Effie Awards Hong Kong announces 2021 winners; TBWA brings home the Grand Award and Ogilvy and Leo Burnett both pick up Gold Awards

The 2021 Effie Hong Kong Awards winners have been announced at the Effie Awards “Moment of Glory” celebration held at PMQ, Central, HK. The award presentation was preluded with an Italian cocktail reception gathering around 100 guests including Effie HK jury members, marketers, and agency people.

Eighteen awards – 1 Grand Effie, 4 Golds, 6 Silvers and 7 Bronzes – have been awarded from a shortlist of 36 at the award presentation. TBWA won the most medals with 2 Gold, 2 Silver and 1 Bronze, closely followed by Ogilvy with 1 Gold, 1 Silver and 1 Bronze. Leo Burnett also bags 1 Gold.

A jury panel of over 30 judges, comprising senior marketing professionals from academia, agencies and in-house local and abroad, determined the winners after two rounds of intense judging in July. A Grand Jury formed by Effie awards jury chair Andrew Brent (Founder & CEO, Think Growth Again, Dr. Royce Yuen (Co-Founder & Co-CEO, MaLogic, Rachel Catanach (President & Senior Partner, Greater China FleishmanHillard), and Jason Spencer (Chief Executive Officer, Kantar Hong Kong) held a special judging online on October 11 to select the Grand Effie. Contenders for the Grand Effie are 1) TBWA’s Small Business Drive for Lexus, 2) Ogilvy’s Pizza Hut x IKEA Meatball Pizza for Pizza Hut and 3) Leo Burnett’s Till We Fly Again for Cathay Pacific. A campaign ‘of and for Hong Kong’, TBWA’s Small Business Drive won the highest accolade at the Effie Awards HK 2021.

Andrew Brent, Jury Chair, said: “Despite the difficulties posed to many businesses by the Covid 19 epidemic, the quality of submissions this year was very high. In some cases, the challenges of trading through the coronavirus seem to have both focused companies on campaign effectiveness and stimulated some outstanding creative work. The judges’ task in selecting the award winners was not an easy one – but we are very happy with the quality of this year’s winners.”

Hong Kong Effie Winners will be listed in the Global Effie website with all Global Effie Winners as the best Marketing Campaigns under a worldwide Effie Effectiveness Index. The index ranks and identifies the most effective marketers & brands by analyzing Finalists and Winners data from Effie competitions worldwide.

The Association of Accredited Advertising Agencies of Hong Kong (HK4As) has organized and presented the Effie Awards in Hong Kong since 2004.

The full winners list is enclosed and can also be viewed at the HK4As website here.