It was a night to remember at the 5th Malaysian Media Awards (MMA), organised by the Media Specialist Association (MS) more so for Mindshare Malaysia as they picked up at least one award in every category. It came with no surprise when they bagged the award for Agency of The Year with highest accumulated points, 43 points, as they did last year. Universal McCann ranked number two with 17 points. The accumulated points are scored from all categories won.
Mindshare also took home the Grand Prix for Rexona ‘Rexona Teens Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ by Unilever Malaysia. Unilever was awarded advertiser of the year.
Rahul Thappa, Managing Director, Mindshare Malaysia says they expected to win, but the margin of the win came as a total surprise. He also feels the challenge is going to be producing the same results for clients next year which means there is no room or time for complacency. He added, that the win is made sweeter by the fact this is a tough economic] year for everyone.
The award show held at the Shangri-La Hotel, introduced a new award this year, Young Planner of the Year. The award was won by Oscar Lee Wen Siew, from Mindshare. The 26-year-old lad assists in business planning and invention. He believes his strengths are his ability to identify relevant touch points and monetise each one coupled with holistic thinking. Oscar says his most successful campaign to date is Nike Euro 2008. He walked home with a certificate, trophy and RM5,000 in cash.
This award was open to those who have a maximum of three years of experience. Nominees were required to write an essay on why they deserve the award supported by recommendation from their superior and client.
Other categories introduced this year are Branded Content on Television and Point of Sales, the latter which was previously under Out-of-Home category. Also the digital category is enlarged to include mobile ideas.
The MMA awards which celebrates innovative and strategic work by media specialists, this year saw more than an 18% increase in entries, totaling to 279 entries. It is open to all parties involved in the use of media for advertising purposes such as MSA members, media specialists, advertising agencies and advertisers.
This year the entry write-ups requirements were simplified into three parts, instead of five in the past – challenge, solution and results.
The entry write up must have included the following:
• Challenge – Stating the primary objectives, goals and challenges for the entry with 50 words maximum.
• Solution (Insight /Ideas/Execution) – Explaining the insight a solution is built on, the idea/ideas that formed the solution, role of different media, how the media and the message worked together and such in not more than 150 words.
• Results – Demonstrate in both quantitative and qualitative terms the key business results of your entry in a maximum of 50 words.
The Jury involved 13 senior leaders from across the marketing ecosystem – advertisers, media agencies, creative agencies & media owners. A set of criteria guided judges in evaluating each campaign to choose the winners. The criteria were: insightful thinking & innovative ideas that amplify the creative core the best (40%); execution that stays true & adds on to the idea (30%) & the marketing results (30%). The weightage given to results was raised from 20% in earlier years to 30% this year, to emphasise its criticality in a recession year and the growing role of media agencies as business partners to our clients.
All winning teams were honoured with trophies and certificates. Entries were judged by 13 judges from across media and creative agencies, advertisers and media owners.
By Andrea Mathew