TOI Leads India at Goa ad fest

TOI Leads India at Goa ad fest
Preetu Nair and Andrew Periera I TNN

Cavelossim Beach (Goa): The Times of India’s Lead India campaign seeking tomorrow’s leaders today, which became a nationwide hit, was the toast of the evening at the 41st Abby awards function here on Sunday.
At a spiffy show attended by the cream of India’s advertising world, Lead India won the prestigious Grand Prix for JWT India as the integrated campaign of the year. The Abby awards—notably the five Grands Prix, which were the premier awards at the festival hosted at the three-day GoaFest 2008—recognize excellence in creativity and celebrate Indian advertising. The award ceremony saw two ad bodies (the Advertising Agencies Association of India, or AAAI, and Ad Club) come together, with the creative big guns competing for medals.
The creative mind behind the Lead India ad campaign, JWT chief creative officer Agnello Dias, said, “It’s a great feeling to be recognized. Our team really worked hard on it.’’ Although elated, he put on a modest face. “Honestly, I didn’t think of this. I even thought that we would get into trouble as we were exposing politicians and loopholes and corruption in the system. But the support we got was amazing.’’
Lead India was the only gold winner in the integrated campaign category. It also won a bronze medal each in the print, film and direct categories.
The other big winner of the evening was Leo Burnett India, which won two Grands Prix in the Out-Of-Home: Household Products and Maintenance category as well as in Print Single: Household Products and Maintenance.
While Mudra Communications won the Grand Prix in the Radio: Household Products and Maintenance category, Nirvana Films won the Grand Prix for Film Craft: Direction. O&M bags 58 Abbys at Goafest
Cavelossim Beach (South Goa): The hotshot Abby awards were given in nine categories—craft, creative, direct, print, integrated advertising, interactive digital advertising, radio single, film single and ambient media. There were over 3,800 entries. O&M hit big time at the awards function on Sunday, winning 58 awards, followed by Leo Burnett India with 37 awards. JWT India won 30 awards. Well-known names on the jury included Piyush Pandey, executive chairman & national creative director, India and South Asia O&M; Agnello Dias, chief creative director, JWT; Ravi Deshpande, chief creative officer, Contract Advertising; Abhinay Deo of Ramesh Deo Productions; Josy Paul; K V Shridhar, NCD, Leo Burnett; Bobby Pawar, NCD, Mudra, and Ramesh Iyengar, MD, Select Direct.

2008 Apr 07 Times Of India Mumbai