2011 has been a good year for us in awards with a total of 19 achievements* in all. The icing on the cake to end the year was last night’s Kancils with its requisite reckless boozing and annual schmoozing. But we digress. The results from last night:

• Bronze Cyber Kancil: Cyber Campaign: MINI At Large
• Merit Cyber Kancil: Social: MINI At Large
• Merit Integrated Kancil: MINI At Large
• Bronze Cyber Kancil: Open: Ridsect Roach Massacre (collabo with Lowe)
• Merit Craft Kancil: Art Direction: Ridsect Roach Massacre (collabo with Lowe)
• Silver Cyber Kancil: Technology/Innovation: Friso Womb Scan AR (collabo with JWT)
• Silver Media Kancil: Innovative Use Of Media: Friso Womb Scan AR (collabo with JWT)
• Silver Rebel Kancil: Rebel Idea: Friso Womb Scan AR (collabo with JWT)

It was a good showing and we’re especially proud as we continue to uphold our strict no-scams policy for the 15th year!

Big big thanks to our clients, agency partners-in-crime Lowe and JWT and last but certainly not least, the awesome talent and dedication of our account management, strategy, social, technology and creative colleagues who made this all possible!

* Earlier this year:

• 3 category wins at the client-judged, results-focused Markies: Best Social Media Campaign for MINI At Large, Best Print Campaign (Magazines) for MINI At Large, and Best Web Design for Clear Paris

• 6 wins at the client-nominated and client-judged A+M Agency of the Year Awards 2011 in the categories Digital Agency of the Year, Creative Agency of the Year and Direct Marketing Agency of the Year

• 1 Finalist at the results-focused Malaysian Effie Awards for MINI At Large in the Automotive category
• 1 Bronze at Campaign’s results-focused Digital Media Awards Asia for MINI At Large in the Automotive category

“With great power comes great responsibility”, Peter Parker Ben Parker, Spiderman’s uncle (as rightly pointed out by Dayana Kamaruzaman) famously said. Or Voltaire, whichever version of the truth you prefer.

That’s immaterial to us. We prefer this version (author unknown).

“With great success comes great debauchery!”

Said Debauchery went down @ Bar 21, BSC, Bangsar.  Arachnerds reported for mayhem duty at 1930 hours and made merry till the wee hours with a few locals. Mr. Smirnoff, Mr. J. Daniels and Mr. Carlsberg to name but a few.

On the back of the AOTY 2011 wins, A+M also announced the inaugural winners of the MARKies awards. The MARKies, like the A+M AOTYs, are also judged entirely by clients, and are very much results-oriented.

“This isn’t another creative vanity-fest, which marketers consistently tell us are losing touch with the reality of marketing pressures, but a genuine attempt to offer insight into the sort of work marketers truly admire,” said Tony Kelly, editorial director for the Marketing Magazine Group.

Nice. That sounds like good reason to be really proud of the 3 wins we had:

• Best Social Media Campaign – for the integrated, yet very digital and social teaser/launch of the MINI Countryman
• Best Web Design – for the global online work on Clear Paris Institute
• Best Print Campaign (Magazines) – for our series of print ads following the teaser/launch of the MINI Countryman (this one is especially interesting for us as an agency that’s best known for “digital” work)

A huge thank you to our MINI and Unilever clients for the opportunity as well as your trust and support for both defining the box and then setting us free to get outside of it for a better outcome. And to the teams who gave their all for the winning work, thanks for your astounding awesomeness!

For three years, Advertising + Marketing magazine has been organising the Agency Of The Year Awards – the only awards show voted entirely by senior client marketers instead of agency folks. Clients are asked which marketing agencies they most want to work with or that they’ve had the best experience working with in an open text, unprompted survey and the results are tallied up to reveal the most top-of-mind and respected agencies across various marketing disciplines.

This 3rd year, they’ve upped the ante. Besides client votes, they’ve raised the rigour by introducing client judging ie. the top-voted finalists are required to submit comprehensive information detailing the agency’s health across various hard and soft markers – everything from client stability to new biz win ratios, company vision and strategy to achieve it, talent development and staff stability, revenue growth and awards won, etc. This then goes through a judging panel of senior client marketers to debate, investigate and eventually choose the top four agencies in each discipline – Gold, Silver and Bronze winners (which can be local or international shops) plus one “Local Hero” (the best local agency in that discipline).

We’re extremely thankful to the client voters/judges, our awesome clients, fantastic team and not forgetting A+M for what is perhaps our best of 3 straight years winning at the AOTY. Here’s how we did this year:

• Silver Award for Digital Agency of the Year
• Local Hero for Digital Agency of the Year
• Silver Award for Direct Marketing Agency of the Year
• Local Hero for Direct Marketing Agency of the Year
• Bronze Award for Creative Agency of the Year
• Local Hero for Creative Agency of the Year

What’s significant to us besides the number of wins is also the fact that the marketplace is finally recognising us for our media-neutral capabilities as evidenced by the categories. Hopefully we’ll be getting more and more assignments for marketing problems that require consumer interaction and involvement, whatever the medium.

With this 2011 tally, we’ve now won 10 A+M AOTY awards across 5 agency categories in just 3 years! Read about our performance so far at the AOTY Awards here.

