RIYADH: The winners of this year’s prestigious MENA Digital Awards (MDA) have been announced.

Launched in 2014, the gongs aim to reward digital innovation in media and serve as a platform to help clients realize strategic objectives, build their profile, drive innovation, accelerate sector progression, and instigate economic growth.

The awards program has seven categories – performance, mobile, social media, digital assets, digital by sector, integrated, and special – and was open to all digital players throughout the Middle East and North Africa region.

Najla Semaan Mazboudi, the MDA’s founder, said: “Digital technologies have become increasingly central when ensuring businesses and their respective sectors break barriers and scale new heights in the future technology-driven landscape.

“Encouraging ongoing excellence by providing a platform for brands to highlight the impact of their collaborations is essential.”

This year, FP7 dominated the winners’ list with a total of five awards across four categories, followed by Netizency with four awards, and UM with three.

In the performance category, UM MENA won the best use of data award for its “100+ reasons to use Listerine” campaign, while Netizency scooped the award for best performance campaign with “Winter is Coming” for WAVO. The best search marketing campaign in the category went to Chain Reaction for its KFC “Alone we are delicious, together we are YUM” campaign.

In the mobile category, Ooredoo Kuwait won the best mobile/tablet app award for its “My Ooredoo App Kuwait” campaign, and the Leo Burnett advertising company’s “Yukon – Driven by Context” for General Motors secured the best use of mobile crown.

There were four awards in the social media category: The best use of social media on a small budget of $20,000 award went to Netizency for its “Olivia Gets Hired” campaign for Liv. (Emirates NBD’s digital-only bank); best use of social media on a medium budget between $20,001 and $100,000 award went to FP7/RUH for the agency’s “Be a Man” campaign; Magna Global secured the best use of video title for its “There’s living, then there’s Madinat Jumeirah Living” project; and the best viral campaign award went to marketing services agency FLC Group for its “L’IV’E” project for The Irish Village.

In the digital assets category, Digitas UK won the best web platform award for its “Saudi Aramco: An extraordinary storytelling platform” campaign; Like Digital DMCC scooped the best mobile app award for Chalhoub Group’s loyalty program MUSE; and UM MENAT took the best use of technology gong for its “The Mega Prepaid” campaign for STC’s sawa.

In the best use of digital by sector section, Glimpse Digital Agency got the retail honors for its “Chaumet” campaign; Merkle won the FMCG award for spearheading “The Perfect Match” campaign for Kellogg’s; Blue Logic Digital Advertising won the healthcare title for its “AI-DRIVEN” chatbot for Medcare; Netizency won the financial and banking award for its “Olivia Get Hired” campaign for Liv.; FP7/RUH secured the media award for its “Be a Man” campaign; Digitas UK won the oil and gas gong for its collaboration with Saudi Aramco; Netizency landed the technology/telecommunications accolade for its role in Lenovo’s “Disconnect to Reconnect” project; and Leo Burnett won the automotive award for “Yukon – Driven by Context” for General Motors.

FP7/RUH won both awards in the integrated category, namely best integrated digital campaign, and best integrated media campaign, for its “Be a Man” campaign.

The final special category saw two winners, with UM MENA winning the digital activation award for its special category and FP7/RUH the digital cause marketing award for its “Be a Man” campaign.

Mazboudi said: “Despite the many challenges we have faced this year, everybody involved with our awards has demonstrated a passion to overcome adversity and bring business ideas to life. We are delighted with the response we received for this year’s edition.

“It is true that the enemy of creativity is the absence of limitation and we have been overwhelmed with the simply brilliant and engaging campaigns this year. Every entrant deserves tremendous credit for their efforts, and we extend our congratulations to each category winner,” she added.