Effectiveness arises from bold strategies: Jury members

In a panel discussion led by Atifa Silk, Campaign Asia-Pacific editorial director, judges from both the agency and client sides shared some of their impressions from two days of reviewing and discussing all 115 shortlisted entries.

“If you’re a client, and an agency presents a strategy, and it doesn't make you nervous, perhaps it’s not going to be an effective strategy," said Matthew Godfrey, president of Y&R Asia. 

Justin Graham, executive planning director with Droga5, agreed, adding that he believes the judges were subconsciously looking at the idea of fame around brands. "The cases that were really jumping out were the ones that were really becoming famous within the targeting they were after.”

In most of the cases cited, that fame grew out of social network-driven buzz from some sort of real-world event, from Gillette's public shavings in India to 7-11's "bring your own cup" day for its Slurpee drink in Australia to a Heineken campaign that staged a fake murder on stage at a concert in Thailand.

When asked what separates such effective campaigns from the bulk of advertising—which  Ogilvy's Graham Fink termed as "awful" in a previous session—Wasim Basir, director of integrated marketing communications with Coca-Cola India, was willing to blame clients as much as agencies.

"[In briefs,] we ask agencies to be bold and we stress the importance of creativity," he said. "But when they really do make the pitch uncomfortabe, we run to safety.”

Wong Mei Wai, head of marketing with Asia Pacific Breweries, cited trust in client-agency relationships as a necessary ingredient. “I think that if there’s trust in that relationship, to share your entire business objective, I think great results can come from that,” she said.

Returning to the effective work to be honored tonight, the judges noted the continued emergence of creative work from China and India, but a relative lack from other areas of the region.

While he was impressed that so many shortlisted entries came from China, with many going on to win, Godfrey noted that it's "really sort of a question of where is Hong Kong and Singapore in this?” Not only were those countries not strongly represented, but also, as Wong noted, "there were a lot less [entries] from the developing markets.”

The judges also discussed the effectiveness of digital advertising.

"Almost every entry has a digital leg to it, which was very important," Basir said. “But on the flip side, I personallty felt completely underwhelmed by the use of digital to build effectiveness, to tell your brand story."

Clients feel that agencies are not all the way to the goal in their efforts to harness digital, he indicated. "Trust us, we're waiting," he added.

Godfrey agreed, saying that while most entries talked about Facebook integration, there were not many impressive "pure-play" digital entries.

Graham bemoaned entries that simply cited a number of Facebook "likes" as a measure of success, rather than connecting to more meaningful objectives. That prompted Basir to note that when it comes to clients, the only measure that counts is sales.

Asked to give advice to agencies entering their work in future competitions, the judges did not hold back.

“Cut out the superlatives in how the cases are written,” Graham said, adding that it's easy to spot the ones that set a very low bar and then greatly exceed those meager expectations. “Link the results that come through to shareholder value," he said. "That is really something we can’t argue.”

Basir advised agencies against the shotgun approach. "Please don't enter everything in every category," he said. Or if you do, really re-write the case to back up the reasons the entry really belongs in that category.

"Things that had 400,000 likes but no real results didn’t get through," Godfrey said, nor did entries  in which a one-month campaign claimed credit for full-year sales results, "When you have a roundtable of 20 judges discussing it, someone is going to pick up on that and it's going to end up on the floor," he said.

Read all of our Asian Marketing Effectiveness Festival coverage.