A+M's marketer of the year: An insider peek into judging and new categories

Advertising + Marketing magazine’s Marketing Excellence Awards is back for a seventh year to recognise and reward Malaysia’s outstanding marketing campaigns.Once again, this year’s awards will be adjudicated by a completely independent judging panel consisting of senior industry experts from organisations including: AirAisa, Celcom Axiata, Domino’s Pizza, Hong Leong Bank, IKEA, Kimberly-Clark, Nespresso, Malaysia Airlines, Maserati, Shangri-La, Signify ASEAN, ZALORA, and many more.This year's event will be happening on 16 October 2019 at InterContinental Kuala Lumpur, and currently entry submissions are open.How are entries judged?Keeping in line with A+M's judging criteria for regional award celebrations that run across Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Indonesia, all judges are required to submit any conflicts of interest and sign non-disclosure agreements to ensure the confidentiality of private campaign results.Judges are unable to review or score entries from their own organisation, any partners or connected works, or that of their competitors.Due to the volume of entries submitted each year, the judges are then split in to smaller groups to then judge every entry fairly and objectively, irrespective of budget, scale or resource. Each entry will be judged within its own context and on its own merits, giving an even playing field to large and small companies and campaigns.Jack Wong, head of consumer brand & digital marketing at Celcom said that within an entry, he is always on the lookout for concise, distilled articulation of the business and communication challenge it is trying to solve."In essence, the entry will be judged on how creative the solution is, based upon how they have defined the challenge. Another connection point to the entire strategy is looking at how well the insight is articulated. Typically for any challenge, there are several insights that the creative could leverage on. However, the key consideration for me is why a particular insight is selected over the others. So, articulating why this particular approach is selected over others is always helpful," he said.But given a lot of marketing hangs on the creative element, Wong also looks out for what he describes to be "a magical factor that is simple yet fresh in its execution". An execution that will make him say, “Wow… this is so simple, and yet I haven’t thought of it before”."And after looking for that magical moment, I will look for an outstanding result in solving a real challenge," he added.A cross-industry, independent judging panel not only lends additional impartiality and rigour to the results, but also allows entrants to benchmark their work against competitors and benefit from insights from other industry verticals.Judge Linda Hassan, Domino’s Pizza’s senior VP of marketing, said today’s fast paced marketplace, and the battle for consumer attention requires precise, hard-hitting ideas. "Key defining factors for these include unexpected, innovative creative strategies and execution. I look forward to seeing these unique elements as we evaluate the top brands and their agencies for the awards," she added.How are categories decided on?Each year, the category list is reviewed and refreshed to ensure it caters to the modern marketer. This year sees the introduction of six new categories:Excellence in Influencer MarketingExcellence in Marketing TransformationExcellence in Marketing to a Specific AudienceExcellence in Programmatic MarketingExcellence in Public Sector / Non-Profit MarketingExcellence in Sports / eSports Marketing.Last year saw Etika take home the highest honour of the night, being crowned 2018’s "Marketer of the Year". Helping Etika gain momentum were the numerous campaigns for brands including Pepsi, Wonda Coffee, Goodday and Calpis, with a total prize pool of nine gold, eight silver, and two bronze trophies.Coming in second place was McDonald’s Malaysia, clinching four gold and five silver awards. Procter & Gamble’s ‘A Winning Stage for Olay’ bagged one gold in Excellence in Sponsorship Activation and two silvers in Excellence in Integrated Marketing (Consumer) and Excellence in Marketing to a Female Audience. Other notable winners included the Malaysia Organising Committee, Pernod Ricard Malaysia, Bata Malaysia, Celcom Axiata, Digi Telecommunications, Domino’s Pizza Malaysia, Dutch Lady Malaysia and Shiseido.Winning a Marketing Excellence Award not only enables marketers to gain industry-wide recognition for their work and receive extensive coverage across Advertising + Marketing magazine’s various platforms, but it can help increase credibility, allows marketers to claim their position at the forefront of success, and celebrate and reward achievements across their company and project teams, boosting morale and motivation.https://www.facebook.com/marketingmagazine.group/videos/1897974546987488/ If you'd like to be part of the action, reach out to:Vara Bala, project managerviknesvarab@marketing-interactive.comTel: +65 6423 0329Mob: +65 8767 9662Daing Hazran, project managerhazrand@marketing-interactive.comTel: +65 6423 0329 Mob: +65 9186 9324