GroupM agency Mindshare have been named Media Agency of the Year as well as Media Network of the Year at the Cristal Festival in Lebanon last night - as well as announcing a new collaboration with sister agency MEC on Chanel's media business.


The Cristal Festival awards adversing and media groups for exceptional work in the Middle East and North African territories.

Samir Ayoub, CEO of Mindshare MENA, said: “Early in 2012 we set objectives for ourselves to get the highest number of awards and also to be the media agency of the year. A few months back we were the most awarded agency at the Effies and now at the MENA Cristals [we won] the highest number of awards amongst media agencies. We feel very proud in achieving our objectives and the credit goes to our clients and team who took the challenge throughout 2012 and developed many winning campaigns that were well recognised by the jury.”


You can read a full list of award winners here.



In other news, Mindshare will team up with executives at sister agency MEC to create a dedicated in-house media specifically for the Chanel global account - codenamed "Plus".

"After an in-depth global media review, Chanel has decided to renew its collaboration with WPP through a new and dedicated venture called 'Plus,'" said a Chanel spokeswoman. "This new model will allow Chanel to access WPP's best talents with media at heart."


According to Ad Age:

MEC has worked with Chanel for more than a dozen years. Blandine Pillot Velin, the global media and brand research director for Chanel, according to her LinkedIn profile, is a vet of the WPP media shop. She left her role of MEC Directrice Generale in 2008 to join Chanel. Prior to moving in-house, she had spent 14 years at MEC.
Omnicom Media Group and Publicis Groupe's Starcom Mediavest Group also participated in the review, according to industry executives. Agency representatives either could not be reached for comment or referred calls to the client.