ARGUING that the island relies too heavily on textbooks written in other countries, Dr Marjan deBruin, acting head of the University of the West Indies’ CARIMAC department, has welcomed a new competition on advertising effectiveness, which, she argued, will be a good local teaching tool for students.

“We rely too much on textbooks written in other countries, but the documented case studies from this competition will generate local teaching material for CARIMAC (Caribbean Institute of Media and Communication) students to know the challenges facing them in the real world,” she said.

DeBruin was speaking at the recent launch of the Advertising Effectiveness Awards held at the Pegasus hotel.

The award ceremony was organised by the Advertising Agencies’ Association of Jamaica (AAAJ) and the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) as a means of identifying and rewarding professionalism in the development and assessment of commercially effective advertising and marketing communications in the island.

According to Arnold Foote, president of the AAAJ, “all the case studies that will become entries in this advertising effectiveness awards programme, will be printed in book form and given to CARIMAC” for use in its programmes.

Entries for the competition will close on November 30, and are to be submitted in the form of case studies of a maximum of 2,000 words based on campaigns that have appeared in the Jamaican media during years 2001, 2002 or 2003.

In launching the awards, Hamish Pringle, the director-general of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), welcomed Jamaica to a group of 10 countries that had established advertising effectiveness awards.

“In those countries,” Pringle explained, “the programme proved to be a useful means for advertisers to publicly demonstrate the effectiveness of their campaigns and the contribution they have made to client profitability and shareholder value.”

The IPA head congratulated the AAAJ and the PSOJ for “embarking on a road to higher standards and greater professionalism in advertising, media and marketing communication”. He also commended the organisers for donating the case studies from the awards programme to CARIMAC, noting that “such a step will lead to an improvement in the flow of better-qualified people into the industry”.

Information Minister Burchell Whiteman, for his part, hailed the ad awards as “a serious expression of the will to ensure the setting and maintenance of internationally accepted standards in building our economy and increasing national competitiveness”.

He also commended the AAAJ for seeking to strengthen the regulatory mechanisms for the advertising industry.

“Self-regulation, when there is a commonly-held position in respect of standards, is the best form of protecting the integrity of the industry,” the information minister said.