One-day conference complements the OMD Academy's year-long curriculum
Dubai - After being named the world's most awarded media agency network for the third year in a row by the Gunn Report for Media, OMD Middle East highlighted its focus on creativity by running its first OMD Creative Masterclass, an event dedicated to sharing the principles and benefits of creativity in media. Some 120 client and agency executives attended the one-day conference on March 18 at the Jumeirah Beach Conference Centre.
The event was organised in partnership with London-based CSquared, a media creativity consultancy and publisher of Cream Magazine, Media & Marketing Europe and CMDGlobal. The program featured presentations by OMD and CSquared senior executives, as well as marketers and the author of "Advertising Is Dead, Long Live Advertising", Tom Himpe.
"Creativity, in marketing in general and in media in particular, is a critical differentiator for both us and our clients," said Shadi Kandil, general manager of OMD Dubai. "It is obvious in every brief we get and clients have expressed a keen interest in learning more about it. This event was designed to ensure that marketers and agency executives are on the same page and develop their creative policy together."
One of the highlights of the event was a look at some of the best examples of global media creativity from Cream's database, which provided both excitement and inspiration. The presentation by international brand executives provided the client's view of how creativity must be harnessed to provide results.
"The OMD Creative Masterclass is a great initiative. It proved very stimulating, with interesting findings and options to consider," said Emma Fraser, marketing communications manager at Jumeirah. "We look forward to seeing all these learnings applied in our campaigns from now on and to keep demonstrating our collective innovative spirit."
This is the latest addition to OMD's training program, the OMD Academy, initiated three years ago. Combining on the job sessions, formal presentations and network-wide conferences, for clients, staff and even students, the OMD Academy is a major initiative designed to nurture local talent.
The OMD Creative Masterclass was also the platform to introduce OMD Ignition, the network's thought-starter unit created to help teams come up with innovation at every level. It provides an integration platform for the planning and buying teams with the group's research, branded entertainment and digital units. "We're all about providing a spark to ignite our teams' creativity," said Karim Abbas, director of OMD Ignition, "and this event was the biggest spark of all. Both client and agency personnel are totally fired up as a result."
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About OMD
OMD is a leading global media specialist network, with a presence in over 80 countries, and the largest media specialist network in the Middle East for two years running. OMD is part of the Omnicom Media Group, a unit of the Omnicom Group, the world's largest communication group that also owns three agency networks, BBDO, DDB and TBWA. In late 2006, OMD was named the Media Network of the Year by Media & Marketing Europe, while the Gunn Report for Media has named it the world's most awarded media network every year since its inception in 2004. OMD employs more than 4,300 experts globally and works for 15,000 companies.
www.omd.com
About CSquared
CSquared serves the international marketing and media industry through leading business publications, websites, planning tools and events. Its products are seen and used by more than 40,000 advertising and media professionals across the world. Its publications include the quarterly Cream magazine and the monthly Media & Marketing Europe, along with a growing list of digital products. It also runs the Cream Masterclasses and the Venice Festival of Media, which will launch in April 2007.
www.csquared.cc
For more details, contact:
Mr Eric Mirabel
Business Development Director, Omnicom Media Group
Tel: +971 4 390 4235
E-mail: eric.mirabel@omnicommediagroup.com
© Press Release 2007
