Just to mention, I don’t work with Publicis Graphics anymore, and not with any other advertising agency.

Looks like Team Y&R learned a lesson from the war with PG last year, following the Jordan Advertising Awards last year, Y&R decided not to congratulate their clients for all the awards they got, and instead they gave the finger to PG in a full-page ad in order to tease them, PG replied with ad congratulating their clients, and Y&R’s too, which caused some troubles for Y&R. Check this war out.

But looks like Y&R learned the lesson, and decided to thank RJ for reappointing them as their advertising agency.

2007 was an aggressive year, first with the awards & the war, and with the Royal Jordanian pitch, couple of agencies competed to win this prestigious account, but seems like RJ awarded the account to Y&R.

So Y&R thanked RJ with nice ad, as you can see the layout is mixed between Y&R and RJ layouts, and the header mixed Y&R and RJ – Y&RJ.

Congratulations Y&R! PG good luck!

According to Ipsos reports, the Jordanian advertising sector grew up by almost 30%, reaching to 280 millions USD. Jordan maintained its position and came in the 7th place in the Middle East with 3% of the total spends, following Pan Arab media, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Kuwait and Egypt.

For the normal observer this might look big, but of course there are a lot of factors that has to be taken into consideration like that fact that prices is going up constantly, plus there are a lot of advertisements on barter basis or even, and finally don’t forget that these numbers are based on official rate cards, meaning no discounts are considered here, but of course there is a growth.

Last year was certainly a flourishing year for media in Jordan, a lot of brands in Jordan either did rebranding exercises or launched new identities, mainly in telecom and banking, on the other hand, the elections was an important factor in increasing the spends, I wonder if ad spends in Jordan this year will drop since there is no elections and probably no massive rebranding campaigns.

You can read about this issue on AlGhad, you also can download Ipsos reports from IAA Jordan website.

Press dominated the media scene and reserved the lion’s share with approximately 76% of the total expenditure, leaving TV, outdoor, radio, magazines and cinema as little as 24%, unfortunately this report, and the rest of reports in other Middle Eastern markets don’t cover online media.

Arab countries are really weird, either TV dominates or Press, in UAE press dominates while in Egypt TV is the boss, other countries are not an exception, a look to the whole region shows that TV and Press are almost the same with more than 46% each.

Outdoor witnessed a drop in total spends, probably it was effected by the rooftops massacre that happened last year, Ipsos 2006 report shows that outdoor scored 6% of the total spends reaching to 12.9 million, while 2007 report shows that outdoor scored slightly less than this number, I guess 12 million, even that 2006 report covered only 70% of outdoor media in Jordan.

TV and Radio witnessed an increase, magazines as well with a slight increase, while cinema remained the same, and of course online was offlined.

“Telecom” remained first with 20% of the total expenditure, “Entertainment & Leisure” jumped from the 4th place to share the 2nd place with “Banking and Finance” with 12% each, “Servicing Companies” came 4th with 11% while “Property & Building” came 5th with 8%.

You can download full reports from IAA Jordan website.

This is an amazing billboard for AlGhad newspaper in Jordan, as you can see it says: “Truth above it all”, the bad thing about it is that the billboard is located on the other side of airport road, I guess it would make a great wall-unit inside Amman.