Reviewing the Campaign Media Planning Awards winners list and I didn’t find anything from Jordan, not even in the shortlist which contained entries from GCC, Lebanon and Egypt. The Awards aims at rewarding media agencies on their creativity in using the media as marketing channels and it seems nothing really creative is happening in Jordan or Jordanian agencies are simply not bothered to participate.

Advertising spends in Jordan are rising, number of mediums is constantly growing and most importantly is the awareness of the importance of advertising and marketing communications in Jordan which is growing as well, but where do we really stand? After all those years can we really compete with other countries in the region?

I remember a nice idea of using media in Jordan, the client was Al-Ghad newspaper and the media was Layalina magazine. A belly-band branded by Al-Ghad was attached to the central double-spread pages of the magazine, the 2 pages contained an ad for Al-Ghad and so anyone who opened the magazine for the first time had to see the ad.

I worked for the leading MBU (Media Buying Unit) in Jordan and the truth is that media planning and buying in Jordan isn’t driven by rational or figures as it is driven by relations and alliances between agencies and media owners but even though what is stopping agencies from using media in a creative way instead of just inserting the ad and that’s it.