SINGAPORE Saatchi & Saatchi, Black Design and Jonathan Yuen each picked up Best of Show gongs at this year's Creative Circle Awards, in the first year that multiple gongs for different disciplines were up for grabs.
Meanwhile, Bates took home the largest number of trophies, primarily for its Nokia work, followed closely by Saatchis and JWT.
Saatchis received the advertising gong for its Aware print campaign, while local shop Black Design took the design nod for its '20/20 Exhibition' and Jonathan Yuen's website received the interactive gong. The direct marketing gong was left unawarded.
This year's panel was chaired by Bates executive creative director Robert Gaxiola, who headed a cross-disciplinary team of seven international and 29 local judges, including JWT UK head of art Steve Dunn and FCBi New York ECD Timothy Bruns.
"The print work was great. I think some of it will do very well in other awards shows,"said last year's gong winner Joji Jacobs, associate creative director of Bates and a member of the advertising jury.,
"However, the TV work was bad. The international judges remarked on this as well. We explained to them that it's probably because Singapore is such a small market and budgets have decreased here."
Almost 1,000 people turned up for the event, held at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, although only a handful remained by the end of the five-hour show to witness the gong verdicts at the climax.
