The Sri Lanka office of IPG’s MullenLowe Group emerged as the most awarded agency of the evening, walking away with 17 awards – 3 Gold, 3 Silver, 3 Bronze and 7 Finalists, in addition to the main accolade of the night, the prestigious ‘Agency of the Year’ award.
The agency further made a significant contribution to make their clients Unilever to win the coveted ‘Marketer of The Year’ award and Softlogic Life Insurance to win the ‘Brand of the Year’ award.
Speaking of the agency’s performance Virat Tandon, the Group CEO of the Mullenlowe Lintas Group who happened to be in Sri Lanka on an official visit and was also on site to witness MullenLowe sweep the boards at the gala event said, “Globally, the MullenLowe Group has performed exceptionally well at the Effies and retained the top spot in the Effie Index as the most effective global network in terms of points per dollar revenue.
I am happy to note that Sri Lanka is no exception and has been constantly punching above its weight and winning metal year on year.”
MullenLowe Sri Lanka’s Chief Executive Officer, Thayalan Bartlett, accepted the ‘Most Effective Agency of the Year’ award on behalf of the agency from the Chief Guest Imal Fonseka Commenting on this year’s win, Thayalan said, “Retaining the title of ‘Most Effective Agency of the Year’ is a testament to our consistency of producing outstanding creative with a strong strategic intent.
Awards mean little to us if it doesn’t reflect in our own business performance. As an agency we have doubled our revenue in 3 years.
Our performance has been primarily driven by significant new business gains which contributed 12.1% in 2017, 14.66% in 2018 and is expected to top-off at 18.08% in 2019.
Our overall revenue growth has outpaced the growth of the ad industry and beaten our own estimates.
The company sits firmly at the top in terms of recognition, reputation, staff health and leadership.
Awards are a consequence of these key indicators which seal the deal for MullenLowe.
We just can’t be happier with all our performances particularly in an economically constricting year as 2019.”
MullenLowe Sri Lanka bagged 3 Gold Effies, one for its ‘How Else Can I Say This’ campaign for Rexona, and two Golds for its ‘The Good Sicknesses in Life’ campaign for Softlogic Life in the Insurance and David vs Goliath categories.
The agency also picked up 3 Silver Effies for its ‘The Good Sicknesses in Life’ campaign for Softlogic Life, ‘Clear Helmet for Clear and ‘BB Ready Go’ for Fair and Lovely as well as 3 Bronze awards for its ‘Hi!!!’ campaign for Close Up, ‘Baby Steps to Adult Skin’ campaign for Vaseline and ‘Making Night Time Brushing Child’s Play’ campaign for Signal.
The agency also received 7 Finalist Awards for its ‘Taking the Sri Lankan Smile to the World’ campaign for Signal, ‘The Leda Affiliation’ and ‘A 3 Year Old Competing with the Big Daddies’ for Softlogic Life, ‘Sri Lanka’s First Ever Smile Ambassadors’ for Signal and ‘Care that Strengthens Bonds,’ ‘Sunlight Rose – Long Lasting Fragrance’ and ‘Adaraneeya Arumbumak’ for Sunlight.
“We couldn’t be more elated at winning several of the top awards of the night, proving that we constantly deliver, not just good creatives, but work that actually delivers fantastic results and helps build our client’s brands.
Conceptualising and delivering some of the most talked about campaigns of the year is no easy task but the passion, team spirit and strong work ethic of the MullenLowe team has once again delivered outstanding results,” said Dilshara Jayamanna, Senior Vice President / Executive Creative Director, MullenLowe Sri Lanka.
A global symbol of achievement with award programs honouring effective marketing communications in 42 countries and 6 regions, the Effie Awards have been held in Sri Lanka in partnership with the Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing (SLIM) since 2008.
Established as LDB Lintas in 1993, and thereafter referred to as Lowe LDB, the agency comes from a very strong creative lineage.
It came to be known as MullenLowe as a result of a merger with US based network Mullen in 2015.
A majority of MullenLowe’s business comes from global FMCG giant Unilever.
In addition, it works with some of the country’s leading brands in carbonated soft drinks, banking and finance, insurance, biscuits, milk foods, sanitary napkins, foods, FinTech, personal & beauty care products, mobile communications, data and consumer electronics.
The company possess a vast cross category knowledge which gives it an edge when it comes to effective work.
The company continues to dominate the top 10 most advertised categories by 80% and the top 20 most advertised categories by 50% making it by far, the most influential brand communications company in Sri Lanka.
Photo Caption
1.) Thayalan Bartlett, Chief Executive Officer, and Dilshara Jayamanna, Senior Vice President and Executive Creative Director of MullenLowe Sri Lanka accepting the ‘Most Effective Agency of the Year’ award from Imal Fonseka, the Chief Guest along with Virat Tandon, Group CEO, MullenLowe Lintas Group and the MullenLowe Sri Lanka team.
2.) Left to right: The Leadership Team of MullenLowe Sri Lanka Thayalan Bartlett - Chief Executive Officer, Abhishek Hariharan - Vice President and Head of Planning, Sean R. Pompeus - Associate Vice President and Client Service Director, Smriti Bhargava - Client Services Director, Dilshara Jayamanna Senior Vice President and Executive Creative Director and Harendra Uyanage - Associate Vice President and Executive Creative Director.
