Acnes walks away with Bronze at Effies

September 2018

Rohto-Mentholatum Lanka (Pvt) Ltd was bestowed with a Bronze award at the prestigious Effie Awards held on 21 st September under the Health Care OTC category for its campaign ‘Victory! Pimple Surrender to Acnes’. Its hard-hitting campaign executed by its creative agency Leo Burnett Sri Lanka – brought to life the war against pimples, resulting in a significant increase in awareness and sales for the brand. The campaign was also successful in breaking through the clutter in its category. Acnes, a pimple relief formula with advance Japanese skincare technology, is a face wash and face gel combo that helps to fight bacteria and prevent acne.

The Effie Awards launched by the New York American Marketing Association to recognize the most effective advertising efforts is looked forward to by many advertisers, agencies and marketing professionals both locally and globally. Effies stand for effectiveness in marketing communications, spotlighting marketing ideas that work and encourage thoughtful dialogue about the drivers of marketing effectiveness.

Commenting on the accolade, Arosha Perera, CEO of Leo Burnett Sri Lanka said, “We are thrilled to have our Acnes campaign win a Bronze at the 2018 Effies. Conceptualizing the creative idea for Acnes was a real challenge as this is a fiercely contested segment and our execution had to be powerful enough to strike a chord with the target audience as set out by our client. However, the cooperation and insightful inputs from the client went a long way in helping us arrive at the right message. I believe Leo Burnett’s humankind proprietary strategic approach of understanding people and their behaviour helped us immensely and helped us nail the winning idea. I would like to congratulate the creative team that worked on Acnes and also thank our client Rohto-Mentholatum Lanka (Pvt) Ltd for placing their faith in us and supporting us along the way.”

Adding further Gayathri Rathnayaka, Managing Director of Rohto-Mentholatum Lanka (Pvt) Ltd said, “We are delighted to have won an Effie for the Acnes campaign in one of the most fiercely contested categories in personal care! I would like to congratulate our creative agency, Leo Burnett, for conceptualizing an impactful award-winning campaign in partnership with the Acnes team that helped us stand out from the noise with a clear promise. The acne cream segment is highly competitive with many brands, many benefits and many solutions being touted. Therefore coming up with a breakout idea was of paramount importance. Young adult girls are constantly bombarded with personal care ads and we needed a powerful message for Acnes that would appeal to this segment. Acnes’ campaign found its purpose of providing a permanent remedy to fight pimples so that these girls won’t have to face its consequences by waging a war on pimples. We are confident that Acnes will be able to carve out a large market share as a result of this laser focused campaign.”