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Winners of Belarusian-language advertising contest collect awards

Winners of the first-ever Belarusian-language advertising contest picked up their awards at a ceremony in Minsk on July 7.

The contest was held as part of a festival that began on May 13. It had been organized by activists of the “Let’s be Belarusians!” campaign and website http://www.marketing.by.

In an interview with BelaPAN, website manager Syarhey Skarakhod said, "We, the organizers, tried to make the participation of Belarusian advertising agencies in the contest as easy as possible. Many called it a specialized contest, although the criteria used by the jury were fairly tough. And the agencies that made the final, that won demonstrated a fairly high professional level."

He said that the lowest number of entries had been submitted by Internet advertising agencies and no winner had been selected. "This is, of course, sad as Belarus is developing in the sphere quite dynamically. Some may have just been too scared or shy to submit their advertisements [for the contest]," Mr. Skarakhod said.

Despite the country's mediocre social advertising standards, all of the ads submitted in the category were short-listed, he stressed.

Yury Bazan, director of Autoradio, and rocker Lyavon Volski took to the stage to present awards to the Pinhvin agency, whose advertisement was named the best in the radio and audio advertising category.

"Award ceremonies in such festivals are normally held in the Oscar style," Mr. Skarakhod said. "But we decided to hold [the event] on Kupala Day in the style of this Belarusian festival."