13 agencies in three and a half days

BY THE HAMMER

That’s what we did last week!

With our ace driver and Head of Despatch En Hamdy and COO Vishnu Devarajan, we hit  the roads of KL and PJ on a whistle stop tour for The Ham Report.

“Thank You” to all the Gold Standard agencies who received us and gave us a chance to present them with their deserving “gold ingot” trophies.

The tour continues after Raya week as we look forward to meeting a few more remaining Gold Standard agencies.

The Ham Report is an annual industry benchmark that provides a ready reference and guide to the Gold-award winning players for the year, based on 6 award shows.

The Malaysian advertising, media and marketing industries spend millions on award shows every year. Fame brings fortune is the success formula for most players, in a battleground where brands that shine are seen as examples to copy.

How The Ham Report was born?

My life as an industry observer has always been peppered by calls from friends and marketers asking me for recommendations – be it agency, people, or simply for juicy gossip that I will never publish.

As an accidental journalist and self-employed copywriter, it is my business to poke my nose in other people’s business.

There is even a running joke that if someone is bored with his or her job and does not know where they will heading next, they can call me to find out.

In the absence of any industry guide, and to avoid marketers digging through all the award shows, this Report can serve as a lighthouse in the darkness.

When push came to shove, less than 30 agencies/companies made the cut for the Gold standard.

Why this report?

You need clarity, amidst a mountain of over 1,000 awards dished out in 2022. We sifted through the stones to bring you the finest sand. The rankings are only a road map and a culmination of two months of non-stop work.

It is not definitive, nothing in life is.

Agency functions overlap

Let’s face it; every agency claims it can do everything. Marketers are equally ambiguous in their needs, one minute they want a specialist and the next minute an integrated communications agency.

So I have decided not to pigeon hole any of the winners. A media agency can also be a great creative ideas resource, or a brand-creative agency could innovative with path- breaking media ideas.

Methodology

Rankings are raked from shows hosted in Malaysia: APPIES, Dragons and the industry-sanctioned Digital Association d’Awards, Media Specialists Association Awards, Effie Malaysia and the Petronas Kancil Awards, for the year 2022.

Only Gold winners (5 points) are counted. Entries or campaigns that win multiple Gold in the same show, or across the six shows in our rankings, are factored as ONE Gold win (unique).

Whether it is a Gold for craft, singular entry, idea or pure science and imagination, a Gold is a Gold if it scores top metal in these shows.

These are the shows that matter to us and we are aware of their processes and credibility. Malaysian Gold winners on the regional level have a slightly higher weightage (7 points), as is the case for APPIES AsiaPacific and Dragons Asia.

Download full report here.