MENA Advertising Network of the Year 2015: Impact BBDO

The winner of Advertising Network of the Year was far more clear cut than Advertising Agency of the Year. Impact BBDO had a hugely successful 12 months, easily beating all others in terms of growth and new business, and topping it all off with an impressive 193 global and regional awards.

In his end-of-year communiqué to staff, Dani Richa, chairman and chief executive of Impact BBDO Group MENA, Pakistan and Africa stated that at a time when more and more multinational clients are centralising their work globally, it is crucial to win more business locally and to strike a balancing act between local and global clients. This Impact BBDO achieved with bells on. The network added 57 new clients and achieved 33 per cent growth in billings. No small feat in such a challenging climate. Among its new clients were Dubai Tourism, Tecom, Dubizzle in Egypt, Etisalat Misr, HTC in Saudi Arabia and Saradar Bank in Lebanon.

New business added a total of $73 million in billings in 2015, while the importance of Dubai as a strategic hub increased further. It became the head- quarters for all African markets as well as the Middle East and Pakistan region. The agency also implemented its ‘centre of excellence’ hub model for Visa, utilising network centres of excellence to deliver campaigns across the wider CEMEA region. In doing so, it created stronger work and geographic efficiencies. The network also expanded and innovated its offering, adding new services covering data mining, social media listening and content develop- ment, design and curation.