Sunday Times 2
Leo Burnett wins Spikes awards for WNL’s Ada
Spikes Asia is the most revered advertising award ceremony in Asia Pacific, where creativity in communications is recognised and rewarded.
This annual festival held in Singapore, brings together the leaders from the marketing communications industry for three days of learning, and sharing experiences and to be rewarded for outstanding work.
Leo Burnett Sri Lanka triumphed at this year’s awards ceremony by winning two Silver and one Bronze medals at Spikes Asia and was the only Sri Lankan agency to gain such a recognition.
These awards were received for the dual language newspaper created for Ada by Leo Burnett to commemorate the Sinhala and Tamil New Year, and was aptly titled the Unity Paper.
The two Silver awards were received in the Media Innovations and Promo & Activation categories, the Bronze award was won in the Branded Content and Entertainment category again for the Unity Paper.
The Unity Paper made history by being the country’s first bilingual newspaper which was created to bring together Sri Lankans and to pursue national unity and integration despite the many setbacks that have occurred due to the 30-year civil war.
The Unity Paper was supported with a social media initiative which created a joint alphabet where the same letters from the Sinhala and Tamil alphabet were interlocked, thus further representing the concept of unity. The Unity Paper reached an estimated 176,821 readers and the social media initiative was able to engage 15% of Sri Lanka’s Facebook citizens.
Ranil De Silva, Managing Director, Leo Burnett Solutions Inc. commenting on the win at Spikes Asia stated, “We are really honoured and proud of the recognition bestowed upon us by eminent juries at Spikes. This recognition is a reward for the untiring and collective efforts of the team at the agency who worked around the clock to make this communications innovation a reality.
“I am very grateful to Wijeya Newspapers for being bold in undertaking this initiative. Three Spikes is a huge honour not just for us but also for the Leo Burnett network and for Sri Lanka. More importantly the tremendous response we received for the campaign especially through social media is even more gratifying.”
Mark Tutsell, Chief Creative Officer of Leo Burnett Worldwide who was at the festival stated that “Sri Lanka’s creative success is an inspiration to the entire network.”
He also said, “it proves that when there is a will there is a way. Leo Burnett Sri Lanka has been focused on developing its creative product to global standards and they certainly have done it. I am very proud of our team in Colombo.”
Jarek Ziebinski, President of Leo Burnett Asia Pacific echoed Mark’s sentiments and said, “The contribution the Sri Lankan office is making towards the region’s creative reputation is enormous. I admire Ranil’s leadership and commend him on this success.”
Along with these three significant metals, the dynamic Young Spikes duo of Leo Burnett Solutions Inc. (LBSI) Chani Perera and Induwarani Munasinghe who represented Sri Lanka at the Young Spikes integrated competition, competing against 15 other countries won the Gold Award.
Spikes Asia Awards recognises and rewards work in 14 categories that include Film, Print, Outdoor, Radio, Digital, Design, Film Craft, Print & Poster Craft, Integrated, Branded Content, Mobile and PR. All entries are judged by leading international and regional creatives making the award an esteemed recognition. The three day festival is a celebration of creativity and an opportunity to learn from seminars, forums, workshops and master classes conducted by some of the greatest minds in the business. The best work from across the region is showcased at the festival which attracts an audience in excess of 1500 delegates. The Spikes Asia Awards, is the region’s oldest and most prestigious awards for advertising.
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