Initiative MENA has had its innovative digital media work for its clients rewarded with the bestowing of four awards at the MENA Digital Awards ceremony, the first ever awards programme dedicated to honouring excellence in the region’s digital media sector. The communications network picked up two Silver and two Bronze Awards at the inaugural event, which was held in conjunction with Digital Media Forum 2014.
“Initiative MENA prides itself on creating eye-catching and engaging campaigns for its clients and we are naturally delighted that our creative efforts have been rewarded with these major wins at the first MENA Digital Awards ceremony,” said Ramzy Abouchacra, Regional Managing Director, Initiative MENA. “We work in partnership with our brands to produce memorable activities that resonate with audiences across the region and the main focus of our client advocacy is to seek out new and exciting ways of getting brand their messages across to consumers,” he added.
Initiative scooped its awards for promotions it had undertaken for two of its major clients, Etisalat and KFC Arabia. The Gold Award was collected in the category ‘Best Use of Video’ for its campaign ‘Two Locals Fighting in the Cinema,’ which it conducted for Etisalat. Its ‘Kintacky, Kintacky, Kintacky’ campaign for KFC Arabia earned the agency a Silver Award in the category ‘Best Use of Social Media’ and a Bronze Award in ‘Social Brand of the Year.’ A second Silver Award was also awarded in the Social Brand of the Year category for Initiative’s ‘Arch Rivals’ campaign for KFC Arabia.
“KFC Arabia has partnered with Initiative for several of its digital media campaigns, which have proved highly successful. With ‘Kintacky, Kintacky, Kintacky’ we showed we could react to an unexpected opportunity, in this case an Arab Idol judge demanding KFC live on air. With the ‘Arch Rival’ campaign, endorsed by Cristiano Ronaldo, we were able to leverage the sporting rivalry between the world’s two greatest football players,” said Hesham Tahssin, Regional Marketing Director, KFC MENA, Americana Group. “Partnering with Initiative is something that has been instrumental for our social media fan base growing from an initial 11,000 devotees in 2009 to a current estimated 2.5 million fans – we are very happy that their efforts for our brand have been acknowledged with three important awards,” he added.
“We were extremely happy with the ‘Two Locals Fighting in the Cinema’ campaign that Initiative conceived and executed for Etisalat,” said Ahmed Ali Alhashmi, Senior Vice President Brand and Communication at Etisalat. “The use of an actor in a real-life setting in a cinema to film people’s responses to a mobile conversation taking place was a groundbreaking one for our organisation and generated a great deal of positive feedback. We are not surprised that the agency walked away with the Bronze award in its category at the MENA Digital Awards,” he added.
Initiative MENA comes under the umbrella of the Middle East Communications Network, one of the largest communications groups in the MENA region. Established in 2001, Initiative’s network comprises over one hundred media specialists, with the agency operating several offices throughout the Gulf and Middle East.
