Effies stands by multicultural category despite few entries
Multicall Connexions' gold Effie winner
The Communications Council is keeping faith with the multicultural/indigenous category for next year’s Effies Awards – despite it producing just one finalist this year and only a handful of entries.
Ethnic marketing specialist Multicall Connexions was awarded a gold effie in the multicultural category for the ‘Chinese New Year Term Deposit Bonanza’ for HSBC, but it was the sole finalist.
The Communications Council would not reveal how many entries there were for the category, but insisted there was more than one.
Loud, Australia’s only other multicultural specialist, is believed to be the only other entrant.
The multicultural/indigenous category was introduced in 2009, when CumminsNitro Brisbane won a silver for Tourism Queensland and multicultural agency Loud claimed a silver for Western Union.
No award was given in the category last year.
Daniel Leesong, CEO of the Communications Council, said in a statement: “Given the diversity of the Australian audience, we see multicultural marketing as an increasingly important field so we’ll continue to support the category as a way of benchmarking best practice in the area.”
“We encourage all agencies to continue to submit in the category so we can document great multicultural marketing cases for practitioners into the future,” he added.
Not sure where you are sourcng your information from but there are at least another 5 providers of multicultural communications and full service agencies across Australia and a myriad of smaller consultants. Such as our company Cultural Perspectives which is a Clemenger Group company,has been around for 18 years and has 18 staff ! The reason why we don’t submit for the Effies despite having a significant portfolio of work is because the category uses a mainstream campiagn judging paradigm which is not reflective or appropraite for how this sector operates. I am happy to elaborate if anyone is interested.
Faye Spiteri, Communications Director Cultural Perspectives
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Having been associated with setting up the Multicultural Committee of the Communications Council ( then AFA) three years ago and as the Founding Chair of the Committee, I need to address Faye’s misconception.
The idea of introducing the Multicultural Committee in the AFA was to bring about more professionalism and integration of this important multicultural market segment. The principles and processes undertaken by multicultural marketing and advertising is no different than the processes followed for mainstream advertising.
The difference lies in capturing the audience insights and aligning channels of reach – both above the line and experiential to achieve client’s objectives. ROI measurements demanded for mainstream advertising is as relevant to multicultural advertising and needs to be built into any work undertaken in this market.
The entry form provides allowance for the capturing of a multicultural campaign’s finer details with ROI measurement as criteria – topping the list as it should, especially in the current GFC economy ! I would sincerely like to invite Faye for one of our Multicultural Committee meetings to address her misconceptions.
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