DDB leads the agency pack at shortlist stage of the 2020 NZ Effie Awards with 22 finalists
The Comms Council has announced the finalists for the 2020 Effie Awards in association with TVNZ with DDB NZ leading the pack with 22 finalists, followed by TBWA with 11 finalists and Dentsu with nine.
Other agencies who have made the cut at the finalist stage include Saatchi & Saatchi with eight finalists, Stanley St and Special Group with seven finalists apiece and Pitchblack Partners has three finalists.
MBM, Clemenger BBDO, OMD, WiTH Collective have two apiece, whilst Hello, Energy, Goodman Fielder, TRUE, Ecostore, NZMA and VMLY&R has one finalist each.
An Effie Award is recognised globally by advertisers and agencies as the industry’s most important award and represents the pinnacle in marketing effectiveness. This is also the second year it will be focusing on the individual marketers who have inspired great work from their agencies and fought for it in their organisations.
The Effie marketers leader board will be re-calculated when judging is complete to determine the ranks of Effie marketers for this year. A panel of over 100 industry peers judged the preliminary round this year assessing a good crop of entries and selecting just over 80 finalists from the 19 Effie categories.
Says Simon Lendrum, this year’s convenor of Effies: “It’s been fantastic to see so many entries from organisations and brands that demonstrate the concrete value that great marketing campaigns deliver back to New Zealand business. In tough times, the Effies clearly illustrate the
impact of creativity on business results.”
All Gold Effie category winners will be eligible for the Grand Effie, which is awarded to the campaign that achieved the most extraordinary commercial results for its client.
This year’s highly qualified Executive judging panel include:
Michael Healy, Chief Marketing Officer at Meridian Energy, Rachel Ellerm, National Marketing Director at Lion, Suraiya Phillimore-Smith, Marketing Lead at Westpac, Jonathan Waecker, Chief Customer Officer at The Warehouse Group, Bridget Lamont, Chief Customer Officer at Loyalty, Craig Irwin, Managing Director at Iri Worldwide and Jonathan Symons, Marketing Director at TVNZ.
Noticeably absent from the list of finalists is creative agency Colenso BBDO. The agency decided not to enter this year due to the effects of COVID-19, says Scott Coldham, managing director, Colenso BBDO: “The Effies are the pinnacle of marketing effectiveness. We have supported the show every year since it started, in the belief that creativity drives better commercial outcomes. And we will continue to do so. We made the tough call in March not to enter award shows this year, but instead to protect our people, our pennies and the work. This decision does not change our belief in the power of creativity and the importance of effectiveness. In what’s been an anomaly of a year, we’re very excited to return next year with a vengeance. And we wish everyone who entered the best of luck on the night – see you there, virtually or IRL!”
12 Comments
Wheres College Hill?
Ponsonby.
I am presuming at a time of layoffs and redundancies Colenso have decided to focus their budgets on retaining staff rather than winning awards? (For context, I would judge from the DDB entry numbers that they have spent around $20,000 on entries to this one award show alone).
So, yeah, win some awards or ensure you can keep more of your staff earning a salary. Feels like it should be an easy choice when you put it like that?
Is this the one award show you should be entering? To prove your work works?
100% agree
Wish they came out and acknowledged so.the price of awards is crazy.
If that was true why have Colenso retrenched so many more people than DDB?
Saying Colenso has behaved responsibly when it comes to entering too many awards is the funniest comment ever written on Campaign Brief.
Colenso haven’t entered because they can’t. A rotating door at the top of the strat team (….. shuffled off quietly, …. the same, …. lasting all of 3 months), plus clients are leaving or pulling back all over the place – Fonterra gone to True, BNZ cancelled retainers, Spark going down the programmatic/digital rabbit-hole, and when was the last tine you saw something for V? If you don’t have the work, you don’t enter.
I think Hat was saying that given all the redundancies Colenso has had to make it wouldn’t be a great look to be dropping $20k on award entries. No one would argue that not spending that on one award show would save on job but it sure shows those who lost their jobs, took pay cuts etc some respect.
Pretty clear DDB is killing it with so many new business wins etc so you can understand why they continue to storm ahead of the pack significantly.
Maybe their clients have been hit harder by the downturn. And therefore, there is even more reason for them to not be spending thousands of $’s on award entries.
I mean, this is pretty simple to understand, but sadly I have neither the patience nor the crayons to try and make this any simpler for you.
@Call it – you stole my clever name.
If I knew who you were I’d do my best to cancel and/or discredit you.
Admittedly I haven’t used my name for a while, but I’m glad you’ve taken my lead and attempted to tell the truth.
As for Fonterra going to True – news to me.
BNZ being on retainer was a good effort but was always going to fail – I still can’t work out that banks point of difference.
Spark – well, that’s run by ex agency people who should know better. Takes a lot to stop my thumb when scrolling. My other issue with the Spark work is that the headline graphic structure always makes them so incredibly hard to read – was it designed by a design company?
As for V. I like the end voice over of Make it happen. Nothing else.
I have no other gripes.
Saying that, been a shite year for adland as it slips further down the client importance chain.
And someone stole my really clever name.
does this mean DDB is guaranteed to win agency of the year because they have the most finalists?