29 November, Singapore – Some of Singapore 's advertising industry's most creative and innovative campaigns earned kudos tonight at the 27 th annual Creative Circle Awards (CCA).

Agency of the Year

Ogilvy Singapore scooped the inaugural Agency of the Year award with one Best of Show Gong for Advertising, two Golds, two Silvers, four Bronzes, and 15 Finalists awards. The award honours the agency that tops the overall results at CCA 2007.

In addition, it tops the medal tally for two media disciplines – Advertising and Interactive.

Separate Medal Tally for Each Media Discipline

For the first time, separate ranking tables were created to recognise the growth and strength of other creative disciplines beyond advertising. These tables does not include craft awards so as to put the focus on awarding great ideas. Craft will have it's own ranking table. The top agencies are:

Advertising: Ogilvy Singapore

Design: Kinetic Singapore

DM/Promo: Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide

Interactive: Ogilvy Singapore

Best of Show Gongs

The coveted Best of Show Gong went to Ogilvy's FHM campaign for the Advertising discipline. It also won two golds in the Print-Magazines and Print Craft-Typography categories.

There were no Gong winners for the rest of the disciplines.

Commenting on the entries, Advertising judge Ted Royer of Droga5, New York said, “There is no question that Singapore print, especially, is world class.  Every year there is really beautiful work that comes out of Singapore that I think globally people are impressed.  So I think, in print and maybe some other medium, Singapore is a very good city, it definitely punches well about its weight.”

“A lot of the work that stood up for me, as I realized later, actually came from the industry's younger minds… This year, I've also realized that there is an increase use of new channels to engage the audience. Last I recalled, there were maybe five or more campaigns actually, that employed social networking sites as part of their campaign mix and I think that that's quite a healthy direction, when more work move beyond just broadcast,” added Advertising judge Jay Phua of 10AM Communications.

Head of Interactive Jury and Advertising judge, Kevin Flatt of Tribal DDB Chicago said, “ Singapore is a unique market in that the advertising is very focused as an island country.  Most of the communications exist through print. While it has a very large print market, there is fresh, new work happening on the online space – an area that I am the chairperson.  I can see that the market is maturing in this space and will continue to as brands extend beyond Singapore 's borders.”

New Milestones

CCA 2007 also marks several other key milestones.

Involving the Clients

To involve the advertisers, a list of international, regional and local clients were invited to participate in CCA by selecting and talking about their favourite ads and why they appeal to them.

Point-based System for Medal Tally

To reflect the changing landscape, the medal tally has moved into a points-based system from the old Olympic ranking system.

Of the total of 1,288 entries received, 120 awards were presented, including 8 Golds, 33 Silvers, 75 Bronzes, the Advertising Gong, Agency of the Year, The Innovation Gong, awarded to Publicis for Nike's Stadium and New Art Director to Adrian Chan of Ogilvy Singapore . A full list of the winners can be found at www.creativecircle.com.sg

CCA 2007 is a partner of this year's Singapore Design Festival, a biennial platform to promote design in Singapore , create opportunities for networking and exchange of ideas, and enhance Singapore as a vibrant and creative international design city.

Organised by the Association of Accredited Advertising Agents Singapore (4As), CCA celebrates and honours top creative talents in the advertising and communication industry. Started in 1980, CCA has been instrumental in pushing creativity to the edge and in the process raise the creative bar year after year.