you?

Personally I don’t like Jadal, and I thought that Salam were good, but if you think about it, Jadal performed only in Arabic, in a Jordanian accent, unlike Zaid Hamarneh & Vengo, who performed purely in a Lebanese accent, Salam performed in both Arabic and English, I wonder isn’t the local accent an important factor in such competitions?

Anyway congratulation to all winners! And looking forward for this year’s competition.

Night of the AdEaters | Imagine paying for watching commercials?

I really like this campaign for the Night of the AdEaters event in Kuwait, it’s an international event where a group of interesting commercials from all over the world are being played back-to-back, not the kind of events for those who hate TV Commercials

The campaign was created by Impact BBDO in Kuwait, each visual was themed by a certain brand like Pepsi, Mini, DHL and others, endorsing different brands in ads is interesting, check out this camping by the American Advertising Federation.

The copy was interesting as well, I guess this is right way to attract an audience that is mainly advertising and marketing professionals.

Advertising Agency: Impact BBDO, Kuwait
Art Director: Pankaj Bangde
Copywriter: Lokesh Achaiah
Creative Director: Viraj Ponkshe