First AP Effie Award at World Effie Fest

Global - The Effie Organisation and the Institute of Advertising Singapore has announced the formation of a global awards show dubbed the World Effie Festival, including a new award called the Asia Pacific Effie Awards, to be held in Singapore in February 2008.

The Asia Pacific Effie Awards is designed to honour the best of Asia's most effective marketing communications campaigns is open to winners of national Effie awards from Hong Kong, China, India, Singapore and New Zealand as well as those countries that do not yet host national Effies including Australia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Philippines, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam as well as Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

"As the quality of entries for the national Effie programmes in Asia has increased, industry professionals need to know how the effectiveness of their work compares with that of their colleagues across this diverse region. The Asia Pacific Effies will demonstrate this, using the world's most widely accepted benchmark of communications effectiveness," James Yip, president for the Institute of Advertising Singapore said.

The Asia Pacific Effie jury will be drawn from leading industry figures from the five countries which currently host national Effie Awards.

The World Effie Festival will bring together professionals from the advertising and marketing industries around the world to discuss on how to deliver and measure creative effectiveness and ultimately, creating value in communications.

Stephen Mangham, chairman of the World Effie Festival Supervisory Board and group chairman of Ogilvy & Mather Singapore said: "If Cannes is about celebrating creativity with an eye to effectiveness, the World Effie Festival will be about celebrating effectiveness, with an eye to creativity". 

The World Effie Festival will be held in Singapore for its first two installments, although marketing understands the festival will look to make Singapore a permanent venue in the future.

In Hong Kong, the Effie Awards presentation will be held at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel on 5 July 2007.