Agency & Marketing Professional Of The Year

CAANZ MEDIA RELEASE
Under embargo until 26th September 2003

CELEBRATING ADVERTISING RESULTS – Agency & Marketing Professional Of The Year

DDB’s Scott Wallace and Air New Zealand’s Ed Sims took the top individual awards at the 2003 EFFIE Awards held in Auckland last night to celebrate advertising success stories.

The awards hosted by the Communication Agencies Association (CAANZ) included for the first time a special award for Agency Professional of the Year, introduced to recognise an individual’s achievement in their contribution to both agency and client success.

Scott Wallace, DDB New Zealand, scored very highly against all three judging criteria – his contribution to his agency’s success, his contribution to client success and the quality of the written endorsements of Scott provided by his clients.

The judges said the evidence of success was convincing and very compelling in its passion and enthusiasm.

The Award for the Marketing Professional goes to Ed Sims of Air New Zealand. Faced with the near collapse of both company and brand, Ed and his team knew that to survive, let alone prosper in the future, they needed to market a whole new domestic travel paradigm.

Research in NZ and observation of overseas trends indicated that the full service, relatively expensive model was unlikely to succeed in the medium term, hence the decision to re-launch as a value-based carrier – Air New Zealand Express.

Ed was also forced to do this on a seriously constrained marketing budget and at the same time re-structure his department.

Air New Zealand has not only survived, but with the help of the ‘Express’ domestic product is moving back into profit.

Visit www.caanz.co.nz to view all winners

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