The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) yesterday issued a call for entries for the 2018 SMARTIES Awards across the Asia-Pacific region, encouraging brands, agencies and marketers who have made outstanding achievements across the mobile marketing ecosystem to submit their best work. Back for its sixth season this year, the Awards is the world’s only global mobile marketing awards programme that honours innovation, creativity and success.
Launched in 2013, the SMARTIES APAC Awards have grown rapidly, but remain focused on its core mission to accelerate the transformation and innovation of marketing through mobile in the region.
“Since its inauguration in Asia in 2013, the SMARTIES Awards have grown exponentially, as it presents a platform for brands, agencies and publishers to showcase their expertise, and explore ways of working together to best engage consumers,” shared Rohit Dadwal, Managing Director of MMA in Asia Pacific, with Connected to India.
“We have increased the number of categories from 20 last year to 24 this year, as we continue to honour ground-breaking creativity in mobile marketing across a wide range of segments, from innovative use of mobile technology in programmatic, to campaigns excellently integrated across all digital media. Last year’s SMARTIES APAC Awards saw a line-up of 54 awards. We are excited to see what this year has in store for us and encourage the mobile marketing industry to submit their nominations as well as shout about their best work, the ones that push the boundaries of mobile,” he added.
The 2018 SMARTIES APAC Awards will now accept submissions across 24 categories and industry awards under five different genres: Marketing Strategy, Channel/Media Strategy, Enabling Technologies, Creative Awards as well as Industry Awards. Gold, Silver and Bronze awards will be awarded for each of category, and leading performers will receive the highest honours of Marketer of the Year, Agency of the Year, and Best in Show, amongst others.
Entries for the APAC-level awards, and country-level awards in India and Indonesia, will get closed on July 15 while the submission deadline for the awards in China is July 20, and July 30 for Vietnam. Marketers and agencies can submit campaigns both in the country-level and the regional APAC-level awards concurrently.
With the new judging criteria implemented in 2017, entries will be evaluated on creativity, execution, strategy, and most importantly, business impact. Finalists will be evaluated by a panel comprising senior brand marketers and distinguished agency leaders. This year, MMA has also partnered WARC to launch the first-ever Business Impact Index, to identify, rank and award agencies and brands delivering the highest level of business impact, by analysing winner and finalist data from all SMARTIES Awards globally.
The Awards will be presented in conjunction with the MMA Forums in Shanghai, India, Indonesia and Vietnam. Themed ‘Shape the Future’, the 2018 MMA Forum series gathers the region’s top marketers to discuss key industry insights, inspire future innovations, and encourage companies to transform their business through mobile. The Forums and Awards will take place on the following dates:
- MMA Forum Singapore – August 17
- MMA SMARTIES China – September 13
- MMA Forum and SMARTIES India – September 21
- MMA Forum and SMARTIES Indonesia – October 17
- MMA Forum China – October 17
- MMA Forum and SMARTIES Vietnam – October 26
- MMA SMARTIES APAC (held in Singapore): November 9