DDB, Mindshare named Singapore's most effective agencies

Singapore's Health Promotion Board was recognised as the most effective advertiser.

These three special Effies were given to the best performing agencies, based on the number of awards they have won over the past decade, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the awards.

DDB Singapore also picked up a Gold Effie for the ‘Expect the even more unexpected’ campaign for DBS Bank (with Havas Media); a silver Effie for Courts' digital campaign 'Demolition' for Court, in collaboration with Rapp Singapore; as well as Bronze Effies for the ‘Birds and the bees 2.0’ and ‘Project family time’ campaigns for StarHub, with MindShare.

“It's an incredible run to keep this up for 10 years,” David Tang, president and CEO of DDB Group Singapore, said. “We never imagined we could, but we just kept on running.”

Sponsored by StarHub and organised by the Institute of Advertising Singapore (IAS), the 10th annual Singapore Effies Awards were held Friday to give out 20 awards, including four Gold, nine Silver and seven Bronze Effies.

Ogilvy & Mather Singapore also took home four awards, for the ‘Philips Aquatouch’ campaign for Philips Electronics, with Carat Media; the ‘Smarter cities connect’ campaign for IBM Corporation with [email protected]; as well as ‘Singapore loves a quitter’ and ‘The Idiot’s Guide to Shisha’ for Health Promotion Board, in collaboration with OMD.

BBH Asia Pacific picked up two Golds, with ‘National night’ for Mentos and ‘From big ticket expense to daily essential’ for NTUC Income. The final Gold Effie was awarded to BBDO Proximity/ZenithOptimedia for ‘The World’s Smoothest Launch’ campaign for Guinness.

John Hadfield, CEO BBH Asia Pacific, said: "Two out of only four golds. One in two. 50%. Effectively not bad at all."

Ben Lightfoot, chairman of the Singapore Effies Chapter for 2013 and chairman at McCann Worldgroup Singapore, said the jury was proud to see a strong sense of ‘Singapore’ throughout the work.

Singapore Effies Awards 2013 also partnered with IAS’s UPSTARTS, a learning and networking initiative for marketers and agency teams aged below 30, to launch the inaugural UPSTARTS x Effies event.

“It’s also fantastic to have the younger members of our industry join the celebrations this year at UPSTARTS x Effies,” Lightfoot said. “We’ve had an overwhelmingly positive response to the evening, which I think is a mark of our industry’s commitment to building a strong culture of creative effectiveness at every level.”