TBWA won the Grand Effie and the most metal as the Association of Accredited Advertising Agencies of Hong Kong (HK4As) presented the 2021 Hong Kong Effie Awards Thursday evening (October 28).
TBWA’s 'Small Business Drive', for Lexus (Inchcape Hong Kong), won the Grand Effie. TBWA won two golds, two silvers and one bronze, followed by Ogilvy with one of each type. Leo Burnett won one gold.
The awards were presented at a ceremony dubbed 'Moment of Glory', held at PMQ in Hong Kong's Central district with about 100 guests, including jury members, marketers and agency staffers.
The organisation gave out 18 awards in total—one Grand Effie, four golds, six silvers and seven bronzes—from a shortlist of 36. See the full winners list (PDF).
The jury included more than 30 judges. A special panel including jury chair Andrew Brent (founder and CEO of Think Growth Again), Royce Yuen (co-founder and co-CEO of MaLogic), Rachel Catanach (president and senior partner for Greater China at FleishmanHillard) and Jason Spencer (CEO of Kantar Hong Kong) selected the Grand Effie winner. The other contenders for the Grand Effie were Ogilvy’s 'Pizza Hut x IKEA Meatball Pizza' for Pizza Hut Leo Burnett’s 'Till We Fly Again' for Cathay Pacific.
"Despite the difficulties posed to many businesses by the Covid 19 epidemic, the quality of submissions this year was very high," Brent said. "In some cases, the challenges of trading through the coronavirus seem to have both focused companies on campaign effectiveness and stimulated some outstanding creative work. The judges' task in selecting the award winners was not an easy one—but we are very happy with the quality of this year's winners.”