At GoaFest 2009, ads in many categories failed to impress the judges.
GoaFest 2009, which concluded last week, was the time that McCann Erickson participated in the annual event, though Lowe continued its self-imposed exile. This year’s edition also saw an unprecedented presence of high-profile overseas participants: Bartle Bogle Hegarty Chairman & Worldwide Creative Director John Hegarty, TBWA Chairman Jean-Marie Dru, Starcom MediaVest Group President and Chief Digital Officer Sean Finnegan, Wieden+ Kennedy Founder Dan Wieden and JWT International President Michael Maedel.
This was also the first year that the Media Abbys were announced. The creative awards were judged across 12 categories this year: Print, ambient media, design, direct, film craft, film, integrated, interactive, out of home, radio craft, print craft and radio.
Still, the juries found entries in many categories undeserving of the top prize. Only in five of the 12 Media Abby categories was a gold awarded. Creative Abbys were no better. Quite a few did not even find a bronze. Draft FCB Ulka National Creative Director K S Chakravarthy, who chaired the jury for the radio category, said: “The problem was there were not many ads that the jury felt like listening to a second time.”
Of the 14 sub-categories in films, there was not a single gold and four categories went without any award. “We are being harsh on our own work. The judging process should match the Indian standards and not the international norms,” said McCann Erickson Executive Chairman (Asia Pacific) and Regional Creative Director Prasoon Joshi who judged the films category.
Categories like clothing, innerwear, footwear & accessories, automotive vehicle and accessories, retail advertising, travel, entertainment and leisure, corporate and radio did not win a single metal in film singles or in integrated advertising. While films were judged by Joshi, integrated marketing ads were judged by Piyush Pandey of O&M.
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The Grand Prix award this year went to JWT for the Teach India campaign it created for The Times of India, which placed it at the top of the sweepstakes. In the metals tally, O&M was on top with 50 metals this year as against 58 in 2008. JWT bagged 24 metals and Leo Burnett was at the third slot with 17. The Media Abbys saw a total of 35 awards. 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 metals each.
That the new kids on the block have learnt the ropes fast was proved conclusively when names such as ideas@work won 14 metals and CreativeLand Asia bagged ten. Both the agencies were created in 2007 by ad professionals who wanted to do their own thing after having worked across big names in the industry.
O&M’s eight gold included Vodafone’s ‘Sanctuary Fashion Victims Belt’ campaign in the print (public service, appeals and charity) category; Sour Marbels’ campaign titled ‘Cave Man’; Apsara Erasers’ campaign titled ‘A Perfect World -- Asia’; Vodafone Rangashankara Theatre Festival campaign titled ‘Mono Acts -- Man Woman’ — all in the out-of-home category; Breakthrough’s campaign titled ‘Domestic Violence -- Bell Bajao’ in the integrated campaign (public service, appeal and charity) category; ‘End Polio Now’ campaign for the Pulse Polio Immunisation Drive in the ambient media category and the MTV Initiative against drunk driving titled ‘Valet’ in the direct (field marketing) category.
The Times of India’s three campaigns — Teach India, A Day in the life of Chennai and Run/Ban Jallikatu — won a total of 12 metals across categories, besides landing the only Grand Prix. The Teach India campaign also bagged the gold in the direct category.
The gold and other metals were found to be lacking in the digital medium as well. Bobby Pawar, chair, digital media, noted that there was a lack of entries and that the industry still had miles to go as this space was still in its infancy here. The work that did get noticed in digital was largely of tech companies like Web Chutney and Hungama Digital Media. After TV, it may well be the mobile phone screen that will see the fortunes of the ad industry reverse for the better. This small screen has the potential to outdo the Internet medium due to its vast penetration. “Over 10 per cent of online search queries are coming from mobile devices and we are very excited about this medium’s potential,” said Nokia’s marketing head Vineet Taneja.
One last word, scam ads. And even Hegarty had something to say, “Don’t just do them to get stupid awards.” The awards this year were dominated by work that was not seen by many, hence aptly dubbed scam ads for brands that don’t exist, or ads that just run once in some small newspaper and so on. For instance, JWT’s work for Rolling Stone, Publicis’
Cupid Condom ads and ideas@work’s ads for Stephen Brothers’ Estd 1919 were not popular or known works but still bagged the metals.