JWT MENA Hattrick at New York Festivals

JWT Cairo’s “Fakka” campaign for Vodafone Egypt was awarded Gold and Silver medals in the Direct & Collateral category for Creative Marketing Effectiveness.  JWT Dubai’s “Bookends” campaign for Kinokuniya was awarded a Bronze in the Outdoor category, making both campaigns considered some of the best advertising in the world.

 

 

After 7 grueling rounds of judging JWT Cairo’s innovative launch campaign for Vodafone’s micro re-charge cards - “Fakka” - clearly stood out.  “Fakka” means ‘small change’ in Arabic and by leveraging the cultural insight that small change is often hard to come by in Egypt so retailers often offer low-value items in place of change, JWT Cairo created a ‘new currency’.  Vodafone’s “Fakka” cards are so popular more than 46,000 small shops up and down the country have become distributors, increasing the client’s original revenue target by 510%.

 

 

JWT Dubai’s work for the world’s biggest bookstore chain, Kinokuniya, also struck a chord with the jury.  Handcrafted “Bookends” were the centre-piece of Kinokuniya Dubai’s interactive in-store event demonstrating the importance of education for underprivileged children.  Each pair of bookends illustrated the dangers children living in poverty face – such as child labour and human trafficking – at one end, and their abusers at the other.  Shoppers placed a copy of the book they had just purchased between the bookends, gradually separating the vulnerable children from their abusers. 

 

 

Commenting on the awards Ramsey Naja, JWT MEA’s Chief Creative Officer said “Fakka represents that rare moment when creativity happens at every level.  A brilliant product, insightful and innovative planning, a simple and effective idea that fuses the whole thing and an explosive deployment that makes you go "wow".   "Bookends" has many of those components as well, but it is also a great example of how business ideas can do a power of good - that our industry can actively be part of something special, and use commerce beyond its commercial aspect. These two winning ideas are the kind of thing that makes you love this job.”

 

 

Vodafone “Fakka” received top honours at the Dubai Lynx Festival of Creativity earlier in the year, being awarded the Grand Prix in Promo & Activation along with two Golds.   Kinokuniya “Bookends” was awarded 2 Golds, 2 Silvers and a Bronze at Dubai Lynx.