Judging for the Asian Marketing Effectiveness (AME) awards concludes in Shanghai

Chaired by Bob O’ Leary, managing director of global advertising at Citi, the 23 jury members initially broke into five panels, each of which decided on the gold, silver and bronze winners in their respective categories. The panels then came together to score the individual gold winners and determine the coveted Platinum Award winner.

“I was impressed by the international experience on the panels,” said jury member Susan Ho, head of group brand development at Standard Chartered, “Asia versus local; agency versus client. It was a good mix.”

The entries showed once again the high level of effective marketing from around the region. “This has been a fantastic year for the quality of work coming out of Asia-Pacific,” said Shawn Warren, VP of marketing at Kraft Asia-Pacific.

Nirvik Singh, chairman and CEO Asia-Pacific at Grey Group, agreed: “It is always good to come together as a group and see the great work being done by people across different geographies.” He added that, “An interesting trend this year was the number of shortlisted works that came from the likes of Vietnam and Indonesia. The quality overall was very good.”

On what made a winning entry, Ho felt several campaigns made a distinctive impression on the judges. “It was a good debate about what was quality and what wasn’t,” she said. "And, as with any sort of judging, as there were so many entries, a good test was that if the entry was memorable then it was working. This speaks a lot for marketing and effectiveness.”

The Asian Marketing Effectiveness award show will be held on the evening of March 25 at the Pudong Shangri-La in Shanghai. Visit the Media website for live updates including news, photo galleries and videos from the festival and awards ceremony.