Financial Times

SLIM 2005 roundup
Leo Burnett pulls off victory
Leo Burnett Solutions walked away winners with a total of 33 awards edging out last year's winners Phoenix O&M with 31 awards at the Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing Awards (SLIM) 2005 concluded at the Sri Lanka Exhibition and Convention Centre last week. Triad Advertising and J. Walter Thompson both won the next highest total of 21 awards each.

The coveted Campaign of the Year was won by the reborn JWT for their work on the Discovery campaign for Suntel WOW Internet services. The agency known as J.Walter Thompson, a day before the awards hit the obituaries of newspapers proclaiming its death and held a mock funeral to be reborn over the weekend as JWT denoting a shift in its approach and strategy to advertising.

The winners Leo Burnett also managed to clinch two of the main awards, the Print advertisement and Radio commercial of the year, while Triad Advertising won the award for TV commercial of the year.

"For an agency that is just five years old, this is quite overwhelming. Our win is clearly a result of great ideas and hard work put in by our talented team and the powerful partnership between the client, third party business partners and the agency," said Ranil de Silva, Managing Director of Leo Burnett Solutions in a statement issued to the media.

Leo Burnett, Phoenix O&M and Rediffusion DYR also managed to clinch a category as part of their award haul. The three agencies swept away all three places in the Print - Entertainment/Leisure, TV- Corporate Social Responsibility/Public Services and TV-Beverage categories respectively.

This year's awards also saw a drop in participation with some of the leading international agencies, Grant McCann Erickson, Lowe LDB, Masters DDB and Minds FCB choosing not to participate. It is believed that the agencies opted out to use their entry fees towards tsunami reconstruction and rehabilitation, while only Grant McCann Erickson made its stand public. However, the event still had the flavour of previous years and those present pleasantly celebrated their success.

SLIM, which has built a name for its awards among the advertising industry and accounts for substantial funding for the institute's operations, has also decided to forego 75% of its net profit and direct its funds towards the tsunami affected people.

The judging was carried out by a panel of 12 judges. Fadjar Rusli, the Executive Creative Director of Fortune Indonesia participated as the only international judge. The panel included Chandini Rajaratnam, Ranil De Silva, Sandya Salgado, Varuni Amunugama Fernando, and Ameer Ahamed -- all leading heads of agencies.

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