#InTheNews: Advertising+Marketing Malaysia honors great local agencies at AOTY

News story about BRANDTHINK Malaysia published on Marketing-Interactive.com on June 12, 2012.

Independent Local Outlets Not Forgotten

Malaysia – Since its inception, Advertising+Marketing magazine’s Agency of the Year Awards (AOTY) has been synonymous with client marketers’ recognition of performing agencies. While the awards have always seen large multi-national agencies winning the highest accolade, deserving smaller locally founded agencies have never been side lined.

The Local Hero Award was introduced to give recognition to independent Malaysian agencies which have consistently produced outstanding work. Each year, three highest ranked local agencies for each category will be short listed as local hero nominees. Judged by the same panel of judges, the highest scoring agency will be crowned the Local Hero winner for the category.

“The Local Hero Award honors those locally founded, independent agencies which, without the resources or advantages of a global presence or large regional network, do consistently outstanding work for their clients, as recognised by the end-users, client marketers themselves,” said Soren Beaulieu, events director for Advertising + Marketing magazine.

Some of these agencies, however, have proven that when pitted against the bigger players, they are capable to stand as tall, simultaneously winning one of the top three colours for the category too.

BRANDTHINK, for instance, won Silver for Public Relations Agency of the Year category last year while Arachnid bagged home Silvers for both Digital Agency of the Year and Direct Marketing Agency of the Year categories, on top of being crowned the Local Heroes for their respective categories.

“The industry is leading to more regional and global work, hence alignments with the big boys will continue to be the trend. Clients look for innovation and hopefully, local heroes like Dynamic Search can prove that we have the competency to innovate and not look only at the MNCs to do that,” Ng Hsin Lin, managing director for Dynamic Search on the potentials local outlets could bring to the industry, said. Dynamic Search has won Local Hero twice, for Qualitative Research Agency of the Year in 2010 and Market Research Agency of the Year in 2011.

Although independent local agencies may seem small in size, their capabilities and potentials are definitely huge, and with their resilience to innovate and produce comparable quality of work, they are indeed heroes and an influential force to be reckoned with.

So who will be crowned the Local Hero for each of the categories? Results will be revealed at the Agency of the Year Awards gala night this Thursday at the Hilton Kuala Lumpur.

More Resources:

BRANDTHINK Awards & Recognition

A+M names BRANDTHINK finalists, Agency of the Year 2012