The Ministry of Health and Wellness, through its public service print campaign “No Excuse For Abuse” in partnership with digital agency, ESIROM, was recently awarded an American Advertising Awards through the Caribbean Advertising Federation (CAF).

The American Advertising Awards is the advertising industry’s most comprehensive and prestigious competition recognising creative excellence.

Over 46 companies from the Caribbean submitted more than 670 entries in what was the first leg of the competition which was administered by the CAF.

The winning campaign, dubbed “No Excuse For Abuse”, is the Ministry of Health and Wellness’ support to Jamaica’s National HIV Response, through the HIV/STI/TB Unit.

Sharing a bit of the process, Alex Morrissey, director of ESIROM commented, “our main contribution towards this was providing graphic design services for the development of two posters, which were distributed islandwide”.

“The design, copy and overall structure of the posters aimed at reducing violence against women,” he continued.

Karldon Stewart, programme officer of the ministry’s HIV/STI/TB Unit, was delighted with the award.

“It is such an awesome feeling being recognised. It is very nice knowing that someone appreciates the message that we are trying to convey through these posters, and so we wanted to send a message to all genders that it is not ok for someone to abuse you and it is not acceptable for you to abuse another person,” he explained.

ESIROM also copped the 2022 silver ADDY award for the ‘Consumer Website’ category, and the website in focus: the Earth Hour JA 2021.

“The 2021 Earth Hour Concert was a really a learning lesson but also super successful so have been recognised for that, really is amazing. 2021 was our first virtual execution of the concert, with the 2020 staging being cancelled due to the pandemic and all previous stages were in person, so we really put a lot of time and support into that website,” added ESIROM director, Morrissey.

The Caribbean leg of the competition is a three-tier awards process and is one of the largest competitions in the US and Caribbean.

ESIROM and the other winners from the Caribbean have moved forward to compete with the winners from Florida at the district tier of the competition.

The third and final tier of the competition will include winners from the respective districts that advance to the National American Advertising Federation show as national finalists.