Top firms reap excellence awards at Asian American marketing summit in LA

LOS ANGELES – Excellence in Asian American marketing awards were announced at the recent 3AF 2017 Asian Marketing Summit, a unique forum for industry leaders, content creators, media companies, corporate marketers and other partners for an in-depth discussion of the Asian consumer market.

The 3AF 2017 Excellence Gold award in the Creative Campaign of the Year category went to IW Group, Inc. for its campaign “Above and Beyond” on behalf of the City of Hope, a cancer treatment facility in Southern California.

AAAZA took the silver award, or second place, for its “Bank on Your Dreams” campaign for Hanmi Bank.  interTrend Communications received the bronze for its campaign entitled “In the Air,” promoting the Toyota RAV4 for client Toyota Motor Sales.

On the client side, quick-service restaurant chain McDonald’s Corporation was recognized as 3AF Marketer of the Year, for its long-standing commitment to reaching out to Asian consumers. Saavn, one of the largest distributors of Bollywood and other Indian entertainment in the world, was named the 3AF’s media partner of the year.

Two new categories were added this year to the awards competition. Winning the 3AF PR Campaign of the Year was AAAZA, for their work on the Cricket Bee event.  DAE won first place in the 3AF Digital Campaign of the year category for their campaign “The North American Joyful Age” on behalf of their client AARP.

Jay Kim, President of the 3AF, commented, “The 3AF Summit provides the opportunity for us to annually showcase the influence, power and importance of the Asian American consumer.  This year’s Summit brought together subject matter experts in Asian marketing in the U.S. as well as internationally.  In addition, we were proud to honor the best and brightest work in our industry during our 3AF Excellence Awards event, held during the Summit.  Unlike general market advertising, our campaigns have an extra added level of complexity. It is critical for our creative execution to be reflective not only of in- language expertise but also in- culture expertise.  Therefore, we are extremely pleased to recognize the great work by all of this year’s winners and entrants.”

This year’s 3AF Summit topics included multiple dimensions of Asian American consumers from civic participation and entrepreneurship to building a successful case for diversity and inclusion and various approaches and channels to reaching this consumer. Speakers include executives from Buzzfeed, McDonald’s Corporation, Nielsen, HBO, Tufts University, the National Asian American Survey, Sparkle Insights, Selffii Intelligence, Inc. and others.  Prior to the Summit, the 3AF hosted the 3AF Asian Marketing Boot Camp, designed specifically for those new to Asian marketing.

Sponsors of the 3AF 2017 Asian Marketing Summit included Lunch sponsor: Nielsen; Silver sponsor: Saavn; Break sponsor: AARP; Bronze sponsors: Comcast; CMPG; The Korea Times and Hankook Ilbo; The Korea Daily; Zee TV and iTalk BB Media; Pearl sponsor: Quantcast; and Exhibitors: House of Marketing Research; Inquirer.net; Sky Link TV; and Viacom – 18 IndiaCast Media.