In a breathtaking laser show moving to the Star Wars music, the winners of the Okaz Creative Advertising Awards were announced Tuesday night in a ceremony graced with the presence of Prince Khaled Al-Faisal, Emir of Makkah Region, at the Jeddah Hilton. The ceremony was also attended by government officials, businesspeople, advertising agents, and media people. The awards initiative was the first step towards the first world, said Waleed Kattan, Director General of Okaz Organization for Press and Publication. Bab Rizq Jameel, an affiliate of Abdul Latif Jameel Community Services Programs (ALJCSP), has offered to present the 23 participants with a small-business loan of SR200,000 each to start their own businesses, Kattan said. “For the first three years, the competition would be limited within the Kingdom, but it would go regional on the fourth year and international on the seventh year, Kattan added. The ceremony was flavored with a folk dance music and solo saxophone performance that moved the audience on each side of the gender-segregated hall. The history of Okaz was also showcased through a visual extravaganza that took the audience about 50 years back in history when Okaz was started. On the Saudi talent category, newly-graduate surgeon Muhammad Al-Khashrami won the first position with his ad on encouraging the habit of reading among the youth. Al-Khashrami, an entrepreneur himself, won the first advertising competition he ever entered. “I started creative design as a hobby when I was in school, but it has developed into a profession,” he said. Al-Khashrami said he had to choose between surgery and creative advertising design as his full-time job. “It was a risk to go into the advertising profession and leave medicine behind, but it was worth it and this is the evidence,” he said pointing at his big shiny SR75,000 award check. National advertising company Full-Stop had a landslide win in the two public services categories; print and TV. “We are distinguished for employing Saudi minds to come up with home-grown advertising ideas,” said Qaswarah Al-Khateeb from Full-Stop. The company won a creativity award in Kuwait and took part in a recent film festival in Canada, he said, wishing his company to gain the confidence of the clients after such a victory. International advertising company Impact, which has been operating in Saudi Arabia for the last 25 years, won two gold, three silver, and two bronze awards in Okaz Awards competition. “We are training people with creative minds for a creative profession,” said Aboud Shami from Impact. “We are in the business of selling ideas that sell,” he said. Impact won an advertising awards competition that was organized in the Kingdom five years ago, but that competition ceased to exist. Impact also won a food and beverage advertising award in London last year for its Goody advertisement in Saudi Arabia, Shami said. Pascal Josephe, a jury member and international media consultant based in Paris, said the competition has come as a sign for a booming market supported by the media. Okaz has decided to help boost the level of marketing, professionalism, and social responsibility, he said. It is so important for both the media and advertisers to be on the same level of thinking, he said.
