First round of Best of Show revealed

Pattaya - Publicis Singapore, JWT Kuala Lumpur, Y&R Malaysia and Leo Burnett Sydney were the four agencies which bagged one Best of Show each at last night's awards presentation for the Radio, Direct, Design, Print Craft and Press categories.

Publicis Singapore won Best of Design and Gold for its "Stadium" work in Packaging Design. Best of Press and two Golds for single and campaign went to JWT Kuala Lumpur for its work entitled ‘Oil' for Scott Kitchen Towels.

In the radio category, some 13 categories including Fashion & Cosmetics, Automotive, Tourism, Retail, Corporate and Electronics missed out on taking a single award.

Y&R Malaysia however took Best of Radio and a Gold for its commercial ‘Brushing' for Colgate 360 Toothbrush entered in Health and Personal Care. Best of Direct and a Gold went to Leo Burnett Sydney for its widely awarded Integrated Direct Campaign work for Earth Hour.

Aside from the Best of Show win, Singapore had a particularly strong showing last night, walking away with 12 of the 17 Golds given away. Singaporean agencies that picked up Gold included Saatchi & Saatchi (with the largest haul of six Golds), JWT (four), O&M (one) and Publicis (one).

Nine of the 12 Singaporean Golds were picked up in the Press category, which is no surprise as the country is particularly well-known for its Press work.

As a Craft category, the Best of Show award was not given for Print Craft.

Print Craft Lotus Jury president Stefan Sagmeister also ECD of Sagmeister Inc. New York, said while the category was strong, he said "sadly there was very little high-end extreme work".

"It was very competent, but not so much clearly inventive work, with the exception of some illustration," he said.