MANILA – DM9JaymeSyfu’s ‘TXTBKS’ campaign for Smart Communications has bagged another top prize, the Carmencita Esteban Platinum Award at the 2014 Asia-Pacific Tambuli Awards, which recognizes effectiveness and social good. This year’s winners were announced at the awards night on June 3, held at RCBC Plaza Makati.
Lowe Lintas & Partners India was named Effectiveness Creative Agency of the Year; Unilever India was named Effectiveness Advertiser of the Year, and Metro Trains Australia’s Chloe Alsop was named 2014 Chief Marketing Communications Officer of the Year.
Click here for the complete list of winners.
The Smart ‘TXTBKS’ campaign, which used surplus SIM cards and outdated mobile phones to come up with digital text books for public school students, has already won several awards in local and global shows, including the country’s first-ever Grand Prix in Mobile at the 2013 Cannes Lions.
Fresh from winning a D&AD Yellow Pencil, DM9’s ‘Smart TXTBKS’ won in three categories in the Tambuli Awards, bagging a Grand Prix for Creative Effectiveness, a Gold for Advocacy, and a Silver for Integrated Mobile-Led Program.
According to Nestle, Philippines Chairman & CEO John Miller, who was this year’s Overall Jury President, the ‘TXTBKS’ campaign was a compelling and innovative idea. “It was a tough job for us judges, and there was a lot of vigorous debate… Ultimately, after a very interesting I think and well informed discussion, the majority, it was a majority, came firmly down in favor of the outstanding campaign for Smart,” he said.
Miller shared that there were three submissions being considered for the Platinum award: Smart ‘TXTBKS’, along with McCann Melbourne’s ‘Dumb Ways to Die’ for Metro Trains Melbourne and Lowe Lintas and Partners, India’s ‘Help a Child Reach 5’ for Unilever India. Along with Smart TXTBKS, ‘Dumb Ways to Die’ and ‘Help a Child Reach 5’ were Grand Prix winners at this year’s Tambuli Awards.
“We felt overall the quality was so high that this was a year in which we were really duty bound to make a choice and put a thin piece of paper between these three excellent quality submissions and to make an award of a Platinum,” Miller said.
Meanwhile, category jury president John Zeigler, Chairman and CEO of DDB Group Asia Pacific, said ‘TXTBKS’ won because “it wasn’t just leveraging the commercial value of a brief, it was actually showing people that you can if you think creatively, you can do things that change the world.”
Category jury president Charles Cadell, President, Asia Pacific, McCann Worldgroup said the campaign was chosen because it was universal. “The winner is something that is not just relevant for a country, it’s not relevant for a region, it’s relevant for the world. It works for the world. And when ideas have the power and potential to travel across boundaries, so seamlessly, we all see the power of that idea, it’s a wonderful thing and that’s what we need more of,” he told adobo.
There were a total of 360 entries this year. Of these, there were 64 foreign entries this year, a significant increase from 13 last year.
Philippine entries still dominated the winners list, with a total of 34 winners, including 17 Bronze, 12 Silver, 4 Gold and one Grand Prix. McCann WorldGroup Philippines, Inc. had the most number of winning entries, bagging six awards. Other Philippine agencies that took home awards were:
Ace Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising (2)
Activations Advertising (2)
BBDO Guerrero (3)
DDB Philippines, Inc. (1)
DM9 JaymeSyfu (3)
FleishmanHillard Manila (1)
IdeasXMachina (1)
Leo Burnett Manila (4)
Lowe (1)
Ogilvy & Mather Philippines (1)
Publicis JimenezBasic (2)
Strategic Works, Inc. (1)
TBWA\Santiago Mangada Puno (2)
The Philippine STAR also won a Bronze award for ‘Live It!’, while ABS-CBN won a Silver and a Gold award for its ‘Tulong Na, Tabang Na, Tayo Na‘ campaign.
Following the Philippines, India had a total of eight winning entries, including one Grand Prix winner, Lowe Lintas and Partners, India’s ‘Help a Child Reach 5’ for Unilever India.
Malaysia had three winners, Rapp Malaysia’s ‘R.AGE Against Bullying’ for Star Publications(M) Berhad Malaysia; and two wins for Lowe & Partners Malaysia’s ‘Rexona Move’ for Unilever Malaysia.
Australia had two winning entries, including a Grand Prix for McCann Melbourne’s ‘Dumb Ways to Die’ for Metro Trains Melbourne and a Silver for Leo Burnett Melbourne’s ‘Volunteer to Promote Volunteering’ for SEEK Volunteer Melbourne.
There were two Bronze winners from Japan, Hakuhodo Inc., Japan’s ‘Rice-Code’ for Inakadate Village Offige Tourism Division, and Hakuhodo Kettle Inc., Japan’s ‘Hands On Search’ for Yahoo! Japan.
Thailand, Singapore, Bangladesh, had one winner each. From Thailand, Ogilvy & Mather Advertising Thailand got a Gold for ‘Thai Health Promotion Foundation Mission Impossible: Reducing Thais Paunches’ for Thai Health Promotion Foundation. Ogilvy & Mather Singapore was the only winner from Singapore, with its ‘One Rinse Pledge’ for Unilever Singapore bagging a Bronze award. From Bangladesh was ‘Robi Flag Campaign’ by Adcomm Limited Bangladesh for Robi Axiata Limited, which got a Bronze.
