THE seventh incarnation of the Malaysia Effie Awards 2014 was held last Thursday at the One World Hotel with 500 attendees of mostly marketers and agencies.

Of the 88 entries submitted this year, there were only two gold, six silver and six bronze award recipients. These comprised agencies, clients and media who ran marketing campaigns deemed most effective in the eyes of the judging panel, headed by Google Asia-Pacific chief marketing officer Simon Kahn.

The two gold winners were Coca-Cola’s #sharemycokelah Manglish cans whose campaign was run by Mediacompete, partnering Geometry Global and Permanis Sandilands Sdn Bhd’s Wonda’s The Five-dimensional Premium Gourmet Coffee advertising campaign by Dentsu Malaysia.

In his speech, Kahn said: “The Effie aims to spotlight marketing ideas that work and effective marketing campaigns, which are the collaboration among three parties (the clients, agencies and media owners).”

Meanwhile, Malaysian Advertisers Association (MAA) president Margaret Au-Yong shed light on this year’s theme of “Journey to Greatness” and said this year was the first time that each winner received an individual Effie certificate to recognise his or her win.

Coca-Cola’s Manglish cans campaign was mooted after the cola giant discovered that the popularity of their brand was beginning to wane within the all-important age group — youths. In their efforts to remedy the situation, Mediacompete, Geometry Global, The New Straits Time Press and Kinetic came up with a solution to recapture a share of their market with the #sharemycokelah on Manglish cans campaign.

After all, the Coca-Cola brand, which was created in 1866, is  well known. By targeting social media platforms and Coke’s signature red cans, an assortment of cans featuring various hashtags such as #syoknya and #bestgiler, were released, and youths were not only encouraged to create conversations about the cans, but to share them with their friends on social media. It was a hit among the “selfie-loving” generation, and Coke’s Facebook page was inundated with selfies of people showing off their Coke cans featuring Manglish hashtags.

These pictures taken by Coke fans were exhibited around the country on various platforms, from newspapers to digital billboards, and soon the #sharemycokelah campaign took hold and caught the eye of the media  — both print and television.

Premium coffeemakers Wonda partnered with agency Dentsu Malaysia to capture a share of the strong coffee culture that has been brewing in Malaysia over the last few years. In November 2013, Asahi Group Holdings together with Permanis Sandilands Sdn Bhd introduced Wonda Premium Coffee to the Malaysian public.

Armed with a small budget to conquer territory held by another established brand which dominates 90% of the market, Wonda and Dentsu came up with The 5 Senses Premium, Gourmet Coffee Experience.

The campaign aimed to highlight coffee drinking as a sensorial experience: the taste of coffee, a warm cup of coffee and the aroma of freshly roasted coffee. The 5-S print campaign which included a four-page advertisement featuring actual size die-cut “pop-up” cans, scented coffee ads and cut-out coupons offering a can of Wonda coffee for 10 sen at 7-Eleven outlets was so successful that  their target — a 4.7% increase in market share and media coverage return on investment of RM3.2 million — was achieved by the second month of the launch of Wonda coffee.

The six silver campaigns leveraged innovations to produce results. Among them were Mediacompete’s use of dance as a medium to channel Sprite’s Freedom from Thirst experience, Universal McCann’s creation of daily Sahur content during Ramadan to raise milk consumption for Dutch Lady, TBWA’s promotion of an SMS hotline for the Women’s Aid Organisation to lower barriers to report ing abuse and Mindshare’s Hijabku, Gayaku which helped Sunsilk connect with fashion-conscious Hijab-wearing customers.

Effie Awards Malaysia 2014 was organised in association with Malaysia External Trade Development Corp, and jointly supported by the Association of Accredited Advertising Agents Malaysia (4As), MAA and the Media Specialists Association. The Edge, Sin Chew Daily, The Sun and Big Tree were the event’s media partners.

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on Oct 14, 2014.