When Ogilvy backed out of the Abby last year, the Oscars for the Indian advertising fraternity, the awards show had surely lost some sheen. But then Lowe, the agency headed by R Balki, had been skipping the Creative Abby for some years and the show had continued without a break.
In June this year, Balki held an internal awards called the True Show, celebrating 10 years of “not giving a damn about awards”. On Monday, Piyush Pandey and his core team of Abhijit Avasthi and Rajiv Rao played host to the Envies. Billed as Ogilvy’s finest, the entries were judged by a cross-section of industry seniors. The Envies were internal awards of Ogilvy India, but the jury comprised biggies like DDB Mudra’s Sonal Dabral, BBDO’s Josy Paul, Taproot India’s Agnello Dias, CreativeLand Asia’s Sajan RaJ Kurup, Wieden+Kennedy’s V Sunil, McCann’s Akshay Kapnadak, Lowe Lintas’ Arun Iyer, Contract’s Ashish Chakravarty, Grey’s Malvika Mehra and Strawberry Frog’s Raj Kamble.
Said Pandey: “I think Envies have to be interpreted in two different ways: the dictionary meaning of it is jealousy, which sounds a bit negative. In my mind, the Envies are about appreciating what others are doing and saying I wish I had done that kind of work.”
Thirty-five awards awards were given away, but from next year, it will only be 25. Google’s Reunion ad won the Grand Prix or ‘Most Envied’ honour.
Sam Balsara, CMD, Madison World, said: “It’s a good thing to have them, but according to me it should not preclude them from participating in other industry awards.” Said Shashi Sinha, CEO, IPG Mediabrands: “They are not mutually exclusive. There is an internal awards that Group M does but they still participate in industry awards. So it’s an internal call but according to me they are two different things.”
Sonal Dabral, Group CEO & MD, DDB Mudra too was of the view that external and internal awards are mutually exclusive.
—By arrangement with MxMIndia.com
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