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Wednesday, 11 March 2015 00:05 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Benchmark Innovation, a purely local agency, is thrilled at its very latest win at this year’s Effies, the global award ceremony that spotlights effective marketing ideas.
The agency, after being crowned ‘Most Effective Agency of the Year,’ later walked away with the only Gold award that night, for its campaign ‘Dell Power Circle’ for Dell. The award eventually led its client Dell being awarded the prestigious title of ‘Most Effective Brand of the Year’.
Benchmark Innovation is not a complete novice in the practice of bagging coveted awards at the Effies, rather this is its second consecutive win, following being awarded one of the only two Silvers for its Mango Ball point pen campaign in 2013.
The agency, being only four years of age, demonstrated that night how age or local blood lines cannot in any way hinder one’s chances at being commended by global distinction. Rather, it proved that home grown values have certainly become a spirited edge for success in the advertising playing field today.
The big win has affected the very core of the agency’s being, stated Managing Director Chamley Ariyachandra, adding that it has fuelled their confidence to believe they must indeed be doing something right through their creative ethic, values and culture, reinforcing a new belief that they must move forward in the same manner they have chosen to exist thus far, as it has brought forth very obvious fruits of achievement.
“We don’t take in every brand that seeks our professional expertise,” stated Ariyachandra, “Because that would restrict our freedom and restricted freedom leads to mediocre creativity, and we’d hate that.”
This selective approach has empowered Benchmark Innovation with the freedom to evaluate its client’s problem with focused precision and offer in depth solutions that are both effective and cost efficient at the same time.
Simplicity is the mantra the agency operates by, the key word that governs its survival as a creative entity. Simplicity in the work place, in their personal lives and professional lives. Its philosophy of simplicity is tied in with creative freedom, vitally necessary playfulness and passionate discipline to ensure outstanding agency achievement.
Benchmark Innovation prides itself as being an agency that refuses to abide by the traditional norms of procedure, rather choosing to follow a path of its own design, in all its operational avenues. These are paths paved with unique approaches to ethical and creative endeavours, intertwined with precise strategic preparation and planning. A recap of the last two years is proof of how the agency’s methods have served it in securing achievement.
As a creative brand building agency its methods of operation have often been deemed peculiar by the ones unfamiliar with its underlying logic. For instance, Benchmark Innovation’s recruitment strategy is one that encourages the management to pick candidates with no prior advertising experience; this, Benchmark Innovation believes, is a valuable trait that makes certain the company is infused with fresh dimensions and powerful perspective that contributes to its growth and development.
Living testaments to the success of this practice are Manuja Kelegama and Kasun Wijerathne, two employees at the agency, once freshmen to the field of advertising, now evolved into invaluable elements in the agency’s formula for exceptional achievement.
The practice is an obvious side effect of another precept the Managing Director stands by, that is, the belief that the secret to challenging the convention and moving forward is building supple leaders and not rigid followers, out of the talent they employ.
What many would notice about the agency is its size and how it is governed by a comparatively smaller group of creatives. Manuja Kalegama, Creative/Brand Planner at Benchmark Innovation, explains this phenomenon by stating: “The bigness of an agency is not its building or the number of people that work there, but rather the level of thinking of its people and how fascinated they are by the simplicity of the most complicated things around them.”
But then, as confident as they are in their philosophy, it does not stop them from engaging with experts within and outside the industry for opinions in matters that they are not exactly familiar with.
“A list of bold assertions from a small local agency,” would be anyone’s opinion of Benchmark Innovation, and they would be right in that regard, if this local outfit had nothing to show for the outrageous claims it makes, something it most certainly does.
Sometimes it’s the ones no one imagines are capable of very much who achieve the things no one imagines are possible. This proves that it is only by standing by what you believe in with persevering passion that one eventually moulds the greatness that is one day showcased to the world.
