SLIM Brand Excellence 2015 kicks off

From left Dilantha Malagamuwa- Brand Ambassador for Brand Excellence ‘15, Ruwan Liyanagamage - President SLIM, Nasser Majeed- Head of Judging Panel, Upul Adikari- Vice President SLIM, and Ms. Thilanka Abeywardena Project Chairperson (SLIM Brand Excellence 2015) 

By Shehana Dain

We live in the 21st century where we humans are a part of a race, demanded to outrun and outshine the rest to be in the game. SLIM Brand Excellence 2015 kicks off aligning with the same concept.

The 14th SLIM Brand Excellence invites brands to take up the challenge of racing ahead of the rest and fight head on in the business world to be the ‘Champion’.

As the national body of marketing, SLIM takes initiatives to encourage strategic and result oriented thinking in the fields of brand development, sales, advertising and research through initiatives, brand excellence, NASCO, Effie’s and Peoples awards respectively. Year on year SLIM has raised the bar in each of these programs.

Keeping up with current economic shifts in Sri Lanka SLIM has identified the new and up-coming online portals in the country which greatly influence B2B and B2C connections in businesses. Hence a new category ‘Online Brand of the Year’ will be seen at the awards this year, where brands using internet or internet related mediums to generate 80% or more of its revenue can compete.

Speaking at the press briefing SLIM President Ruwan Liyanagamage noted, “Year on year SLIM Brand Excellence has grown by both scale and quality. This is the only awards show in the country which rewards brands and brand custodians excelling in the brand marketing arena.  Criterion developed by SLIM Brand Excellence is adopted by some organisations in real life where

organisational brand planning function is following the step by step approach of brand intent, content, process and performance. Hence we encourage marketers to attempt following this well-crafted and proven process first and victory comes second.”

Explaining about the newly added ‘online brand of the year’ category, the SLIM President further stated, “With the growing internet and smart phone penetration in the country, online is becoming a significant medium where brands and channels are born in the internet. Hence, we saw the importance of introducing this category where products, services or online properties such as online advertising and web development etc. will be able to compete in this category. “From the overall business revenue share, 80% of the contribution should be attributed to the online/online related revenues and the applicant should be in a position to meet these criteria in submitting the brand’s performance.

Giving a prop up to its theme, SLIM organisers were rather creative this year naming world renowned Sri Lankan racer Dilantha Malagamuwa as the Brand Ambassador for SLIM Brand Excellence 2015. Dilantha managed to inspire the gathering while elaborating his journey which he started from scratch with minimum resources and utmost dedication. He highlighted the importance of team player coordination where spending each second he gets with his team was prime tool for the success he has achieved to date. He went on to explain how a race is not only about driving, it’s also about analysing and calculating timing and risks, which undoubtedly gave the gathering of marketers an insight on how to win the race against their competitors.

“You cannot be in a comfort zone; you need to cross the barriers, then life becomes interesting and you challenge yourself every day,” Dilantha added. He also stressed the notion of not giving up and how life was very difficult for him but he finally overcame those difficulties with hard work and commitment.

“It is indeed an honour to chair an eminent panel of judges of SLIM Brand excellence in its 14th edition. This year’s panel of judges represents a wide range of professions and industries. The expertise and proficiency they bring including experience in international markets will no doubt help the panel to single out the outstanding from the excellent. With increasing number of participants, the task of the judges becomes more and more challenging,” says head of the panel of judges, Softlogic Retail Ltd CEO Nasser Majeed.

“We know our responsibility and in making the selections we shall make every effort to be most fair and independent.” 

Expressing her appreciation for the cooperation extended by big names in the private sector in making Brand Excellence 2015 a success, Project Chairperson Thilanka Abeywardena said that if not for the ready response of the sponsors it would not be possible to plan and execute a mammoth task as this.

Taking the lead in the sponsorship of the event are Singer PLC (Corporate Sponsor), Etisalat (Official Telecommunications Partner), Signal (Platinum Sponsor) and HNB Assurance (Official Insurance Partner). Official Print Media Partners are Daily FT, Sunday Times, Daily Mirror, Lankadeepa and Ada newspapers respectively.

– Pix by Lasantha Kumara