Goafest 2017: Taproot Dentsu walks away with the crown

The Social Street finishes at number two with 40 metals, just one metal behind

The curtains finally came down on the 2017 edition of Goafest on Saturday, but the Creative Abbies this year will go down as one of the most closely contested battles between agencies.

Just one metal separates the number one and two agencies — Taproot Dentsu and The Social Street — with a tally of 41 and 40 metals, respectively, on the final day of the advertising, media and marketing festival held annually in Goa. Metals is industry parlance for awards or trophies. 

After comfortably leading the race on Day Two of the Goafest, with a tally of 28 metals, including six golds, Taproot Dentsu, the Agnello-Dias-and-Santosh-Padhi-co-founded agency, found itself fighting hard for the leading agency crown, as adman Pratap Bose’s The Social Street closed the gap on Saturday.

Set up two years ago, The Social Street doubled its gold count to four on Saturday from two the previous day, walking away with nine silver and the most number of bronze metals at 27. 

Taproot Dentsu, on the other hand, added three golds on Saturday to its list of six golds on Friday and took home a total of 20 silver and 12 bronze metals on the final day.

JWT, the leading agency at the Creative Abbies last year, was third this year, with a total of six gold, 14 silver and 16 bronze metals. Its final tally was 36.

Scarecrow and Dentsu Impact, which is part of the Dentsu group, completed the top-five list at fourth and fifth spots, respectively. Scarecrow, founded by the creative duo Raghu Bhat and Manish Bhatt, took home a total of 21 metals, including nine silvers and 12 bronzes, while Dentsu Impact had 10 silvers and 10 bronzes.

While mainline agencies such as DDB Mudra, Contract, McCann Worldgroup, Publicis and Leo Burnett stayed away from the festival this year in addition to regular absentees Ogilvy & Mather, Lowe and Creativeland Asia, Goafest was marked by the most number of entries and participating organisations at 4,582 and 254, respectively. Last year, the numbers were 4,460 entries and 233 participating organisations, respectively. 

“What contributed to the number of entries and participants going up this year was the presence of new agencies in the fray. While mainline, networked agencies have been stepping back for individual reasons, they’ve been replaced by newer agencies wanting to be appreciated for their work by the industry,” Ajay Chandwani, co-chairman, Creative and Media Abbies 2017, said.

Judging standards have also become stringent, with juries across the 17 categories in the Creative Abbies opting to give no Grand Prix trophies this year, the second year in a row it has opted to do so. 

The last Grand Prix was lifted by Linen Lintas in 2015 for its direct marketing campaign “Brave and Beautiful” for Dabur Vatika premium shampoo. This year also saw no “Best of category” trophy, a special award, in any vertical. Last year, the “Khali” commercial for Ambuja Cement won the “Best of category” in film.

While digital remains the largest category in terms of number of entries received, with over 600 coming this year versus 500 last year, interest remains high in categories such film craft, where most leading ad-film production houses in the country compete. This is year saw Early Man Films, Absolute Productions and Breathless Films walking away with three gold, respectively, in the film craft category. The total number of gold, silver and bronze metals handed out this year at the Creative Abbies was 57, 158 and 206, respectively, versus 38 gold, 134 silver and 246 bronze metals last year.