MANILA – 4As Philippines is set to recognize the country’s top agency at the 17th AOY Awards, to be held on July 31 at the Rizal Ballroom, Makati Shangri-la.
“The awards is all about giving recognition to the agency or company that’s based on two things – The first one being the way they manage their business and the second one is their body of work. It’s their only awards of this kind in the world. We call it the Oscars of the Philippine advertising industry. We’re very proud of it,” 4As 17th AOY Awards Chair JR Ramos told adobo.
Since it started in 1997, Ramos said the awards have grown in terms of quality and quantity. This year sees the addition of a new category, Activation Excellence. “We do know how important activations are in the marketing mix so we want to give recognition to the best activation work we have for 2013. The entries that we received for this category was very encouraging,” Ramos said, adding that they had at least eight to nine entries for the new category.
Awards will also be given in the following categories: Independent Agency of the year, Media Agency of the Year, Production Houses of the Year, and Digital Excellence.
Carlo Ople, managing director and partner at Di9it and head of the Digital Excellence panel, said: “This year is very exciting because we have a lot of entries. From last year, it was around five to six, it literally doubled to 11 or 12.”
The category was added in the 2010 AOY Awards, to recognize the increasing importance of online and mobile communications. “It’s a very big improvement. It’s also nice to note that all the judges showed up, so it’s very good, very indicative that digital is growing in the country,” he said.
Ople said the panel would be judging three pieces of work per agency based on innovation, creativity and business results.
There are over 80 judges for this year, including CEOs, marketing heads, creative directors, and digital mavens. “It’s a very strong lot that’s judging the entries now for the AOY,” Ramos said during the judging, which was held on June 27.
2012 winners
In 2012, BBDO Guerrero was Agency of the Year, as well as Best in Market Performance and Digital Excellence.
Starcom Mediavest won Media Agency of the Year for Creativity, Media Agency of the Year for Business Performance, and Media agency of the Year.
Aspac Advertising Best Independent Agency of the Year, while Ace Saatchi & Saatchi was Best in Creative. Leo Burnett was awarded Best in Management of Business, while DM9JaymeSyfu was Best in Industry Leadership & Community Service.
Underground logic was Post Production House of the Year; Hit Productions was Audio Production House of the Year; and Straight Shooters was Film Production House of the Year.
