O&M on top of creative awards list

Only a single Grand Prix award for nine categories marked the climax of the Goa Ad Fest 2009. However, this did not dampen the mood, as the advertising fraternity proceeded to dance the night away at the Cavelossim Beach.

Goa Adfest Abbys 2009 was dominated by Ogilvy & Mather (O&M), which regained its number one position from Leo Burnett and swept the Awards with wins of 50 Creative Abbys consisting of eight gold, 17 silver and 25 bronze Abbys. JWT India maintained its second position for the second year in a row, bagging 24 Abbys, including the only Grand Prix awarded this year and 5 Gold, 5 Silver and 13 Bronze metals.

Leo Burnett slipped down two paces from last year with a tally of 17 Abbys consisting of 1 Gold, 2 Silver and 14 Bronze metals. The other significant winners were Ideas@work, a new agency founded in 2007 by ex Rediff director, Prashant Godbole, and and Mudra won 14 Abbys each, followed by McCann and Publicis with 13; Contract with 12 and Rediffusion Y&R and Creativeland Asia with 10 Abbys each.

Of the nine categories – ambient, media, direct, film, print, design, integrated, out of home and radio — only one Grand Prix was awarded this year, in the direct category, for The Times of India’s Teach India campaign by JWT.

Brand wise, the winners were O&M’s Vodafone, which won 30 metals, followed by JWT’s work for The Times of India group and Rolling Stone bagging 21 and 16 metals each, respectively.

Prasoon Joshi, chairperson for films, said the lack of golds in the category was due to the internationals standards the judges were using to judge Indian work. “We are being harsh on our own work. If we judge them according to international standards, 99 per cent of the work will not win,” he said. Incidentally, there were no gold medals awarded to any work in the films category.

The Creative Abby’s witnessed 4,494 entries from 143 agencies.

The Media Abby’s, held a day earlier, had a total of 35 awards given out across 12 categories. Mindshare led the tally with two golds, five silvers and three bronzes (10 in all), followed by Madison, Mudra Max and Maxus, all securing five medals each. Madison won two golds, two silvers and one bronze, while Mudra Max and Maxus won one gold, two silvers and two bronzes each.