Pakistan Advertisers Society held the first jury round of its Effie Pakistan Award programme on the 22nd and 23rd of January 2021 in Karachi. These are the most prestigious award programme of the marketing and advertising industry and are about ‘awarding ideas that work’ and celebrating the sector’s success.
Effie Pakistan is part of a global award programme which includes 52 national programs, four regional and one international award programme. It aims to lead, inspire and champion the practice and practitioners of marketing effectiveness and is a symbol of achievement that is widely respected worldwide.
This year competition was launched in September 2020 and was open to all companies and advertising agencies that ran marketing campaigns between 1 st July 2019 to 30th September 2020.
Afsheen Rizavi, Project Head, Effie Pakistan said: “with a total count of 358 submissions, the participation from companies and ad-agencies was beyond our expectations and to ensure that we fairly evaluate them our round one jury panel constituted of more than 90-members that comprised of some of the brightest and experienced individuals – experts, specialists and practitioners in the field of marketing, advertising, academia, creative, media and research with a proven track record”. The panel represented a mix of veteran and new judges, local and multinationals, and small and large companies across a wide range of marketing companies and agencies. The members were divided into 9 groups of 10 people who evaluated all the entries over a span of two (2) days specifically matched with cases that do not prove any conflict of interest. Each group was led by a group head/moderator who was experienced in holding a jury before.
The entries were judged on excellence in 4 key areas: challenge and objectives, insights and strategic idea, creative / media execution, and results. Each jury member examined written content and viewed innovative reels to score a campaign. The scoring was done individually and confidentially.
The Executive Director, PAS and the Country Lead, Effie Pakistan, Qamar Abbas said: “Effie Pakistan is more than an award programme, it is an industry forum, the objective of which is education so together we can strive for excellence in marketing communications and make our practice of communication and its practitioners shine on international platforms”.
The second round of the jury is scheduled to occur in February 2021 followed by a grand jury March with the award show on 10th April 2021 where all the Gold, Silver and Bronze winners will be announced. A special recognition award, the Grand Effie Award will also be awarded to the most effective and standout campaign of the year.
The Effie Pakistan finalists and winners will also receive credit in the Global Effie Index, which identifies and ranks the most effective agencies, marketers, brands, networks, and holding companies by analysing finalist and winner data from all Effie competitions worldwide. Announced annually, the Effie Index is the most comprehensive global ranking of marketing effectiveness.