Goa Fest 2008

How do you define the Indian youth and what attracts them the most?

O&M shines at the Abby Awards with 58 metals
Apr 07, 08
exchange4media News Service

GoaFest 2008 culminated with the Abby Awards. There was much anticipation and drama leading up to the Abbys this year. Anticipation, as AAAI and Ad Club had joined hands for a single ad awards, and drama due to leaking of part of the results in the media before the Abbys. Lowe and McCann Erickson stayed away from the Abbys. But in the end it was the agencies and their work that won and created the news.

As is known, the Abby Awards have done away with the ranking system this year. Grand Prix were awarded in all the categories this year, in all five Grand Prix Awards were given out.

O&M probably emerged the happiest of the lot bagging 58 metals in all – five Golds, 14 Silvers and 39 Bronzes. The agency, however, missed out on a Grand Prix to add to its awards tally. On that count, it sure was an O&M show at the Abbys.

Leo Burnett bagged 37 metals in all and two Grand Prix Awards – one in the OOH category for Luxor Highlighters, and the second one in the Print category, again for Luxor Highlighters.

JWT India bagged 30 metals, matching the Gold tally of O&M at five Golds, along with six Silvers and 17 Bronzes. The agency also took home two Grand Prix Awards – one for the Nike campaign in the Films category, and the second one for the Lead India campaign in the Integrated Advertising category.

Contract bagged 29 metals – one Gold, 10 Silvers and 18 Bronzes.

Among the other winners were: Saatchi & Saatchi (nine metals) – two Golds, two Silvers and five Bronzes; Rediffusion DY&R and Mudra (eight metals each), Mudra also won a Grand Prix in the Radio category; ideas@work (seven metals); Euro RSCG and Publicis Ambience (five metals each); Bates David Enterprise, Cheil Worldwide and Tribal DDB (four metals each); Grey Worldwide, Tribal DDB India, and Wieden + Kennedy (three metals each). Cheil Worldwide bagged three Silvers in Print (telecom product & service), OOH (telecom product & service) and Print Craft & OOH Illustrated categories, as well as a Bronze in Retail Advertising category.

Winner Speak

Pratap Bose, CEO, O&M: We are delighted with our performance this year at the Abby Awards. That said, it is a constant endeavour to perform better every year, and that would be the effort for the next year too.

Colvyn Harris, CEO, JWT: We are absolutely delighted. It has been a wonderful day for JWT, we have won two Grand Prix and two Golds, and these wins have made up for all the tough times we had in the past. The Abbys this year has been great with coming together of two advertising bodies. We hope this continues in the future and the standard of the creative awards keep getting higher.

KV Sridhar, NCD, Leo Burnett: This is fantastic, and we are delighted. GoaFest is all about celebrating great creative ideas. It’s a pleasure to see lots of youngsters attending the event, and all of them having a ball of a time. It is important to motivate young creative minds, and with this in view, we at Leo Burnett don’t have any hierarchy system. We spend a lot on talent, sending young creatives to international events, conducting seminars and learning sessions to hone their skills.

Ravi Deshpande, Chief Creative Officer, Contract Advertising: It’s been a fantastic comeback for us. We use to lead in the early 90s, along with Ogilvy, and we are happy that we have put the foot on the accelerator once again. The organisers and the management committee have pulled out an amazing event.

Bobby Pawar, NCD, Mudra: The Abby Awards this year has been amazing. It’s difficult to understand why ego clashes happen too often in the industry. These things will continue to happen, and we should think and care about who all are there with us and not bother about the absentees. On a broader note, the quality of entries have gone up tremendously, the craft is way better than what we had before. Films have a long way to go, and Interactive, I think, can go to the next level soon.

Speaking on the overall event and the Awards, Jagdip Bakshi, Chairman, GoaFest, said, “The Abby Awards went off well. O&M has bagged the maximum metals, and the work of several other agencies has been celebrated too.”

Madhukar Kamath, President, AAAI, added, “GoaFest 2008 has been a glorious success. This success, I would say, is the result of the AAAI and the Ad Club joining hands for the good of the industry. Every aspect of GoaFest was handled professionally, and we saw an astounding increase in the number of registrations and entries. Our creatives are getting better and better. It had all the good signs for the advertising industry in India.”