Kancil Awards 2024 names Leo Burnett Kuala Lumpur as Agency of the Year and Directors Think Tank as Production House of the Year

Leo Burnett Kuala Lumpur was named Agency of the Year at the Kancil Awards 2024, Malaysia’s premier creative awards competition, while Heineken Malaysia Berhad was awarded Advertiser of the Year.

Directors Think Tank was once again awarded Production House of the Year and The Rec Room was named Audio Production House of the Year.

The Golden Kancil was awarded to the campaign “Heidden In Plain Sight” by Leo Burnett Kuala Lumpur for Heineken Malaysia Berhad.

Kancils Jury co-Chairperson Graham Drew, Chief Creative Officer of Grey Malaysia & Singapore, said: “Every creative community has their tropes that come from their unique culture and this can lead to really insightful work. Seeing a lot of the work for the first time, it was a real joy to see so many fresh takes come through in the work. From classic pieces of design that delivered a joyful hack into a dark market, to much more responsible uses of Ai that used technology to showcase our humanity in ways not possible before. Especially cool was hearing the discussions from our new Entertainment category – jurors from outside the Ad world going in to bat for work that is above all else ‘entertaining’ and showing the rewards for brands when they commit long term, rather than just jumping to next trend.”

In the Sick Six: Young Director’s Challenge sponsored by Maxis, the winner was Lim Xin Ruu, who was mentored by Graph Studio to bring Lim’s film “Papayah” to life, with 4As Malaysia sponsoring entry of the film to the AdFest New Director Lotus and Cannes Young Director Awards.

In the Young Kancils Challenge sponsored by Tealive, the Silver was awarded to Team Young Simba from Ogilvy Malaysia, Bronze was awarded to Team K.A.K from Leo Burnett Kuala Lumpur and Merit was awarded to Team GSC from Havas Malaysia. The Young Kancils Silver award winner gets London International Awards (LIA) sponsorship for a seat at the LIA Creative LIAisons 2024 onsite program in Las Vegas, while the Bronze award winner gets three seats for the Creative LIAisons 2024 Virtual Coaching Program.

Speaking about this year’s Kancil theme, “Make It Happen for Malaysia”, Kancils Jury co-Chairperson Chan Woei Hern, Head of Creative Vayner Media APAC, said: “The theme is best reflected in the common cause that is the advertising community. Everyone coming together so generously to give their time and effort to see how we can all make the industry a better place year on year. We’re really proud of this and continue to be excited by the next generation of creative leaders getting involved in it. Likewise with the Scooler student awards, we’re seeing a huge increase in submissions and were blown away by the talent and effort put in.”

Organised by the Association of Accredited Advertising Agents of Malaysia (4As), the Kancil Awards 2024 presented 234 awards across 10 categories. A total of 865 entries were received in the professional categories, while a further 545 student entries were received for the Student KancilsX Scooler Awards 2024 sponsored by Goodday Charge.

The One Academy was once again named Creative School of the Year, while Juliana Reza, Aklmal Arief, Vivian Lim, Nicholas Ryan, and Sarhvin Rakupathi of IACT College were named Student of the Year, and Lew Tau Fei of Dasein Academy of Art was named Lecturer of the Year. IACT College also won Idea of the Year for the student campaign “Mati Adat”.

New additions to Kancils 2024 were Tik Tok Shop Malaysia as the sponsor of the Commerce Kancils which shines a spotlight on work that applies innovation and creativity to commerce, payment solutions and transactional journeys; a new category Entertainment Kancils with Tonton Media as the sponsor, highlighting creativity from creators on social, streamers, gamers, longform or documentary filmmakers, musicians or bands, music studios, or entertainment publishers; and Media Prima as a new media partner to provide more exposure and visibility to the Awards and Festival. Under Media Prima, Big Tree Outdoor is the sponsor for the Outdoor Kancils category, and TV3 is the sponsor for the Film & Branded Content Kancils.

The Kancil Awards were presented at the culmination of the Kancil Creative Festival Conference 2024 held on November 22, 2024 at EX8 Subang Jaya, which was comprised of multiple sessions including talks by local and international creatives, hands-on workshops, panels discussing trends, screenings, and exhibitions showcasing some of the best creative work of the past year.