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The 2022 Cresta Awards winners have been unveiled and it is a great story for the Middle East.
347 shortlists were initially announced from the globe at this year's Cresta Awards, including 58 from the Middle East region, which converted into 222 awards, of which 36 trophies were awarded to the Middle East region.
“Undoubtedly the Middle East is a standout region at this year’s Cresta Awards,” said Cresta President Alan Page. “The jury was very discriminating in what it gave awards to this year so to see these projects coming out so strongly from the Middle East is a real statement of the rising creative standards of entrants in the region.”
With both a Grand Prix and the most outstanding single client performance, Middle East entrants have emerged triumphant at this year’s Cresta Awards.
THE ONLY GRAND PRIX FROM THE MIDDLE EAST
Impact BBDO Dubai, working with its sister office in Beirut, picked up one of only five Grand Prix to be awarded at the famously demanding competition, where the strong jury and unique judging system is more exacting in presenting trophies than many global competitions. The agency won for ‘The Election Edition’ project created for the An-Nahar Newspaper in Beirut, where an edition of the newspaper was not printed but instead donated paper to help ensure the election ballot papers could be printed for the election last February.
'The Elections Edition', which also won Gold in ambient and experiential, won the Grand Prix for Innovation in Print/ Out of Home.
THE MOST AWARDED MIDDLE EAST AGENCY
Also putting in an immense performance was Horizon FCB Dubai, which took eight awards, including four Golds, for its Breakchains with Blockchain project, created for the NGO Children of Female Prisoners Association. The jury rated the work highly for its technical innovations in applying blockchain and NFT art to raise money to enable women to be freed from imprisonment for minor debts. As a matter of fact, Horizon FCB Dubai converted all of its 8 entries into trophies, including Gold in Digital Craft ‘Innovative Techniques’, in Digital Craft ‘Outstanding Digital Illustrations’, in Creative E-Commerce, in ‘The Future’; Silver in ‘The Wish We’d Thought of that Award’, in the ‘Media Magic Award’; Bronze in ‘Direct’ and the ‘OMG’ categories making Horizon FCB Dubai the most awarded Middle East agency at Cresta this year.
THE MOST OUTSTANDING SINGLE CLIENT PERFORMANCE
The UAE Government Media Office took a massive haul of awards in recognition of its stand out projects to fight global hunger. As direct entrant, it collected two Silver and seven Bronze awards for ‘The Donation Plate’, a project that used QR codes to prompt donation from diners to give a meal to a hungry person, part of the UAE’s 100 Million Meals Initiative.
For the UAE Government Media Office as its client, Saatchi & Saatchi MEA picked up Gold, Silver and four Bronze awards for the ‘Empty Plates’ project, which used blank license plates on cars to draw attention to worldwide hunger and raised many millions in donations from people bidding to buy the unusual plates.
In total, the UAE Goverment Media Office won 15 awards and 11 Shortlists. The awards are as follow: 1 Gold, 1 Silver, and 4 Bronze for 'Empty Plates'; 2 Silver and 1 Bronze for 'The Donation Plate'; 4 Bronze for 'The Warm Winter Livestream'; 2 Bronze for 'The Visitor from the Future'.
“Across all the stand out entrants from the Middle East, what we see is a remarkable combination of big creative ideas with technical innovation that goes on to deliver real results,” commented Lewis Blackwell, Cresta CEO.
Leo Burnett Riyadh had a remarkable breakthrough this year at Cresta with its campaign for IKEA taking a massive haul of five Silvers and five Bronze, being highly recognised in numerous craft categories.
And getting Qatar on the awards map was production company The Film House, Doha, taking a Bronze for its film ‘Unparalleled’, created for the Doha Forum.
Cresta is the Creative Standards organization and has been showcasing and benchmarking exceptional creativity since 1993.
Cresta’s entries are judged by a carefully chosen world-class jury of more than 120 senior industry leaders, who vote independently online to establish benchmarks for global creative standards. In the words of the jury members, this year's Cresta produced "an amazing crop of entries" with "such stellar work", which strengthen this unprecedented performance for Middle East agencies at Cresta Awards 2022.
Earlier, commenting on the work entered from 70 countries, Cresta President Alan Page had remarked, “Our awards announcement will work as a marker of new directions in creativity.”
The special Jury Chair Award is yet to be announced and will be chosen by this year’s jury Chairperson, Ali Rez, Chief Creative Officer at IMPACT BBDO.
