DMAi renews partnership with Ad Club

Shelly Singh and Vatsal Asher appointed as International ECHO Envoy.

Ad Club has renewed its partnership for the second year to support and endorse the 2015 DMA Asia ECHO Awards. Under the arrangement, members of Ad Club and past entrants (2014-15) from EMVIES, EFFIES and ABBYs would enjoy a) subsidised rates b) extended deadlines and c) fast-track of metals to round 2 at DMA Asia ECHO. Leaders from Ad Club Mancom and a few members additionally have pledged their personal time and support as well for the ECHO program.

Meanwhile, Vatsal Asher, CEO, DMAi, and Shelly Singh, COO, DMAi, have been appointed as the official International ECHO Envoy, for all the hard work they have put into ECHO over the past five years. As an Envoy, they will join the DMA International Ambassador Committee, which is responsible for unifying all of the local international DMAs, as well as being a liaison to the DMA in New York. Vatsal and Shelly join a dignified group which includes ECHO Board of Governors, Mark Allen (also a member of the DMA Board of Directors), Debbie Roth, Henry Hoke and Tedd Aurelius.

On the appointment, Singh, director and COO, DMAi, says, "Vatsal and I are indeed honoured to be inducted as the International ECHO Envoy and be part of this very prestigious group. To have the continued opportunity of service in a meaningful way we are equally excited. We are thankful to Tedd Aurelius, chairman emeritus for the ECHO Governors and Ajay Chandwani, chairman emeritus for DMAi Awards for their mentorship. We have the reassurance of increased support from our colleagues, at the DMA Asia Board of Governors on this new assignment, and we are confident that this paves the way for more recognition, celebration and most importantly raising the bar on innovation for marketers and agencies this side of the world."

All entries can now be entered simultaneously for both awards, 2015 DMA Asia ECHO Awards and The DMA International ECHO Awards 2015 at a single subsidised entry fee. All qualifying DMA Asia award-winning campaigns will enter into the prestigious International ECHO Awards 2015 bypassing the first round of judging and fast-track to the semi-finals of the competition.

Grand Jury Chairperson for 2015, Rakhshin Patel, managing director, Pi Communications, says, "For an athlete, the Olympics are the ultimate stage. Data-driven marketers share the same feeling about the ECHO program. There is indeed no bigger stage to showcase ideas and work that have yielded measurable, tangible, real results. There are many reasons why creative and marketing professionals should be excited about this year's ECHO Awards. The most compelling of them is: they deserve to! Their hard work and smart thinking has resulted in many memorable experiences for audiences far and wide. It's now time to send in those entries, and then wait for the applause to echo in their ears."

OgilvyOne, Urja Interactive and Worldwide Open have been assigned duties for creative, digital and social, respectively, for the program promotion across Asia. The call for entries opened on April 15, 2015.

DMAi, from 2015, will be exclusively associated with the DMA International ECHO Competition to funnel entries from across Asia. ECHO Awards honours exceptional creative work that has delivered results. The DMA International ECHO competition began in 1929 as the first direct mail awards show and is currently the oldest direct response awards program in the world. The ECHOs are the most prestigious direct response award and have long been considered the direct response version of the Oscars.

Speaking on the occasion of signing of this exclusive arrangement that covers all of Asia, Thomas Benton, CEO, Direct Marketing Association (DMA), US, says, "Marketers around the world, and the ecosystem that supports them, benefit when their trade associations collaborate and put a spotlight on innovation and success. In that spirit, the Direct Marketing Association is very pleased to be partnering with the DMAi to increase participation in the ECHO awards from DMAi's breadth of creative and innovative members. We celebrate this partnership and look forward to seeing DMAi and its members at our annual conference in Boston, Massachusetts, in October."