]]> http://www.arachnid.com.my/2011/07/04/6-wins-at-agency-of-the-year-awards-2011/feed/ 0 http://www.arachnid.com.my/2011/06/14/can-you-guess-what-were-up-to-next/ http://www.arachnid.com.my/2011/06/14/can-you-guess-what-were-up-to-next/#comments Tue, 14 Jun 2011 05:08:51 +0000 Kelvin http://www.arachnid.com.my/?p=1828 It’s nice to do physical stuff outside the office once in a while. Working on physical versus virtual projects allows us to explore new perspectives on pulling participation.

We’re in the midst of developing a very interesting project that involves construction and hard hats. Can’t reveal anything yet but here are some pics. Stay tuned!

We were gathered in a studio in Bangkok last February (sorry for the late posting, due to confidentiality we couldn’t talk about this earlier) to produce short comedic videos for Cornetto’s latest regional campaign – “Say It with Cornetto”.  It was loads of fun working with actors from the Cornetto TV commercials to create a Facebook app that responds to users’ input. Everybody loved it; we had a fantastic time in Bangkok, not to mention seeing the actors bring our whacky imagination to life!

We’re back from our 2011 company trip to Club Med Cherating. Physically. Mentally though, a lot of us are still there. Anyway it was an INSANELY awesome trip! Probably our best one ever compared to Club Med Bintan, Phuket and other places. There’s no real new addition to the formula – sun, sand, sea, free flow of booze and drinks, skimpy swimsuits, scandals, lots of good food, a bit of shopping. But somehow, this one was special… perfect combination of people chemistry I think. Thanks to the Sports Club for organising this. Now you have to outdo yourself for future trips!

Here are some photos. Don’t worry guys and gals… the most scandalous one have been removed.

]]> http://www.arachnid.com.my/2011/05/03/club-mad/feed/ 0 http://www.arachnid.com.my/2011/04/22/mini-countryman-product-er-experience/ http://www.arachnid.com.my/2011/04/22/mini-countryman-product-er-experience/#comments Fri, 22 Apr 2011 08:48:17 +0000 David http://www.arachnid.com.my/?p=1863 Now that the MINI Countryman (model designation R60) is launched, I can finally talk about this! For me, it was an experience I would never forget. WARNING: Long, gushy post…

Shortly after the first few units of Countryman arrived in Port Klang and we had shot the “hijack teaser” with the awesome bunch at Driven Media and Creature, the fleet was prepped for an overnight product training for sales advisors. Two of us from the agency were lucky enough to be invited! It was like nothing we’ve attended before. No classroom, no powerpoint presentations….just wide open roads from Cyberjaya all the way to Tanjung Jara Resort, Terengganu! And back!!

Our journey began bright and early at BMW’s office in Cyberjaya. Filled with excitement we eagerly waited for the customary safety briefing to be over and get our hands on the beauties that awaited us. We had two R60 Cooper and two R60 Cooper S for this two-day drive trip and I was glad to have driven both to experience their different driving dynamics. The drive to Tanjung Jara would be a combination of city jams (getting out of KL), long wide highways, as well as winding narrow trunk roads (yeah!!).

Driving in a convoy with a lead car setting the pace, we were “fast” on our way to Terengganu by about 8am. The grins on our faces were priceless. What excitement! The Countryman is indeed the biggest MINI, ever, with 4 doors, over 4 meters long and with 4 wheel drive (Cooper S only). We took turns at the wheel swapping cars along the way so everyone could drive both variants. As a passenger on the first leg I couldn’t help but notice the delighted stares we got from other motorists during the morning jam out of KL. For once, I didn’t mind getting stuck in a jam.

Along the drive, at every rest stop we drew crowds of curious people wanting to have a look at the cars. We were greeted with ooohs and ahhhs and typical Malaysian “waah…nice ah, how much ah?” LOL. Soon we got off the highway and arrived at Hyatt Kuantan for a wonderful seafood lunch by the beach. The sound of the waves were awesome but I guess everyone was just itching to get back behind the wheel and eat up the last leg to our final destination.

So, what’s it like driving the Countryman? AWESOME!! Be it Cooper or Cooper S they both handled brilliantly. I think a lot of people, myself included, were worried that the R60 would be too heavy or too tall and it would lose the go-kart sharpness. I’m no expert but safe to say just about anyone would enjoy love it! The throttle response, cornering, ride quality and engine sound were sweet. It made you feel more confident a driver than you really are! Even as a passenger you would enjoy it as the ride is much better than the hatch. There’s lots of space inside and more places to chuck your junk. The Cooper S handles better with 4 wheel drive around corners and has better acceleration with its turbo-charged engine. So no guesses which was my favourite

We finally got to Tanjung Jara and what was a five hour plus drive felt like two. We got a warm welcome from the hotel and were ushered to our beautiful rooms. More makan-makan followed with some R&R time to ourselves. Day 2 was some fun and games about the various features of the Countryman after a heavy breakfast. Ok….there was a short classroom session with powerpoint presentations. Soon it was lunch and a group photo. And then, more driving!

The same drill – paired up and back on the road again in a convoy. Only this time, it began to rain (yippie!!). Definitely more adrenaline on the drive back to KL although less traffic around the Genting stretch would have been better for those hunting apexes. We arrived KL around 7pm on Friday and was stuck in the jam again. When we got to Cyberjaya around 9pm the feeling was a mix of exhaustion and sadness as we had to return the cars. It really has been a fantastic getaway and an experience of a lifetime. Big big thanks to our client for letting us be part of this. It gave us perspective like no briefing document could and truly inspired us, not just about the product but about the brand.

Here are some photos we took along the way…enjoy!

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