The Network of the Year award is given to the agency network with the most points from creative awards given during the show. Due to Publicis Groupe’s unique nature, there was confusion regarding the network definition on the official entry forms.
The anomaly occurred as a number of Publicis Groupe agencies entered ‘Publicis’ as their Network due to a misunderstanding of the definition of ‘network’. This in turn skewed the points tally towards Publicis, and thus, being awarded Network of the Year.
Daniel Leesong, CEO of the Communications Council, explained that the anomaly was spotted after a re-audit of all the entries as requested by AWARD chairman Craig Davis.
“We apologise for this unfortunate outcome, and for the confusion amongst agencies,” Leesong clarified. “The definition of Network of the Year will be clarified ahead of next year’s AWARD awards to prevent this situation occurring in the future.”
On a holding company level, however, Publicis Groupe still remains the most awarded group but on a network level, BBDO comes out on top.
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