The 2018 AWARDS Awards has chosen its juries.

88 jurors – creatives, senior marketers, senior management, senior planners, directors and production company specialists – have been assigned to the job of selecting the 39th AWARD Awards winners, with online pre-judging from February 23 toMarch 9 and in-room judging March 15 to 26.

This year’s jury Chairs are:

• DESIGN: James Dive, Special Projects, Scoundrel
• PRINT, POSTER & OUTDOOR: Tara Ford, Executive Creative Director, DDB
• INTEGRATED CAMPAIGN, INNOVATION, MARKET DISRUPTION & PRODUCT/SERVICE DEVELOPMENT & CREATIVITY FOR GOOD: Emad Tahtouh, Director of Applied Technology, Finch
• CRAFT IN ADVERTISING – PRINT/TYPOGRAPHY/ILLUSTRATION: Ben Coulson, Chief Creative Officer, Clemenger BBDO
• DIRECT MARKETING: Rebecca Carrasco, Freelance
• PROMOTIONAL & EXPERIMENTAL, PR: Kat Thomas, Founder/CEO, One Green Bean
• BRANDED ENTERTAINMENT & CONTENT: Grant McAloon, Executive Creative Director, Leo Burnett
• DIGITAL: Tara McKenty, Creative Director, Google APAC
• RADIO: Cam Blackley, Chief Creative Officer, M&C Saatchi
• CRAFT IN ADVERTISING FILM: Paul Middleditch, Director, Plaza Films
• FILM & VIDEO: Toby Talbot, Chief Creative Officer, Saatchi & Saatchi NZ

View all the judges here.

Mike Spirkovski, chairman of AWARD, said ”For the first time the jurors have been selected from a combination of creatives, agency CEOs, client CMOs, planners, directors and production company specialists. These leading industry professionals have been responsible for creating some of our region’s best work and know what it takes to consistently deliver award-winning ideas. The decision to do this was to ensure the work is judged by extremely qualified jurors who are highly respected in the industry.

“Running for 39 years, the AWARD Awards have become a huge annual celebration and a respected benchmark for creative excellence in our region. Each year, we rely on the support of our industry’s top talent to help identify and set those standards, and as anyone who has judged in the AWARD Awards before will understand, it is no quick and easy task. I would therefore like to thank our impressive list of judges in advance, for what will be a rigorous few weeks ahead.”

The annual AWARD Awards presentation will take place on Friday May 25 at CarriageWorks as part of the three-day Semi-Permanent festival of creativity and design.