Cannes Lions ties-up with Haymarket to manage Digital Media Awards in Asia

Lions Festivals, the organisers of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, and Haymarket Media have announced an agreement in principle to extend their joint venture. The partnership currently runs Spikes Asia Festival of Creativity and the Asian Marketing Effectiveness Festival (AMEs). The JV will now also include the Digital Media Awards for Asia.

The 2012 Digital Marketing Awards, will take place in November in Beijing, China, and will become a two-day festival, providing Asia’s digital marketing industry – agencies, media owners and clients - with a great content and networking platform.

A learning programme of sessions presented by a host of industry experts, will take to the stage to motivate and debate on digital communications. The festival will culminate in the awards celebrating the best work across media and entertainment, apps, gaming, online PR and online marketing categories, judged by a stellar line-up of industry professionals.

Commenting on the development, Terry Savage, chairman of Lions Festivals, said, "With the incredible growth in Asia we are delighted to build on our partnership between Haymarket Media Asia and Lions Festivals, drawing on our expertise to deliver a world-class event that will provide inspiration, learning, networking and celebration to Asia’s digital media industry."

Tim Waldron, managing director, Haymarket Media Asia, added, "The Digital Media Awards, founded by Campaign in 2007, have come to be recognised by agencies and clients as the region's most respected digital awards competition. Since their launch, we have expanded the categories and refined the judging criteria to represent the growth and development of the region's digital scene. It has always been our intention to grow the awards into a full-scale digital festival and given the tremendous success of our two existing Asian joint ventures with Lions Festivals it makes total sense to work together to create such an event.”

Phil Thomas, CEO of Lions Festivals, said, "We look forward to extending our partnership with Haymarket and harnessing the expertise of Lions Festivals to deliver an outstanding inaugural Digital Media Festival in Beijing later this year. Now in their sixth year, the Digital Media Awards already have significant traction in Asia and we look forward to greatly enhancing and growing the event. With digital channels becoming increasingly sophisticated and central to brand marketing, the Digital Media Festival will be a unique platform that will reflect the ever-changing digital landscape."

The Digital Media Festival and Awards in Asia will be organised by the same management team as the Spikes Asia Festival of Creativity and the Asian Marketing Effectiveness Festival. Last year, 814 entries from 16 countries participated in the DMAs.

Campaign India Digital Media Awards continues to be organised solely by Haymarket Media India.