Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: NordStella, the region’s leading community-driven event and content powerhouse in partnership with Effie Worldwide, introduces Effie Awards Saudi Arabia, set to take place in Riyadh on 11 June 2026 at Narcissus The Royal Hotel. The launch marks the arrival of the Kingdom’s first dedicated platform recognising and celebrating marketing effectiveness, honouring campaigns, brands, agencies, and leaders driving real business impact in Saudi Arabia.

Building on the legacy of 16 successful regional editions of the MENA Effie Awards, and Effie’s global standing of more than 50 years as the benchmark for marketing effectiveness across 125+ markets worldwide, the localised Saudi edition will bring a focused spotlight to the Kingdom’s most impactful work. Under the theme ‘Pride of the Kingdom’, the inaugural edition will celebrate the ambition, the creativity, and the ideas setting new benchmarks across Saudi Arabia’s marketing and advertising landscape.

The debut edition also introduces ‘The Effectiveness Edit Talks’, a curated festival-style daytime experience, bringing together senior marketers, business leaders, agencies, media, technology platforms, and government-linked entities for talks, panels, workshops, and debates around the future of marketing effectiveness in the Kingdom. The programme will explore the evolving Saudi consumer, cultural shifts, creativity, innovation, and measurable impact in marketing today.

The launch arrives as Saudi Arabia’s marketing and media landscape continues to accelerate, driven  by rapid digital adoption and strong economic diversification in the Kingdom. The digital ad spend market in Saudi Arabia recorded robust expansion between 2020 and 2025 at a CAGR of 13.9%, and is expected to accelerate further at a CAGR of 19.4% from 2026 to 2029, reflecting a clear shift toward performance-driven and measurable marketing strategies across sectors.

The Effectiveness Edit programme will explore key themes shaping the Saudi marketing landscape, including sessions like: From Vision 2030 to Version 3.0, measuring marketing impact in a transforming economy, the new Saudi consumer, growth, culture and the ROI question, whether Saudi campaigns still play safe and lose impact, and what drives effectiveness today: emotion, data, or technology. Participating speakers and organisations include leaders from Google, Saudi Tourism Authority, King Salman International Airport, Saudi Automobile & Motorcycle Federation, Kantar, Samsung Electronics Saudi Arabia, Saudi Ceramics, EVIQ, Gathern, Herfy Food Services, and more.

By evening, the programme will culminate with the Effie Awards Saudi Arabia Awards Ceremony, where the industry will come together to honour the campaigns, brands, agencies, and teams delivering measurable impact across the Kingdom. This benchmark-setting event is positioned as a full-circle experience, moving from insight to impact, and from learning to recognition, reflecting the evolving role of marketing effectiveness in a rapidly changing market.