Global creative opportunities, innovations abound at awards

“Creativity is borderless and talent knows no bounds,” said Chan Woei Hern, deputy jury chairperson, Kancils Creative Council

PETALING JAYA: The Association of Accredited Advertising Agents of Malaysia (4As) has announced several important partnerships and progressive innovations for the 2022 PETRONAS Kancil Awards, Malaysia’s longest running and most prestigious advertising awards competition.

The Kancil Awards is collaborating with London International Awards (LIA) to offer two opportunities to young Malaysian creatives.

LIA is a global Creative Awards Festival honouring great creative ideas and executions in Advertising, Data, Digital, Technology, Design, Package Design, Radio, Production, Health and Wellness, Pharma and Medical, Creativity In Public Relations, Innovation, Creative Business Transformation and Creativity In The Metaverse.

For 2023, as part of LIA’s Creative LIAisons initiative to educate, inspire and develop young talent globally, Creative LIAisons is offering two invaluable opportunities to join their coveted programmes and learn from the top creative people in the world.

One young talent from Malaysia will be selected to attend the on-site Creative LIAisons Programme in Las Vegas in October 2023. In addition, there will be two places offered to young Malaysian creatives to be part of the 2023 virtual one-to-one creative coaching and mentoring sessions from February through November 2023.

These opportunities will be offered to the winning team of the “Young Kancil by 2022 PETRONAS Kancil Awards presented by Subway”, in the spirit of exchange, education, and exposure. Only creatives between the ages of 21 to 30 years will be eligible for either programme.Barbara Levy, president and founder of LIA in a statement said: “As a global awards show that was created for creatives, LIA is pleased to support the Malaysian creative industry by offering three young Malaysians places to our Creative LIAisons programmes for 2023.

“Both these programmes have been highly successful in nurturing emerging talent, helping them hone their skills and make connections around the world. We are proud that many of our Creative LIAisons alumni have risen to more senior roles since attending the programme.”

The Creative LIAisons on-site programme runs concurrently with the on-site judging in Las Vegas. It features seminars, panel discussions, interactive workshops, and the once-in-a- lifetime opportunity for young creatives to sit in the judging rooms for statue discussions.

To kick off this collaboration, earlier in 2022, Creative LIAisons offered a scholarship for “The Business of Creativity” to Heng Thang Wei of Grey Malaysia, Campaign Brief Asia 2021 Creative Rankings’ highest scorer, who is still currently employed by the same agency.

“Creativity is borderless and talent knows no bounds,” said Chan Woei Hern, deputy jury chairperson, Kancils Creative Council. “The Kancils partnership with LIA is testament to this, and provides even more worldwide exposure for Malaysian creative talents,” he added.

A further innovation at the 2022 PETRONAS Kancil Awards has been the invitation to 4As members to nominate the jury panels.

“An awarded body of work is only as strong as the panel selecting the work. For the Kancil awards, we want to build a jury panel that’s rigorous, fair, and diverse,” said Emir Shafri, Kancil Awards jury chairperson.

4As members were invited to nominate individuals recognised as “Award-Winning Creative Leaders”, “The Next Generation”, “Experts in their Field”, and “Women to Watch”, as well as other outstanding creatives who could contribute to the panels.

“With diverse jury panels in combination with our other efforts, such as a fully digital anonymous voting system and independent observers as well as moderators to monitor the vote, we hope to arrive at a body of work that our industry can be proud of,” added Emir.

The Awards are part of a bigger festival that pulls people from the creative industry to share their inspiring stories and lessons. The festival will take place on Dec 2 at the Sentul Depot in Kuala Lumpur.