Magic Mango caps off another year of creative success, celebrating best award-winning campaigns

Standing (from left): Magic Mango Director – Brands Stuart Deckker, Head of Design Tehani Walpola, Group Executive Creative Director Andrew Ebell, Joint Managing Director Shehantha Fernando, Art Director Ramaaya Gunaratne Seated (from left): Director – Digital and Strategy Sagar Hiranand, Studio Manager Sashika Fernando, Senior Manager – Brands Yasith Amarasinghe, Senior Creative Writer Ayesha Pathirana and Associate Creative Director Shazad Synon

From left: Magic Mango Head of Design Tehani Walpola, Group Executive Creative Director Andrew Ebell and Senior Creative Writer Ayesha Pathirana

The Magic Mango Group marks yet another year of success, celebrating the two most awarded and recognised campaigns of the year.

Consisting of five companies, the Magic Mango Group is a homegrown giant in the advertising and communications space. The companies include parent company Magic Mango (established in 2014), Popkorn (Digital), Pimpl (Design and Branding), Slot Machine (Production) and Magic Mango LLC, the Dubai arm which undertakes creative, strategy and brand planning for clients across Asia, Middle East and North and Central Africa.

2024 saw the group make waves both locally and globally, headlined by their two most awarded campaigns across leading local and regional award shows – Dragons of Sri Lanka Awards, 4AAF Sri Lanka and Dragons of Asia. Dragons of Sri Lanka Awards debuted this year with the winners being sent to battle with Asia’s best at the Dragons of Asia, an elite Marketing Communications Recognition program that has been honouring the most outstanding campaigns throughout Asia since the year 2000 while the 4AAF Sri Lanka Awards was hosted by the 4A’s (Association of Accredited Advertising Agencies) organisation, to recognise excellence in advertising campaigns carried out in the country.

The group’s most awarded campaign titled, “First Signs”, was created for leading clothing store Arienti and focused on the impact of breast cancer in Sri Lanka. As women are not in a position to examine themselves when they see breast cancer awareness messages in public and generally forget to do so when they are in private, this piece of work was used to provide them the most “private” public space – the Arienti changing room – where the key message was powerfully delivered using Magic Mango creativity at a time when women could immediately self-examine. The campaign was recognised with a Gold at Dragons of Sri Lanka, Bronze at Dragons of Asia, as well as one Gold award and two Silver awards at 4AAF Sri Lanka.

The group’s other big winner for the year was created for Neth FM and named “Nightmare Lullaby”, addressing the issue of child abuse, driven by the insight that children are unaware of how to express their problems clearly and parents struggle to understand what their children try to communicate with them. Here, a simple take on the classic Sri Lankan lullaby “doidoidoi, doiyya baba” was masterfully edited to signify a child’s cry for help and appeal to parents to listen more carefully to their children. The campaign bagged a Silver at Dragons of Asia, and two Gold awards at 4AAF Sri Lanka.

Expressing his views, The Magic Mango Group Executive Creative Director Andrew Ebell stated, “At Magic Mango, we have always believed that advertising has the power to change the world. With that in mind, it’s natural that our most magical pieces of work were cause driven, with the dream that we can make the world a better place. A special mention for the 'First Signs' campaign done for Arienti, which saw almost every member of the group band together to paste stickers to ensure that the idea came to life, showcasing the entire group’s dedication to the cause.”

Having established itself locally and made inroads across Asia, the Middle East and North and Central Africa, The Magic Mango Group is planning to expand to Europe and Australia in the future, where it will continue to bring its unique brand of magic to life for every client.