Tony Sarmiento is the vice president for Creative Integration at Ace-Saatchi & Saatchi .
Tony started his career in 1998 as a direct marketing copywriter at BCD Pinpoint where he was hired during his last year of college at the Ateneo De Manila University. After 10 years of memorable stints in Ogilvy One, Publicis, BBDO/Guerrero Ortega, Grey Worldwide and Proximity, he joined Matt Seddon at Ace Saatchi’s to help revitalize its 60 year-old Manila office.
Tony has been a member of Campaign Brief Asia’s Regional Creative Rankings List for the past four years. His work has been recognized at international shows such as the Clios and The One Show, Cannes, The Asian Direct Marketing Awards, Asia Pacific Advertising Festival, The Asian Advertising Awards and the Malaysian Kancils. He has also won in the Creative Guild, the Philippine Ad Congress, The Boomerangs, The Araw Values and the Catholic Mass Media Awards. In 2004, he was ranked #88 in Media Magazine’s Asia’s Hottest Young Creatives.
This is his first turn at leading a jury at the Araw Awards.
Q. Overall, what do you think of your jury and the chemistry among your members?
A. I’m happy to say the jury selection in my categories was well balanced and quite impressive. Strategic clout came in the form of JWT’s Jos Ortega, SapientNitro’s Darren McColl and Leo Burnett’s Joy Santos. CRM Divas Elly Puyat from Ogilvy One and DentsuINDIO’s Angelli Lamsdorff gave much-needed counsel on looking at results. The über talented Joel Limchoc of BBDO Guerrero and Jowee Alviar from Team Manila pushed the creative envelope in all four categories while Havoc’s Mike Palacios gave new perspectives on judging digital. All this as our competition OIC Jay Santiago helped keep the pace steady.
Q. With the Araw’s new emphasis on creativity that works, how did this change the way the Araw jury work?
A. Of course, it wasn’t just a matter of assigning numeric values to the Digital, Direct and Integrated entries. It was more of evaluating the work with a few more parameters. Which really isn’t bad since, for our categories (except design) results are part and parcel of the work’s success. Just a few questions that popped up in our minds were, “Did this piece really work? Or did they just write the results to make it work?” Luckily, the judges in the room were more than well-equipped and experienced to handle certain situations.
Q. What struck you as most interesting among the entries in your category?
A. Some were interesting in the “wish I had done them” area, while others were irritating in the “why did they even bother?” area. Some were just tired use of phallic symbols, others were a fresh take on choosing the effective endorser. Some campaigns tried too hard to feel big while others were too amazing to be ignored.
Q. What advice would you give entrants in future Araw Awards?
A.
- Be selective of your entries.
- After making the campaigns amazing and effective, take time to tell the story of the campaign right.
- Spend sometime on the video presentation but keep each one short and sweet.
- Be honest about the results. (Reminder: “Clients were happy with the campaign” does not count as tangible measures of an entry.)
- Don’t enter a campaign until you get the proper results. There’s always a next year to join and the judges would much rather see great results to support great creative work.
