Epica celebrates 30th birthday in Amsterdam
The Epica Awards will be presented for the 30th time in November 2016. At the jury lunch in Cannes, in addition to new categories, the new campaign created by Altmann+Pacreau was presented.
Native Advertising Category
The categories Events (previously part of PR) and Brand Identity are new. In addition, the Branded Content & Entertainment category has been split into four categories: Films & Series, Branded Games, Native Advertising and Product & Brand Integration. After Epica was the first creative award to introduce the category Virtual Reality last year, category trends will be set this year as well. It will be interesting to see what will be submitted in categories such as Native Advertising or Branded Games.
While the award is constantly evolving in many ways, the basic principle has remained the same over the years: The jury consists of media professionals and not members of the creative industry. This concept is unique among international awards and thus a unique selling point in the increasingly dense award jungle. It ensures Epica a basic level of media interest and thus greater coverage than comparable, medium-sized awards. In addition, the Epica jury judges through a different lens. With all the advantages and disadvantages that this view from the outside brings with it.
Competitive advantage objectivity
One main advantage was provocatively picked up by Paris-based agency Altmann+Pacreau in this year's campaign: the objectivity of the jury. Co-founder Olivier Altmann - former global CCO of Publicis - says: "The fact that the Epica jury is made up of journalists and not creatives could be seen as a lack of credibility - for us, however, this point is a competitive advantage. Because the jury can judge totally objectively. No one in the room is involved in the work at hand or has to promote their own agency. When you sit on a jury as a creative, you get a lot of "friendly" messages that want to apply gentle pressure. We used this circumstance to promote Epica - one of the few awards in the world that most agencies support because of its uniqueness."
The Epica jury now consists of senior media representatives from 61 trade magazines from 47 countries - including Werbewoche as always. New entries this year include Horizont from Germany, but also magazines from the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates, New Zealand, South Africa, Ukraine, the Czech Republic and Romania. (hae)
