WPP’s MediaCom – just days after topping the Gunn Media 100 report – has dominated the Festival of Media Global Awards 2018 shortlist, with an impressive 53 entries.

PHD Worldwide takes the second spot with 41 and OMD completes the top three with 27 entries across the Media, Content and Insight & Technology categories.

MediaCom’s success is in part explained by an remarkable effort by MediaCom Israel, with 11 shortlisted entries. Other individual agency offices of note are MediaCom UK and Touché! Canada with 10 entries each and Mindshare China with nine – giving the top four a real global flavour.

In fact, out of 53 entering countries 38 made it into the shortlist with the UK leading the way on 50 entries, while the US and China boast 32 and 22, respectively.

Artificial Intelligence and digital marketing are currently dominated by technologists, but it’s time for creatives to take back control of advertising and make it all about “creating desire” again, rather than about tricking people into watching content. 

That was the argument made by ad industry guru Sir John Hegarty during a Time Inc. UK-hosted panel discussion, entitled ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to damage the brand, it was taken out of context’ at Advertising Week Europe in London. The panel had been invited to discuss the hot topic of whether context was more important than content in today’s digitally-driven media landscape. 

Ahead of Testicular Cancer Awareness month in April, Testicular Cancer Canada is getting ballsy with its advertising (literally) with a new campaign encouraging men #LetsTalkBalls.

Created by agency Giants & Gentlemen, the series of ads personify a pair of testicles as talking heads, discussing the ups and downs of living as a pair of balls. It ends with the tagline: “Your balls have a lot to say” as a way to encourage men to check regularly for lumps or irregularities.

Mindshare has been awarded ‘Agency Network of the Year’ at the Festival Media APAC Awards 2018, as well as its Mindshare China office taking the ‘Agency of the Year’ title.

Campaign of the Year was awarded to PHD for its ‘DB Export Beer Bottle Sand’ campaign in New Zealand, which picked up three Gold Awards, one Silver and a Special Award for ‘Best Media Campaign of Oceania’.

Winners were announced on the evening of March 15 during an awards ceremony at Novotel Singapore Clarke Quay.

Check out the full list of winners below and click through to view the full case studies on Cream.

Consumer trust in media is falling by the week, to the point where some of us feel a bit like polar bears, looking frantically on as the arctic ice cap melts away. Ideally, we need the media equivalent of the Paris climate accord to reverse the current situation; but I’d settle for protecting trust in the more contained world of commercial content, which feels somehow more achievable.

But is it? Are there failsafe ways of ensuring that commercial content is always worthy of trust?

A good place to start is to explore what makes humans trust other humans. After all, until robots decide that homo sapiens are useful for nothing but reality TV pratfalls, quality content will continue to be conceived and created by people.

Let’s start by looking at the qualities that engender trust, four of which deserve particular focus:

Affinity: understanding that the person across from us is actually a bit like us. Whether it’s the way we dress, utter devotion to the same footie team or a mutual appreciation of manga comics, affinity instantly creates trust.

Ability: if someone has greater expertise in a field than we do and they can demonstrate it, we will give ourselves up to their higher knowledge and experience.

Integrity: proof that someone does what they say they’re going to do, over and over again. They’re true to their word. They show up. Who wouldn’t trust someone who consistently demonstrates integrity?

Benevolence: perhaps the most compelling of the four qualities. When someone urges us to do something not just because they will benefit but because they care about the outcome for us, we trust them.

So, if these qualities are the cornerstones of trust in everyday life, the same should be true of trust in commercial content. How do we adapt these qualities for our world?

In honour of International Women’s Day (March 8), Mattel’s Barbie has introduced its “Shero” collection of dolls based on inspirational real-life figures including Amelia Earhart (the first female aviator to fly across the Atlantic), Frida Kahlo (renowned Mexican artist and activist), Nicola Adams (boxing champion), Bindi Irwin (conservationist), Misty Copeland (principal ballerina) and Ibtihaj Mohammed (fencing champion), to name just a few.

As someone just entering the marketing industry, it’s clear to me that a lot of the recent heated debate over the continuing significant gender pay gap has missed a valuable point: not paying men and women in the same roles equally is not just unfair, it’s bad for business.  

The fact that the issue exists in the 21st century is rightly attracting lots of publicity and causing plenty of outrage, because it’s explicitly unjust – why should you get more money just for being a bloke? It simply doesn’t reflect the real world. Women are taking on the same responsibilities as men so should be on the same salaries. However, outside of the ethical arguments, if the inequality persists it will hurt marketing.  

In our sector, like many others, the short-term cost of closing the gender pay gap as quickly as possible actually makes good commercial sense and it will pay dividends going forward. Whether you’re an agency or business, you want to attract the best possible marketing talent. This starts with graduates like me.  

Ahead of the annual Holi Festival in India, Reliance General Insurance rolled out a campaign that hopes to raise awareness of a stark truth, in an effort to create a safer festival for women.

Created by Ogilvy & Mather, the ‘#HoliNotHooliganism’ campaign puts the spotlight on an often ignored reality that men take the opportunity to harass, grope and molest women under the guise of colour.

The campaign centres around three print ads that show two images side by side – the first a colourful image of Holi alongside another highlighting the reality which often hides beneath the colour once stripped away.