From left: Thayalan Bartlett - Chief Executive Officer, MullenLowe Sri Lanka, Dilshara Jayamanna - Chief Creative Officer, MullenLowe Sri Lanka, Sharmila Bandara - Marketing Director - Home Care, Foods & Refreshments and Water, Unilever Sri Lanka, Nilushi Jayatileke - Marketing Director - Beauty and Personal Care and Head of Corporate Communications, Unilever Sri Lanka and Kavi Rajapaksha - Vice President, Marketing of Softlogic Life PLC 

MullenLowe Sri Lanka held up its reign as the ‘Most Effective Agency’ for the third consecutive year with its win of the coveted main award at the 2020/21 Effie Awards held recently, becoming the first ever agency to achieve this remarkable feat.

This fresh accolade comes on top of the Sri Lanka office of IPG’s MullenLowe Group, being placed 36th most effective agency in the World and within the top 10effective advertising offices in APAC, according to the Effie ranking released in 2019/20. 

Emerging as the most awarded agency of the event, MullenLowe Sri Lanka was honoured with 16 awards – 1 Gold, 2 Silver, 3 Bronze, 8 Finalists, and 1 contributing agency award as well, culminating in being awarded the esteemed ‘Agency of the Year’ award.

Moreover, the agency also proved its outstanding contribution towards its clients, Unilever Sri Lanka and Softlogic Life Insurance, that walked away with the ‘Marketer of The Year’ and the ‘Brand of the Year’ awards respectively.
In a joint statement, commenting on the award, Nilushi Jayatileke - Marketing Director - Beauty and Personal Care and Head of Corporate Communications, and Sharmila Bandara - Marketing Director - Home Care, Foods & Refreshments and Water, Unilever Sri Lanka said, “With advertising being an essential discipline for effective consumer marketing, MullenLowe Sri Lanka supports us with messaging that resonates with consumers and deepens the bond these consumers have with our brands. As such, we would like to convey our heartiest congratulations to MullenLowe on being named ‘Effective Agency of the Year’ for the commendable work they have carried out”.

Speaking on this remarkable victory, Thayalan Bartlett - Chief Executive Officer, MullenLowe Sri Lanka said, “We value the Effie Awards highly, as it is a marker of the outstanding value we bring to our clients. Winning the ‘Effie Agency of The Year’, for the third consecutive year, shows just how consistent MullenLowe Sri Lanka is in producing highly creative work that becomes effective advertising, which delivers a high level of outstanding value to our brands across many formats, year after year”.

Dilshara Jayamanna - Chief Creative Officer, MullenLowe Sri Lanka, said, “It is when brands are faced with extreme adversity, that creativity should be at its sharpest, to help them rise above and perform even better. During the last two years, the MullenLowe Team has taken on this challenge and risen to new heights of creativity, delivering an unfair share of attention to the brands in our custody. This award is a testament to that incredible work ethic”.

The agency was bestowed withthe first Gold Effie of the night for its ‘Monawada Muththe’ campaign for Softlogic LifeInsurance and went on to receive2 Silver Effies for its ‘Water revolution’ campaign for Unilever PureIt, and ’Count on us like family’ campaignfor 1990. 

MullenLowe Sri Lanka also bagged 3 Bronze awards for its ’Sri Lanka puts 1990 on speed dial’ campaign for 1990,’Celebrating art of Sri Lankan smile’ campaign for Signal and ‘Keeping Leda Leda alive’ campaign for Softlogic Life Insurance. 

The event also sawthe agency securing 8 Finalist Awardsfor its ’From transformation to restoration’ campaign for Glow & Lovely, ’Don’t get stuck in the moment’ campaign for LOLC Insurance, ’No more excuses!’campaign for Knorr, ‘The campaign for all soap brands’ for ‘Lifebuoy’, ‘Influencers can help save lives’ campaign for Lifebuoy Soap,’Changing the face of life insurance in Sri Lanka’ campaign for Softlogic Life Insurance, ‘Strong on germs, soft on skin’ campaign for Lifebuoy Soap, and ’Youth busy being young’campaign for People’s Bank. MullenLowe Sri Lanka also walked away with a contributing agency award in the social media category for Upfield by Lanka Flora.