NEW YORK – Since 1994, New York Festivals® AME Awards® has honored international work that demonstrates ground-breaking solutions to challenging marketing problems.
AME’s regional Grand Jury assures that all entries are judged with cultural relevance within their own region: Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, Middle East & Africa and North America.
“Regional judging is the foundation of which our Grand Jury is built. For 2018, the AME Awards has recruited 108 planners, strategists and marketing executives from 41 countries in 5 regions around the globe who will participate in a three-stage judging process,” said Michael Demetriades, President and Executive Director of New York Festivals AME Awards. “The prestigious regional juries are looking forward to seeing the best marketing work created in 2017.”
With an eye towards judging this year’s competition (which is currently open for entries), AME invited some of this year’s Grand Jury members to weigh in on judging the World’s Best Advertising and Marketing Effectiveness™.
AME’s regional Jury members, award-winners themselves, recognize the hallmarks of innovative and successful work created on behalf of the brand. According to Grand Jury member Rahul Nagpal, Partner & Chief Executive Officer of Group Partnership, a WPP company, India, “An award-winning campaign needs to take a situational challenge (be it business or otherwise) and present a solution that has an IDEA. The components of the idea need to have:
1. Simplicity: It is easy to comprehend.
2. Memorability: Something in that idea sticks. It has an aftertaste that lingers on for a long time.
3. Scalability: Works across all mediums.
4. Effect: Has the potential to change behavior.”
Gertjan Tijms, Director, Strategy & Innovation for TBWA\ Malaysia, commented, “For me, an award-winning campaign is based on a culturally relevant insight, it needs to be connected to a genuine brand story and lastly it needs to create impact. Impact can come in many different forms – impact on society, the way people interact with your product or service and preferably some form of business impact if the campaign was done for a commercial organization.”
Carl Bou Abdallah, Senior Brand Planner, Fp7 (McCann) Lebanon, added “Each campaign has its own metrics of success on the award-winning level. It depends on the brand, product, culture, the idea, how relatable it is, how liquid it is to transform and adapt to different media platforms, how much it generated talk… But the most important, close to being common, trait an award-winning campaign needs to have, is its ability to solve a problem in people’s lives.”
Regional Jury panels are recruited, and creative work is judged with cultural and economic relevance through two rounds of judging. AME’s goal is to honor global campaigns that achieve specific marketing goals, coupled with an innovative solution to a marketing challenge accomplished through creative execution and critical planning.”
Mr. Tijms stressed that great case studies need to create impact and connect with local popular culture. Concluding that, “As marketing and advertising professionals, we are constantly operating at the forefront of cultural changes, which happen on a daily basis, and we sometimes are in a position to influence culture with smart marketing and communications work. Every country has its own unique intricacies and cultural systems that need to be well integrated as part of a successful campaign.”
Entries differ from country to country. Cultural/social change influence regional work. The impact of these changes affects the creative direction and strategy of the campaign and the consumers that the campaign engages.
“Social and cultural changes affect people’s behavior. These behaviors manifest themselves when it comes to purchases, online behavior and media consumption. If these behaviors are taken into consideration, they will definitely influence the tone and/or execution of a marketing or communication campaign,” said Newton Rebello, Group Account Director for Blue Apple Advertising, Dubai.
“Cultural and social changes have a huge impact on our work. We are always seeking to find that true insight to build our solution and communication around and this springs out of our culture, our way of behaving and viewing the world,” said Charlotte Porsager, Client Service Director, UncleGrey, Denmark.
Levente Bálint CEO, for White Rabbit Budapest, Hungary added, “… as much as the countries differ from each other… I believe it is more relevant to see this from a consumer point of view. There are global insights, those require global approaches, global solutions and in the case of such campaigns, there is no significant difference defined by the given country of origin.”
According to Toshiya Kondo, Director of Strategic Planning for Dentsu, Japan “Local context always changes. Winning marketing must take advantage of constantly changing contexts in terms of cost efficiency.”
The AME Judging process provides jurors with a global view of the most innovative and strategically effective creative work the world has to offer and an awareness of the evolution of the industry. Being part of both a regional and a global judging panel gives the jury a front row seat to emerging trends and new technologies that engage consumers.
“Voice technology is a fantastic playground for our industry – as shown by Burger King triggering Google Home devices to advertise the Whopper,” said Guillaume Martin, Head of Strategy, BETC, France. “Brands need to get ready to voice search and also work seriously on their own “brand personality”- which has often been the laziest part of the brief (the good old “human, positive and optimistic” tone of voice).”
“AI and automation has caught up with the world,” added Carl Bou Abdallah. “There’s no denying this. Uber has just purchased tons of driverless cars from Volvo, programmatic buying is now capable to come up with the ad by itself and update it every 5 seconds based on people’s real live interaction with it, McCann Japan has their own AI powered creative director. We live in a world where everything is being, seamlessly affected by automation.”
AME’s unique judging process uses four specific criteria, the diverse regional AME Jury evaluates entries weighted by importance: Challenge/Strategy/Objectives – 20%; Creativity – 25%; Execution – 25%; and Results/Effectiveness – 30%.
The regional AME Jury’s collective votes, truly non-partial and world class, result in Gold, Silver, Bronze and the AME Green Award are determined in the first two rounds of judging. All Gold-winning work from all regions is judged by the full international Grand Jury in the final round to determine a Platinum Award for each of the five regions.
