ِART, the official broadcaster for the FIFA World Cup 2006 in the Arab world, has selected OMD as its media agency following a hard-fought full service pitch against eight other leading agencies.
The appointment, effective immediately, is designed to support ART’s campaign ahead of the start of the football competition, on June 9 in Germany. The account covers the World Cup effort and all post-World Cup brand building media initiatives.
“OMD has won our account not only because of its strength in research and media know-how, but because of the passion for the project,” said Karim Younes, general manager for International Sports Events and head of the World Cup project at ART Sports. “When it comes to sports, we don’t just look for media experts but also for strong and passionate partners who can communicate the power of football passion and the World Cup fever in media.”
OMD’s answer to ART’s brief showed a powerful blend of creative and strategic thinking, which led to a separation of creative and media. Creative is handled by AP7.
“OMD’s young and dynamic spirit was the key pillar behind this win,” added Younes. “They translated our brief accurately, demonstrating ‘passionate media thinking’ and designing a creative media platform that can be owned by ART Sports. We want to get near the heart of the consumer and OMD shared with us the steps towards achieving such a goal, growing the share of heart and not only the share of mind.”
“The ART appointment is a clear validation of the difference an acute understanding of the target audience makes in media,” said Elie Khouri, regional managing director of OmnicomMediaGroup, the holding company of OMD. “Combined with OMD’s skills, innovations and powerful buying, the result is going to be an exciting and memorable FIFA campaign for ART.”
OMD is heavily involved with football on a continual basis and particularly with the FIFA World Cup through several of its client brands.
As a pay-TV operator, ART has long identified sports as a key subscription driver and the FIFA World Cup is the gold standard in sporting events. ART aims to recoup its significant investments both through subscriptions and advertising.
Editor’s notes
About ART:
The Arab Radio and Television (ART) Network is the leading producer of premium Arabic family programming and entertainment worldwide. The group has extensive access and rights to a premium selection of Arabic content, meaning pay television viewers in all of the ART territories get more value for their money than with any other cultural network. It was founded in October 1993 as a private network, with administrative headquarters in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, technical headquarters in Amman, Jordan, and production facilities spanning the entire Middle East.
www.art-tv.net
About OMD:
OMD is the leading global media specialist network, with a presence in over 80 countries, and the largest media specialist network in the Middle East. OMD is part of the OmnicomMediaGroup, a unit of the OMNICOM Group, the world’s largest communication group that also owns three agency networks, BBDO, DDB and TBWA. In 2005, OMD was named Global Media Network of the Year by both Adweek in the USA and Campaign in the UK. The Gunn Report for Media also named OMD as the world most awarded media network for two years running. Recma, a Paris-based consultancy, recently released its global ranking of media agencies, placing OMD on top. OMD employs more than 4,300 experts globally and works for 15,000 companies.
www.omd.com
