AME's Grand Jury of Chief Creative Officers, Chief Executive Officers, Chief Strategy Officers, Presidents, Planners, Strategists, Managing Directors, and Creative executives  are known for their global reputation as award-winning creative innovators. They are consistently honored for their ability as creative and strategic leaders to deliver distinctive and effective results for global brands on behalf of their agency. As experts in creative effectiveness their ability to recognize ground-breaking results-driven work truly sets the bar for the 2022 competition.

2022 AME Grand Jury member Ali Khalil is Director of Strategic Planning for FP7 McCann Saudi Arabia. He brings 15+ years of strategic insights and industry experience working with prominent global brands to the jury panel. Prior to his position at FP7 McCann he served as Director of Strategic Planning.

In the interview below, Ali shares his perspective on what mediums will dominate in 2022, the evolution of brands the past few years, his favorite effective campaign and much more.

AME Awards: What stand-out attributes do you recognize in award-winning creative effective advertising?

Ali Khalil: For a starter, all winning cases have solid and impactful results. And usually, the creative idea is almost always based on insightful discoveries and powerful truths, that both ignites and inspires the creative outcome. When it comes to the strategic solution, we notice a clear structure to the case, and the strategy is very focused, neat, and clever. However, I do firmly believe that winning cases have the stopping power both in terms of how solid the cases are, and how outstanding and unique the solutions were. And by unique, it doesn’t have to be totally new, but the angle in which the challenges or opportunities were addressed, utilized a fresh and a different perspective. Finally, award winning cases should be exciting and inspirational.  

AME Awards: Why are effectiveness competitions like the AME Awards important?

Ali Khalil: Effectiveness competitions provide us with a chance to have a deeper understanding of our industry’s outstanding campaigns, and allow us to learn about the thought-processes and the approaches that were used to tackle both the most complex, and the simplest of briefs… In summary such awards are an eye opener, a global collective learning exercise, and a continuous driver to hone skills, perform better and improve our output.

AME Awards: How has brand messaging evolved and succeeded these past few years?

Ali Khalil: In the age of filters, and avatars, more people than ever expect brands to be realistic and sincere… they want the truth and are tired of big hollow promises and sugar-coated corporate messaging, which is amplifying skepticism towards “traditional institutions” including brands. Accordingly, marketeers need to accept the reality, that in times of hyper-exposure and citizen journalism, they must hold true to what they represent and stand for… and more importantly they must stick to their values and show how they are positively contributing to the world around them. This emerging and growing paradigm have propelled a new wave of “no filters” and “honest” communication, as evident in the evolving messages of many brands, even when looking at “Legacy & Traditional” ones.

Another more important and profound shift is the one related to women’s rights, their role in the society, and how they are portrayed across the communication industry. And while this shift has been taking traction for some time now, in the MENA region, it started more recently, but have exponentially accelerated. So much so, that marketers are asking for better representation of women, are thinking twice in how they portray women and are moving away from depicting women in outdated roles.

AME Awards: What new technological trends have emerged and how have they helped deliver creative and effective results?

Ali Khalil: Drones continue to be exciting new tools that are being successfully used across markets to deliver beautiful experiences, be it through drone shows or simply by capturing the world around us from amazing new perspectives, among others uses.

For a more established yet exponentially growing technology, e-gaming is already making waves and proving to be an indispensable tool for brands to engage with a massive global audience of gamers across markets.

Other emerging yet less utilized tech-trends include NFTs which have yet to realize their massive untapped potential.   

AME Awards: What mediums will be front and center in 2022?

Ali Khalil: The metaverse promises to be a whole new interactive canvas, a multi-dimensional medium for communicating, and an exciting new territory that will enable us to connect and engage digitally with people in a more immersive and playful manner. And if done right, it will allow us to build new kinds of relationships between brands and their audience by delivering unseen before experiences, that in many ways transcends the current physical and digital brand-customer interaction.

AME Awards: Why did you agree to participate on this year’s AME Grand Jury and What do you hope to learn by viewing entries into this competition?

Ali Khalil: Simply put, this is a great opportunity to rub-shoulders with and learn from most talented and creative minds in our industry. So why wouldn’t I participate?

AME Awards: What is your favorite most successful ad and why? What campaign resulted in a global brand making an impressive pivot?

Ali Khalil: To be honest, I don’t have one specific favorite campaign, as a lot of great work has been published over the past decade or so. With this in mind, I believe that campaigns like Dove’s “Campaign for Real Beauty”, Old Spice “Smell like a man”, Persil/Omo “Dirt is good”, Burger King’s “Moldy Whopper” and Shangri-La “In our nature” are all in a league of their own. Now “In our nature” might be a bit old, but it is one of the campaigns that I cannot forget, hence including it in the list.

AME Awards: What advice would offer to potential entrants on earning an AME Award?

Ali Khalil: Clearly state your big idea and focus on impactful results. Try not to over complicate things and add too many layers… and make sure that your case can be easily read and understood by almost anyone, where this person is a novice or an expert.