Seema Jaffer

Effie Pakistan jury sessions 2021 kickstarted in Karachi’s Marriott Hotel on the 22nd and 23rd of January. At the event, jurors from the media, marketing, and advertising industry met to grade the most influential and effective Pakistani campaigns. We asked industry leaders what milestones have been achieved by Effie Awards over the last few years and what’s in for 2021? Here is what they told us:

Qamar Abbas, Executive Director PAS

So I think for us, obviously one benchmark is the participation level from the industry. The number of entries actually reflects participation. We have seen many companies who initially never used to participate, now want to, even smaller ones. The other thing is, I think there is a change in perception. So this is not just an award program, it’s an education for all of us. For the jury members, when they come and see cross-industry marketing communication, they go back and it trickles down within the team. Overall, in terms of growth, we have added new categories such as e-commerce and moved beyond marketing communication. This year we have a category called marketing innovations, which talks not only about communication, but in fact, innovation in terms of a distribution channel, packaging, sales medium, so yeah, that way we’ve grown a lot and we will keep on increasing these categories. We want to drive the industry towards certain practices.

Seema Jaffer, CEO, Bond Advertising

I’ve seen a huge change. I think every year we see the quality improving. I think that Effies really do stand for excellence and I think year in and year out the quality has become better. The way the cases are written and the way the showreels are presented has improved. Also there are many more entries so that even smaller players, who were not entering or thought that they could not compete on this platform, have been able to participate. There is definitely an improvement.

 Adil Ahmed, Director and Co-founder, Symmetry Group

There is an increase in the participation of the judges coming in. Another good thing is that this platform creates a blend of young talent with experienced professionals. So in that way, a lot of learning takes place, a lot of knowledge sharing takes place –  which is the goal for anything to improve. I think the jury that comes here passes on a lot of learning to the clients and also within their companies. So from that perspective, there’s a certain difference that I see this time. Last time was my first time at Effies, but this time I see a lot more detail and relevance coming in the cases that are submitted.

Afsheen Rizavi, General Manager – PAS and Effie Pakistan

This is the third year of Effies and  the dynamics are different with this pandemic. However, we still managed to pull off the Jury session on ground – so that’s a big one for us ! And we also managed to connect all 85 jurors on board. In terms of growth, we’ve received more than 350 entries so we have a bigger jury panel this year and we have more people on board, a bigger pool of marketers and advertisers.

Sohaib Hassan, Manager Brands & Digital Marketing, Amreli Steels

It has been my core objective to take our brand to the relevant TG as well. So PAS and Effie provide this platform where all the marketers are just sitting under one roof and it gives us immense pleasure to partner with them.

Effie Pakistan has witnessed growth each year, with over 350 entries this year; it has obviously set a benchmark. This then obviously means more people on board, and an even bigger pool of marketers and advertisers present at the awards.

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For more news and updates from Effie 2021, stay tuned to Wow 360.