The 2013 Australian Effie Awards for creative excellence open for entry today, with awards in 19 categories up for grabs.

Announcing the Effies open, chairman of the awards Matthew Melhuish stressed the importance of continuing to build Australia’s culture of accountability and effectiveness. “The Effies saw strong performance in 2012 in terms of the quality and quantity of entries and we hope to continue that this year.

“The Effies provide our industry many compelling stories coupled with off the charts results and they remind us all about the effective, innovative and creative power our industry can deliver to clients.”

Entries close on 3 May with judging to take place in June and July before winners are announced at a gala dinner in Sydney on 5 September.

To share the learnings of the results Australian agencies produce for their partners, The Communications Council, in cooperation with sponsor Millward Brown, will expose some of the trends and insights from winning Effie case studies.

Trends and insights from the 2012 finalists will also be presented in a series of ‘Effies Exposed’ workshops across several states in April and May this year.

The Effies are jointly presented by The Communications Council and the Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA).

Categories open for entry are:

• Retail/Etail,
• Food
• Confectionary & Snacks
• Beverages – Alcoholic & Non-Alcoholic
• Other Consumer Goods
• Healthcare
• Financial Services
• Other Services
• Travel, Leisure & Media
• Government, Corporate And Social Services
• Best State Campaign
• Multicultural/Indigenous
• Return on Investment
• Long Term Effects,
• Short Term Effects
• Most Original Thinking
• New Product or Service
• Small Budget a) Under $500K b) $500K – $1Million
• Digital Platforms

Last year’s new ‘Transformational Digital Business Platform’ category, which celebrated successful digital platforms for marketing, communications or commercial activity which are not one-off campaigns, has been renamed to ‘Digital Platforms’.

For further information about the Effie program and to enter visit www.effies.com.au