Earned First Awards expand to MENAT: enter now

The Earned First Awards MENAT are open for entries today, marking the programme's second regional edition. The first, in Asia-Pacific, drew more than 150 entries, culminating in Singapore on 6 October with Airbus and Sefiani taking the Grand Prix for a long-term transformation programme.

The Awards recognise communications work where credibility is earned, not bought, and where strategy, judgement and trust matter more than scale, spend or spectacle. That means work that solves business problems, shapes reputations, influences decision-making and builds trust in complex environments, often without paid amplification or fanfare.

Communications in the Middle East, North Africa and Türkiye is rarely straightforward. In a period of acute uncertainty across the region, campaigns must cross borders, languages and very different media environments, and some of the most important work happens out of public view. This is the work the Earned First Awards aims to recognise, judged on what it achieved against the odds.

How we evaluate

Entries are assessed on strategic problem-solving, the role of earned and owned media in achieving outcomes, degree of difficulty, and the credibility of results. Campaigns that succeeded because they were well-funded or structurally advantaged are not favoured over work that navigated resistance, scrutiny or complexity. The criteria are published before you enter:

• Impact, outcomes and measurement: 35%
• Earned first thinking and execution: 25%
• Creativity and strategy: 25%
• Degree of difficulty: 15%

The MENAT Earned First Awards jury, to be announced soon, will bring together senior industry leaders from across MENAT, representing diverse markets, sectors and career experience. Their standard of scrutiny will bring focus and gravity, as reflected by the jury we put together for the inaugural Asia-Pacific awards earlier this year.

22 categories

We have structured 22 categories across five groups — Campaign & Craft; Innovation & Measurement; Trust, Reputation & Strategy; Confidential & Specialist; and, Leadership. New categories for this edition are Government & Nation-Brand Communications, Sustainability & ESG Impact, and a separate Earned Brand Building category for corporate and B2B work.

We also appreciate that some of the most influential communications work today never appears on a stage. For that reason, selected categories allow for confidentiality — and one award is judged solely by the Earned First editorial team, with no public disclosure of client or campaign details.

The Grand Prix cannot be entered; it is selected from all category winners, after deliberation. There is just one per show.

An Earned First Award signals that the work stood up not just creatively, but strategically. That it delivered impact without shortcuts. That it reflects the kind of communications capability increasingly valued by boards, CEOs, regulators, investors and societies, not just by juries.

For agencies, it is recognition that goes beyond volume or visibility. For in-house teams, it is validation of influence at the decision-making table. For leaders, it is acknowledgement that earned communications can shape organisations, not just narratives.

Enter now

• Early Bird: US$250 per category, until 9 November 2026
• Regular: US$300 per category, until 7 December 2026
• Final: US$350 per category, until 21 December 2026
• Finalists announced: 17 February 2027
• Ceremony: 31 March 2027, Abu Dhabi, alongside the second edition of the PRAXIS MENA Summit.

Full entry guidelines and category criteria are at earnedfirstawards.com.

The Earned First Awards are intentionally selective. Not everyone will take home a trophy. Because recognition, like trust, only matters when it is genuinely earned.