Judging Dates for Effie MENA Awards 2015 Announced

Deliberations for region’s leading marketing awards programme will take place November 15-16, 2015

Dubai, UAE, November 15, 2015 – The judging for this year’s Effie MENA Awards will be held on November 15-16, 2015, event organiser Mediaquest has announced. Taking place at The Westin Dubai Mina Seyahi, the deliberations for the foremost awards programme for the region’s marketing industry will include luminaries from a cross section of industries who have been invited to bring their expertise to the adjudication process.

“As organisers of the annual Effie MENA Awards, we are both honoured and delighted to have distinguished figures participating as judges in this year’s programme. The quality of our panel means that the winners of this year’s Effie will have the kudos of knowing that their work has been deemed the best by preeminent leaders in their respective fields,” said Alexandre Hawari, Co-CEO of Mediaquest Corp.

Members of the Effie MENA Awards judging panel for this year include more than 80 international and regional judges: Ian Armstrong, Advertising General Manager at Jaguar Land Rover, UK; Dany Doueik, Chief Commercial Officer at VIVA/STC; Ajay Keerthy, Head of Marketing UAE & MENA – RBWM Marketing at HSBC Bank Middle East; Felix H Weller, Managing Director Sales & Marketing – Cadillac at General Motors; Islam El Dessouky, Integrated Marketing Communications Manager at The Coca-Cola Company; Thomas Delabriere, Vice President Marketing – Middle East, Turkey and Africa at MARS GCC; Asad ur Rehman, Director Media – MENA at Unilever Gulf FZE and Vikram Krishna, Head Group Marketing & Customer Experience at Emirates.

The Effie MENA awards judging process comprises two rounds. The first round sees submissions assessed on a stand-alone basis without comparison to other entries in their respective categories. The second round involves the finalists being judged within their respective categories by more than 80 judges.

In evaluating each of the submissions, the judges are asked to use four specific criteria; ‘Strategic Challenge,’ ‘Idea,’ ‘Bringing the Idea to life’ and ‘Results.’ The last of these four categories, ‘Results,’ assesses the effectiveness of the campaign and with 30 percent of the total, provides the lion’s share of the scoring. The three other criteria are worth the remaining 70 percent, with the scoring split equally among them. All voting is undertaken confidentially.

This year’s Effie MENA awards are sponsored by Choueiri Group, General Motors, Tecom Investments, Sky News Arabia, Al Aan TV, Atl Media – A Zee Network Enterprise, Digital Venture, Nimbuzz, Sony, Yahoo! among others.

Launched in New York in 1968, the Effie awards were created to honour marketing ideas that achieved the best results, with the programme rapidly establishing a reputation as being the most prestigious of all professional marketing awards. The Effie awards today celebrate the Global Effie, Effie MENA, Euro Effie, Effie Asia Pacific and the North American Effies.

“The Effie MENA Awards shine a light on the most brilliant players in the MENA region’s marketing and advertising landscape, with the scheme having successfully cemented itself as the leading industry awards programme. Now in its seventh edition, the Effie MENA awards has become the benchmark for acknowledging the ‘ideas that work’ and the concepts that have had the most measurable impact both in this part of the world and further afield,” added Hawari.

About Mediaquest
Mediaquest is one of the region’s most influential privately-owned media companies. Established in 1997, Mediaquest’s mission is to inform, educate and entertain audiences across the MENA region, thereby building bridges between the Arab world and the West. Mediaquest generates a combined online and offline portfolio of more than 20 titles, covering marketing, communications, women’s interests, lifestyle, entertainment and automotive. Reputed brands include: Buro24/7 ME, Marie Claire Arabia, Haya Magazine, AMEinfo and Kippreport, as well as the highly regarded business-to-business titles: Trends Magazine, Gulf Marketing Review, Saneou Al Hadath, Arabies and Communicate. Mediaquest’s dedicated Dotmena network hosts 75 premium websites that attract more than 41 million unique visitors each month. Mediaquest creates, project manages and delivers some of the region’s best-known industry events, including Festival of Media, arab luxury world, TOP CEO, Marketing to Women, and Effie Mena Awards to name a few.