Grey Malaysia was named Agency of the Year at the Kancil Awards 2023, Malaysia’s premier creative awards competition, while Coway Malaysia was awarded Advertiser of the Year, and Directors Think Tank was awarded Production House of the Year. The Golden Kancil was awarded to Fastman Studios for their campaign with Julie’s Manufacturing Sdn Bhd, “Kisah Raya P.E.R.I.T”.
Other awards included the Kancil for Good, which went to C27 for their campaign “Voteordié”, and the Creative Effectiveness Kancil, which went to Fishermen Integrated for their campaign with Time Internet, “2Gbps Time Kabel Besar”, while the Innovations Kancil went to Grey Malaysia for their campaign with Coway Malaysia, “Coway: The Art of Dreaming”.
Kancils Jury Chairperson Graham Drew, Chief Creative Officer of Grey Malaysia & Singapore said, “We saw such a healthy range of winning campaigns that embraced both traditional craft and the new frontiers of tech. This year’s Golden Kancil shone a light on how to re-boot the existing tropes of the festive Raya film with a fantastic use of humour and craft. We also saw how abandoned cars could become a product demo, and some really innovative use of data from dreams to pizzas.”
In the Sick Six: Young Director’s Challenge sponsored by Maxis, the winner was Fish Cheng who was mentored by Graph Studio to bring her film “Push-Pull” to life, whilst the People’s Choice Award went to Carmen Cheong who was mentored by Another Planet on her film “Aisya Lam”.
In the Young Kancils Challenge sponsored by Bask Bear, the Gold was awarded to the ONE team from TBWA\Kuala Lumpur. As their prize, one member of the team will get to attend London International Awards’ Creative LIAsons programme in Las Vegas, and two members will represent Malaysia at ADFEST Young Lotus mentorship programme and competition in Pattaya, in 2024.
Jury Chairperson Graham Drew added, “The Kancils are a great honour unto themselves, but they are also a stepping stone – a training ground for us all to learn from. The theme of this year is ‘Make It For Malaysia’; that has many interpretations, but primary amongst them is work that represents our country on the regional and global stage. I’m confident that some of the winners from this years festival can do just that, you haven’t heard the last from them yet!”
Organised by the Association of Accredited Advertising Agents of Malaysia (4As), the Kancil Awards 2023 presented 145 awards across 10 categories. A total of 739 entries were received in the professional categories, while a further 404 student entries were received for the Kancil sCoolers Student Awards 2023 sponsored by Resorts World Genting.
Co-organising chairperson Yee Hui Tsin, Chief Executive Officer at TBWA Group Malaysia said, “The theme ‘Make It For Malaysia’ brought this cool and infectious energy, from the first day of planning for this year’s Kancils, to the awards night itself. It was a great celebration of local work. With record entries and stricter judging, we hope to further raise the standards and ambitions of Malaysian work.”
The One Academy was named Creative School of the Year, with its student Ng Kai Wei named Student of the Year, and its lecturer Yan Li Wen named Lecturer of the year. One Academy also won Idea of the Year for the student campaign “Timeless Tunes”.
Co-organising chairperson Joyce Gan, Partner and Group Client Services Director at Fishermen Integrated said, “With this year’s Kancils festival, our ambition was to inspire creativity and hope, regardless of whether you are a freshgrad suit, a budding art director, a seasoned director, or even a KPI driven CMO. What’s more exciting to me is what’s to come. We sought to demonstrate that Malaysia has an endless well of creativity and talent. We hope to shine more spotlights onto local talents, helping Malaysians make their mark in the creative world.”
The Kancil Awards were presented at the culmination of the Kancil Creative Festival Conference 2023 held on November 24, 2023 at EX8 Subang Jaya, which was comprised of 15 separate sessions including talks by local and international creatives, hands-on workshops, panels discussing trends, screenings, and exhibitions showcasing some of the best creative work of the past year.