The 12th edition of the regional KAKTUS festival took place on November 4 and 5 in Belgrade, with awards presented to projects and teams from the communications industry across the region. Imago Ogilvy won four category awards and the Grand Prix, while the title of Agency of the Year went to Slovenia’s Futura DDB, which achieved the highest overall result in the competition.
The campaign Posljednji GUC GUC, developed by Imago Ogilvy for Studena, won the Grand Prix for Integrated Campaign of the Year at this year’s festival. The Advertiser of the Year award went to Draco, whose campaign Vojko Vlaga, developed in collaboration with Spellcaster UK, was awarded in two integrated campaign categories.
In the Profit Integrated Campaign category, the award went to The Scratching Ads, created by McCann Skopje for Halkbank Skopje. The award for Socially Responsible Integrated Campaign went to Till Death Do Us Part, developed by McCann Beograd and Autonomous Women’s Center. The campaign Vojko Vlaga received awards for Best Cross-Media and Innovative Integrated Campaign, while Posljednji GUC GUC was also recognized in the Brand Awareness Integrated Campaign category.
In the Digital Integrated Campaign category, the winner was Vreme je za odgovore, developed by Ovation Belgrade for Essity. The same agency was also awarded in the Integrated Campaign for Media and Digital Literacy category for its project Naučio sam baku, created for NLB Komercijalna banka.
The results in the single-channel categories brought additional recognition to agencies that had also distinguished themselves in the integrated campaign categories. BBDO Zagreb won the TV category for Dječja posla, a campaign developed for A1 Hrvatska, while Futura DDB received the Radio award for Parapapapaads, a project for McDonald’s Slovenija. In the Print category, the winner was Moja veza, created by Imago Ogilvy for Hrvatski Telekom, while the BTL award went to Reflustat Protest, developed by Spellcaster UK for JGL.
The campaign Till Death Do Us Part also earned McCann Beograd an award in the Public Relations category. The Best Event award went to Ramazzotti Limoncellina, a project developed by New Media Team for Pernod Ricard Srbija.
Among the single-channel digital projects, Posljednji GUC GUC won the Social Media category, while the Mobile Marketing award went to Navijaj uz Smoki i osvoji nagrade, developed by New Direction for Atlantic Štark. The Digital Video award went to Ponovo miriše bijelo, a campaign created by Bosnian agency Via Media BiH for DITA 1977.
In the Content Marketing category, the winning project was Da se razumijemo, created by Imago Ogilvy and Hrvatski Telekom. Shoppster Srbija won two awards for Nensi iz kanca, in the Influencer Marketing and TikTok categories.
In the Media category, the award went to The Scratching Ads by McCann Skopje, while the Outdoor award went to Iconic even with typos, developed by Futura DDB for McDonald’s Slovenija. In Direct Marketing, the winner was The Pink Receipt, created by AV Studio in collaboration with Spar Slovenia and Združenje Europa Donna Slovenia.
The award for Design Execution went to Famìa – House of local products, developed by Studio Tumpić/Prenc for Vero naše. In the Production Execution category, the award went to Finlandia – Čola Z, a project created by Fullhouse Ogilvy for Coca-Cola HBC.
In addition to the campaign awards, the festival also presented the individual KAKTUS All Stars awards, recognizing professionals whose work contributed to the success of the award-winning projects.
The KAKTUS Power Ranger award, intended for Account Directors, went to Dora Sandalić from Spellcaster UK, while Oliver Vuco and Igor Drašković from Draco jointly received the KAKTUS Superstar title, which recognizes Marketing Directors and project leaders on the advertiser’s side. For strategic planning, Irina Maja from McCann Skopje received the KAKTUS Origin award.
In the creative categories, the KAKTUS CMF award for Creative Direction went to Darko Bosnar from Imago Ogilvy, while Boban Milanović and Petre Reshov from McCann Skopje were jointly recognized in two categories, KAKTUS Big Picture for Art Direction and KAKTUS Pantone for Design. The KAKTUS Fire Starter title, intended for Copywriters, went to Katarina Ferk from Future DDB.
For work in social media, Sofija Sazdovska from McCann Skopje received the KAKTUS Like-Share-Subscribe award. Krešimir Šustić from aPR/Spellcaster UK won KAKTUS First Impression for PR Direction, while Alenka Kanduč from Future DDB received the KAKTUS Big Seen award for Media Direction.
Awards were not presented in several competition categories. Among integrated campaigns, there was no winner in the Adapted International Campaign category, while the Campaign Created for Another Market and Employer Branding categories had no finalists. Among single-channel entries, no award was presented in the Digital E-commerce category, Internal Communications had no finalists, and there were no entries in the Podcast category.
This year’s edition of KAKTUS, held in a regional format for the third consecutive year, brought together projects from Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Montenegro. The best entries were selected by two expert juries, one for single-channel projects and the other for integrated campaigns, comprising a total of 30 professionals from the regional communications industry.
