Pikasso d'Or, 2025 edition

The Pikasso d'Or is among us again. 2024 edition was a rather good one, 2023 edition was a disaster. This year, there are the bright spots and the meh. How Omo was not Pikasso d'Or rather than a Pikasso d'Argent is literally robbing them of what was rightfully theirs - with all due respect to the jury this year. Pimo pulled a masterstroke, and I for one congratulate them on the output. Which brings us to the Pikasso d'Or itself for Almaza - not a disastrous campaign but not sure it merited the top award. Still, Massaya Lebanon (by the department) was beautiful and a total swoon, and Joe Fish went out with a lovely one for Abed Tahan. Mink as always excels with L'Orient Le Jour (again robbed of a better award in my opinion). Please see all the winners here.

 

Pikasso d'Or finds its footing again

After last year's ho-hum crop of awards (save a couple - read here). Pikasso d'Or is back - as in back. The results this year do make much more sense. Marked under "the wave of the future" the 28th ceremony celebrates Out Of Home creativity. As I said very recently, an industry source told me that prices are so dismally low that OOH companies are practically begging agencies to book their campaigns.

Pimo rightfully bagged the Grand Prix award for their Lux ad (they also won the supersize category). Kefraya had a Pikasso d'Or - nice and clean art direction but sadly forgettable as an ad. The Pikasso d'argent went for Beirut Beer and their summer wave (many people liked this ad, I found it a little underwhelming). The Pikasso de Bronze went for Cafe Abi Nasr and their cute campaign by Bizaroob.

Mink won a Pikasso d'argent in the supersize category for a solid campaign for Ksara. Almaza is back on the awards scene for a negligible ad (they won big last year, and I still don't understand why!). 

Roadster and TBWA\Raad won the mall category with their lovely self-depreciating campaign, while Joe Fish won Pikasso d'argent in the same category for the consistently nicely art-directed Zarina, the bronze went to the potion kitchen (in a badly copywritten effort I must add).

The digital category saw Almaza again, Jordan Tourism Board and Sanita get the top awards. The public interest category went to Medco for their Dawi Chere3 campaign. Enjoy all the campaigns here.

Pikasso d'Or is back, sadly from a dismal pool of OOH ads

Self-ad published in Al Waseet newspaper in 2005

The good news is that the Pikasso d'Or - our local competition for the Out Of Home awards - is back.

The bad news is that it is back with such a dismal quality.

Sure sure, congratulations for all the winners and yes, the Milton by Pimo deserved its Pikasso d'Or and Ksara by Mink totally got its award with a Pikasso de Bronze (though it could have easily been Pikasso d'argent in my book). And I like the ABC by Joe Fish art direction of the ads. And this is where I shall stop.

Look, I am all for boosting the morale of the troops and telling them they did a great job, but a travesty is a travesty. Apart from the ethical considerations of people on the jury winning awards from the said jury (no names) which take me back to the backroom shenigans and barters that used to take place at the now defunkt Phenix de la Pub awards. However the overall quality was so dismally low they could have very simply withheld awards in categories.

Heck, I am on the Epica Awards and this year awards were withheld in two categories because the quality of the work was not good enough to merit one. No shame in that.

But again, whereas the idea goes that one does not need a mega budget to create a creative ad, there was a lot of ads created - with or without a budget - that simply do not merit a second look, let alone an award.

Once more, congratulations for the winners, but perhaps Pikasso d'Or could have merited of taking a step back, held its breath for a further year (remember the competition comes back from a hiatus of 3 years what's with the damage the economic breakdown and covid put together have done) to get more worthy winners (as I said apart from Milton and Ksara who much deserved their praises).