ADVERTISEMENTS accompany our every step. They are in newspapers, on TV, radio, the internet and they line the roads of cities and suburbs. While some of them can be witty or enjoyable, others are boring or unsightly. In Slovakia the EFFIE awards are granted in the autumn to the most effective marketing and communications firms, while in the spring Zlatý Klinec (Golden Nail) awards are granted to the most creative.
Last year the top Slovak advertising companies confirmed their strong positions on the market, and one even earned European-wide acclaim. MUW;Digital, the first agency in the 20-year history of Slovakia to win a prestigious silver EURO EFFIE award, received it in mid September in Brussels for the successful campaign launch of the direct bank ZUNO on the Slovak and Czech markets, Stratégie magazine wrote.
“An especially courageous client should be sought behind each successful campaign,” Radovan Andrej Grežo, the creative director of MUW;Digital told the magazine, adding that they owe a portion of the success to the hard-working team at the agency.
The shortlist for the EURO EFFIE awards included 40 works by the biggest agencies in Europe, including Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam, TBWA/London and Saatchi & Saatchi Germany.
“That we won the trust of the client when he had selected us as the agency for all countries in which ZUNO bank will operate, was already a reward for us,” Judita Víghová, CEO of MUW;Digital told the magazine. “It does not happen very often that a Slovak agency works for brands in foreign markets, much less the launch of a completely new bank brand.”
National EFFIE awards were distributed in November. Wiktor Leo Burnett (WLB) became the most successful agency at the 14th year of the EFFIE Slovakia 2012 when its three shortlisted works won one gold and two silvers, the media and advertising website Medialne.sk, reported.
The only gold EFFIE Slovakia award went to WLB for its Christmas and New Year’s campaign of Pišta Lakatoš that it prepared for Orange Slovakia. The marketing task was to reduce the churn rate and to increase the number of FunFón clients, the mobile service resold by Orange Slovakia. The target demographic was 14 to 25-year-olds using prepaid mobile services. WLB created a cartoon character, Roma Pišta Lakatoš, and his inventive vocabulary with peculiar translations of English words into Slovak, based on the play of words.
WLB won silver awards for the campaign called “Úprimné kurča (Honest Chicken)” for the meat producer Hyza and the campaign called “Buy only with the ID card” for the client Consumer Finance Holding (Quatro).
Within the campaign the meat producer wanted to support production of local chicken products and introduced the brand “Honest Chicken with Pedigree”, claiming that it is Slovak and proud of it. In this particular campaign, the message is conveyed on the packaging of the product itself.
MUW;Digital received the silver for the campaign launch of ZUNO bank and MUW Saatchi & Saatchi won the fourth silver EFFIE for the campaign launch of Easy Maestro for Slovak Telekom. The bronze went to the Istropolitana Ogilvy Agency for its third edition of the successful Zlatý Bažant – the World and the Slovaks piece, for its client Heineken Slovensko.
In total, eight agencies entered 17 works for nine clients in the EFFIE Slovakia 2012 competition. The jury granted one gold award, four silvers and one bronze, while four other works were shortlisted.
WLB also became the agency of the year, followed by JANDL and MADE BY VACULIK. When revenues were taken into consideration, JANDL headed the TOP TAAS ranking, followed by WLB and MUW Saatchi & Saatchi.
Creativity awarded
The most prestigious creative advertising competition in Slovakia is the Zlatý Klinec (Golden Nail) contest hosted by the Ad Awards Association and juried also by members of the Club of Advertising Agencies Slovakia (KRAS), the Art Director’s Club Slovensko (ADC) and the Stratégie monthly. The results of the 18th year were announced in mid May. The jury chaired by Will Rust, creative director at Ogilvy & Mather, Ukraine, granted neither the Grand Prix nor Art Prix. In total it distributed 34 awards in nine categories. 31 agencies submitted 301 works. This was an increase of 11 percent compared with 2011, while the category of Interactive & Online was represented the most with 81 works.
“There was not one work [that could be singled out] that would move Slovak advertising forward and provide Slovak creative directors with a direction in which to proceed,” Jaro Zacko, the creative director at the Triad Advertising agency and member of the jury said, as quoted by the Hospodárske Noviny financial daily.
Juraj Vaculík, president of KRAS, was pleased with the historically high number of entries. In his commentary for Stratégie he wrote that the increase in submissions in online categories, which in total made up almost one third of all works, was an expected development, but the Print and TV categories were weaker compared with previous years.
According to ADC President Róbert Slovák, the results confirm the current state of functional and efficient creativity on the market, when none of the works stood out enough to win the Grand Prix or Art Prix. Slovák thinks that the agencies should put more effort into realisation of their work.
“Lóve – warez edition”, a piece by MADE BY VACULIK against illegal downloading of the Slovak movie Lóve for the client InOut Studio, became the most successful product of the year. It won two Golden Nail awards - in the category of Media and Interactive & Online. The firm was tasked with persuading viewers of the feature film Lóve to go to the cinema to see the movie instead of downloading it illegally from the internet. The advertisement was done to look like a fake copy of the movie and then put online. However, in this version the film’s actors expressed their views on illegally downloading movies from the internet.
Moreover, MADE BY VACULIK won the silver award in the Print category, for “Without support it would be a different story” for the client Team Slovakia, and in the category Interactive & Online for “Kuriér.nemeckysprinter” for Mercedes-Benz Slovakia. It also won the bronze for “TB or not TB” for the Tatra Banka foundation and for “Modlitbička” for the Dobrý Anjel (Good Angel) charitable programme.
Istropolitana Ogilvy won the same number of awards with six Nails, including one gold for the World and the Slovaks, for Heineken Slovensko in the TV and cinema advertising category. It also won the bronze for the same work in the Campaign category. The work “Puma of Senec” for VÚB Banka fetched the silver, and won an additional three bronzes in other categories.
MUW Saatchi & Saatchi was the third most successful agency in terms of awards won. It received three silvers and two Silver Nails for “Paviel neodporúča (Paviel does not recommend)” and “Magio pláž (Magio beach)”, both for Slovak Telekom as well as for “Bookies and Cookies” for confectioner’s shop and children’s bookshop Bookies and Cookies.
