Petaling Jaya – As the Kancils deadline closed last Friday, BBDO/Proximity Malaysia and Saatchi & Saatchi Malaysia were noticeably absent. Dissatisfaction with the jury selection process has been, reportedly, behind the boycott of Malaysia’s premier advertising awards.
Despite the presence of international jurors Thirasak Tanapatanakul, Creative Juice Thailand, worldwide co-chairman & executive creative director; Tay Guan Hin, JWT Singapore regional executive creative director South East Asia; and Spencer Wong, McCann Erickson head of Hong Kong & executive creative director, the two agencies question the inclusion of a number of local jurors.
In a recent report from Malaysia’s The Star, BBDO/Proximity chief creative officer Ronald Ng was quoted saying, “(the agency) is not comfortable with the direction of the Kancil Awards this year in terms of the change from the previous merit-based system of jury selection to the current system.”
Ng, who was jury chairman last year and is behind BBDO/Proximity Malaysia’s multi-awarded Jeep campaign, including the Golden Kancil, says the selection system is unclear this year. “To be selected as a juror, a person must be from a top performing agency of the year, not just selected from names being thrown out,” he added in the same report.
A consistent Kancils topnotcher since 2006, BBDO/Proximity Malaysia, reportedly has other bases for the pull-out, but as Ng stated, “Hopefully, we will enter again next year if the system reverts to a merit-based system.”
Campaign Brief Malaysia Agency of the Year, Saatchi & Saatchi Malaysia executive creative director Adrian Miller said the decision not to join Kancils this year was due to “a difference of opinions with the 4As about how the Kancils should be conducted and run,” the same report stated. “That doesn’t make us right. It doesn’t make us wrong,” Miller said in the same report. “Hopefully by next year, we can resolve our differences and we can all move forward, he added. ”
4As president Datuk Vincent Lee stated that even if the selected jury’s agencies were not ranked among the top creative houses by Campaign Brief in recent times, they were “real agency creative directors and their agencies have done tremendously well in increasing their clients’ business.”
For this year’s selection, Kancil Awards Chairman S.P. Lee consulted with Ng, Huang Ean Hwa from McCann Worldgroup and Ted Lim from Naga DDB (the jury chairmen of the last three years), on jury selection and process.
“All the top 15 agencies on Campaign Brief’s Hottest Malaysian Agencies list were invited, (including) some very senior creatives whose credentials are superb, but have since … been too engaged with managing an agency to have time to think of awards,” Lee added.
