MEDIA RELEASE  

DMAM AWARDS 2007: ‘IDEA IS KING’
A PRESENCE FELT, THE DIFFERENCE MADE

 Friday, 30 November 2007 , Kuala Lumpur :

The annual Direct Marketing Association of Malaysia (DMAM) Awards, celebrating the best Direct Marketers and Direct Marketing students in the business, proved that the best of Direct Marketing work in Malaysia cuts it on the world stage.

Increasingly, Direct Marketing (DM) is pushing conventional advertising delivery systems to unlearn and re-learn the way to sophisticated targeting and fulfilment. While digital media is an exciting new frontier in DM, good old direct mail is proving just as effective, capable of deploying good strategy.

A recent evaluation of the DM industry in the United Kingdom noted aggressive growth, with expenditure levels topping £18 billion and driving £120 billion worth of sales.

Reflecting this global trend, local industry watchers have also noted that these are indeed dynamic times for the DM industry.

Recognition of DMs

To recognise and promote DM in Malaysia , the DMAM Awards are held annually, rewarding DM talent and the execution of campaigns. This year, 226 entries, including four student entries, were received compared to 194 entries last year. This year, the number of advertising agencies participating in the awards was 15, compared to 11 last year, with 2 first time entries.

Judging got underway early on 21 November. Combing for excellence in all aspects and categories took all day and the better part of the night, with decisions on the Gold, Silver, Bronze and Merit winners only finalised at 1 am in the morning.

Judging criteria encompassed Campaign Strategy, Creativity, Results and the bottom line. Given that these are Direct Marketing awards, creativity is necessarily balanced with actual productivity of the marketing campaigns. The panel also looked for strength of Concept, Execution, Impact and Innovation.

This year’s theme, ‘Idea is King’, invited entries in 38 categories including Recruitment; Retention/Loyalty programs in Business-to-Consumer and Business-to-Business sectors; Brand Building; Packaging; Direct Mailing campaigns for businesses and consumers; Best Response campaigns in print, digital and electronic media; Art Direction; Copywriting; as well as the Student Category. Notable sub-categories reflecting the breadth of DM’s spectrum today included awards for Dimensional and Flat Mail; Best use of Digital Media in Web Relationship Marketing and Best Use of Integration utilising a minimum of three media or channels.

The judging panel

Judges were selected for their versatility and market exposure and represented a mix of agency and clients. They were led by Chief Judge Dirk Eschenbacher, Executive Creative Director and Managing Partner of Tribal DDB Asia Pacific. Dirk himself has notable experience in digital DM, brand building and loyalty programmes.

The other judges were:
Chin Weng Keong, Managing Director, Arachnid Sdn Bhd

• Lee Siew Tin, Creative Director, OgilvyOne Worldwide
• Valerie Chen, Creative Director, Arc Worldwide
• Melati Abdul Hai, Marketing Manager, PepsiCo Malaysia Sdn Bhd
• Rebecca Tan, Head of Direct Marketing, AIA Company Ltd
• Nina Mohamed, Creative Director, Proximity Marketing Services (M) Sdn Bhd
• Fiona Liao, Group Product Manager, DHL Express ( Malaysia ) Sdn Bhd

Overall, the judges were quite impressed with the standard of entries. Said Chief Judge Dirk Eschenbacher, “I would like to say that it was a fantastic experience judging the Malaysian DM Awards. I would like to thank all the judges! It took us around 17 hours to go through every piece of work and exchange our opinions on all the details. But it didn’t feel that long at all. I really thought it was a lot of fun!”

Dirk went on to say, “There were a few pieces that really stood out and after a few hours into the judging it became obvious that this year’s quality of work was extremely high. Interestingly the Gold winners were very different in nature coming from all kinds of categories. Extremely smart and emotional use of flat mail, excellent crafting of dimensional mail, very rich and deeply integrated campaigns across a variety of different one-to-one channels and even stunts were something we marvelled about. Overall, the quality was very good and it showed that Direct Marketing in Malaysia really plays on a world stage.”

According to another judge, Rebecca Tan, “I have been involved in judging, either participating as a judge or as a member of the DMAM organising committee for the past few years however, I have not seen so many outstanding DMs, collectively in a single show! This is testimony of the surge of local talents and standards. In deep, it is only an understatement if one were to comment that the bar has been raised!”

The DMAM Awards Night was held at Parkroyal Hotel on 30 th November Friday. There were no Best of The Best this year, however, Best of Show (Effectiveness) was awarded to Proximity Malaysia & MINI’s What’s In A Hercules campaign and Best of Show (Creative) was awarded to OgilvyOne Malaysia & IBM’s Picasso & You campaign. In the student category, Institute Advertising, Communications and Training’s (IACT) Blaze Is Here took the award home.

Sponsors for DMAM Awards 2007 included Guinness Anchor Berhad, Fuji Xerox, Pos Malaysia, AIA and Bris Information Services.

Agency	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Merit	Best of Show (Effective)	Best of Show (Creative)	Ranking
Arc Worldwide/ Leo Burnett	5	4	11	7			1st
OgilvyOne Malaysia	1	6	12	8		1	2nd
Proximity / BBDO Malaysia	1	2	3	4	1		3rd
Rapp Collins		2		1			4th
G2 Interactive		1	1				5th
Arachnid		1	1				5th

The Experts Series

In conjunction with the Awards Night, a half-day seminar was conducted from 8.00 am to 12.30 pm. on Friday, 30 November. The seminar, themed ‘Innovations in Direct Marketing’, addressed the multifarious goals, strategies and tactics employed in Direct Marketing (DM) today.

DM’s success is measured by creativity, innovation and the bottom line. DM has morphed into a multi-channel discipline that has gone way beyond mail and telemarketing. Hence, DM practitioners aim to reach their audiences through every means possible – in a personalised, yet unobtrusive way. In a nutshell, direct marketers are deemed ‘hardcore marketers’, yet the Returns on Investment (ROI) of new and emerging media is as yet infinite.

It is these latest innovations and practices that DMAM’s Experts Series endeavours to bring to practitioners. It also highlights how successful DM requires a different mindset from Brand Advertising.

The seminar was attended by some 60 Malaysian DM practitioners eager for fresh insights and leading-edge perspectives into worldwide DM today. Apart from the opening session by the President of DMAM, Sreedhar Subramaniam, guest speakers at the seminar included Ken Mandel, Vice-President of Digital and CEO of Neo@Ogilvy, and Eric Lanoe, Marketing Director of Reader’s Digest Asia.