Leo Burnett the winner, McCann gets a big haul, JWT No. 3

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They finally nailed it. After years of being pipped to the post, at times almost by a whisker, Publicis Groupe-owned Leo Burnett walked away with the most number of metals at the Creative Abbies announced today.

Leo Burnett's score was 71 with nine golds, 34 silvers and 28 bronzes. It was followed by McCann Worldgroup with seven golds, 15 silvers and 33 bronzes. Its tally was 55. McCann, which did not participate in the Creative Abbies last year, also had a Grand Prix in print for Active Total Security Solutions, a Chennai-based company, this season. Predictably, McCann's South Asia president Prasoon Joshi was a happy man. "I am delighted with our show," he said.

If Joshi was on top of the world over McCann's spirited comeback, his agency's print Grand Prix was the second in the creative awards, the first being the one won by Interface Business Solutions for Tata DoCoMo in digital. The third Grand Prix came in the integrated section for Killer Jeans by Grey Worldwide.

Apart from the top two and the Grand Prix winners, the evening also belonged to other agencies. JWT, which kicked up a storm over its leaked Ford Figo poster campaign, had to its credit a total of 48 metals this evening, including five golds, 17 silvers and 26 bronzes. Had the Figo controversy not happened, then JWT would have taken home some more metals, said industry grapevine.

Taproot, the runner-up last year, was fourth on the list this year with 18 metals including one gold, four silvers and thirteen bronzes.

DDB followed next with 16 metals including one gold, five silvers and 10 bronzes, while Grey had 13 metals plus a Grand Prix and BBDO Proximity and Publicis Communications were close behind with a metals haul of 12 each.

Of the 4,300 pieces of work that was entered in the Creative Abbies this year, there were 442 winners across 73 organisations. Last year, there were 4,200 entries, of which 333 secured metals across 61 organisations.

"Certainly we are happy that there are people out there who are keen to enter their work in the creative awards and are doing so. Which is the reason why the number of entries as well as organisations are going up each year," said Ajay Chandwani, chairman of the Creative Abbies.

In all, there were a total of 44 golds given out across 11 creative categories--10 more than the 34 given out last year. The number of silvers and bronze metals have also shot up significantly over last year at 157 and 238, respectively. Last season, there were 118 and 179 silvers and bronze metals that were taken home by winners.

Of the campaigns that stood out were the work for Killer Jeans, which secured the Grand Prix for its execution across mutiple media, Leo Burnett's anthem for Kaun Banega Crorepati on radio, Taproot's Jo Tera Hai Woh Mera Hai TV campaign for Airtel, McCann's integrated campaign for Stayfree and JWT's spot for Gripone Tubeless tyre on radio. "Jurors were looking for both the big creative idea, as well as execution and many campaigns seemed to have that spark in them," Chandwani said. While film and film craft had no Grand Prixs this year, Chandwani did add that the production quality of work in film had improved over the years. "There is significant improvement in how work in film as well as in categories such as out-of-home is executed now vis-a-vis say a few years ago. That is a big shift that I see," he added.