Effies India – Awards that honour campaigns that work: Winners Speak

The Effie Awards India 2016 was held at a glittering ceremony on Friday night, December 16. Hindustan Unilever was adjudged as the Effie Client of the Year, while MullenLowe Lintas Group, India was named Effie India Agency of the Year. The coveted Grand Effie was won by The Leo Group India for Bajaj Motorcycles’ campaign ‘A bike that got people to experience national pride - The Nation’s Bike’. 

The Advertising Club (TAC) India hosted the 16th edition of Effies India, which was presented by Colors and powered by Colors Infinity. 

MullenLowe Lintas Group, India lead the awards tally with a total of 182 points. The group secured 1 Gold, 12 Silver, 10 Bronze and 31 Finalists. 

When asked what winning at Effies meant, Arun Iyer, Chief Creative Officer, Lowe Lintas, replied, “Effies is really something that we believe in. Our philosophy is to make a campaign that works for the client. And this is testament to that. It’s great to win.” 

On whether he was expecting this award, Iyer said, “We were hoping for it, I think ‘expecting’ is a wrong word. We were hoping for it and it happened; it feels good.” 

Further, when asked about his plans for 2017, in a lightly vein, Iyer said, “Right now I am only planning for my holiday that I am going off to for the next 10 days. I will come back to 2017 when it actually arrives!” 

McCann Worldgroup was third in the awards tally list with total 116 points. The agency took home 3 Gold, 3 Silver, 6 Bronze and 25 Finalists. Prasoon Joshi, Chairman, McCann Worldgroup Asia Pacific, remarked on the wins, “Best solutions happen when there is a great partnership between the client and the agency, and this is the result of trust, partnership and great team work.” 

DDB Mudra Group followed in the fourth position in the awards tally, scoring a total of 68 points. The agency’s metals tally included 1 Gold, 5 Bronze and 20 Finalists. 

“I love winning anywhere, but winning at the Effies is a great testament to the fact that your work is appreciated and the work has to work in the market place,” said Sonal Dabral, Chairman and Chief Creative Officer, DDB Mudra Group. He added, “It’s not creativity for creativity’s sake, we are loved by the consumers so much that they buy our ideas. That means any work we do has to be effective and effective in a sense that it has to move the product, it has to move the idea that we are advertising and this is a good barometer. Effies tell you where you stand in terms of work, a creativity that is effective, that is doing its job. So, winning at Effies is important, very important.” 

When asked whether he was expecting this award, Dabral replied, “Yeah, we were kind of expecting it. We were definitely expecting to be amongst the top four positions. Next year, we will do better than this.” 

On his future plans, he said, “In terms of work and campaigns, we will continue to do more and more effective work. Technology is changing the way we advertise, the way we communicate. We are doing our bits to be absolutely in tune with the times, we are able to provide the best creative solutions to any business problems that our clients have.” 

The Leo Group India took home the coveted Grand Effie for its Bajaj Motorcycles’ campaign – ‘A bike that got people to experience national pride - The Nation’s Bike’. The group secured a total 66 points, standing fifth in the awards tally. The group scored 3 Gold, 2 Silver, 1 Bronze and 7 Finalists. 

According to Dheeraj Sinha, Chief Strategy Officer at Leo Burnett, South Asia, “Effies is a big award to win, because it is given to work that worked in the market place. It is real work, and the work that we have done is new age work – embedding market ideas in the product itself. It is not just the campaign that we have been awarded for, it’s for a new kind of marketing where the world is moving and, therefore, it is all the more encouraging, like a cherry on the top!” 

He further said, “We did very well this year with the shortlist, which is unprecedented for Leo Burnett, but we weren’t expecting to convert so many into awards. Converting 12 out of the shortlisted entries has been an excellent honour.” 

When asked about the plans for 2017, Sinha replied, “The plan is always the same – to do really, really great work; and we focus on work, we don’t focus on awards. And the work which wins gets us the award.”



Meanwhile, speaking on the highlights of the Effies India Awards 2016, Raj Nayak, President of The Advertising Club, “There were lots of highlights this year, for instance, we had Vikram Sakhuja as Jury Chairman, while Mitrajit Bhattacharya was the Co-Chairman, that was a change from the last two years. Secondly, we had a larger jury panel this time, which comprised 300 jury members, out of which 50 were clients, and also it is growing year on year. Last year, we were 800 people, but this year we were 1,200 people and went to three cities – Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi. Another thing that we will be doing this year – and I think it is Vikram’s idea – is that we will do case studies of all the Gold winners and present them in different markets so that people know what it takes to win a Gold and also the best practices. So, these are the some of the new things that we have done this year.” 

When asked what new people could look forward to in 2017, Nayak replied, “Well, I really I can’t say right now, but one thing that everyone noticed this year – and that has nothing to do with demonetisation – is that there weren’t too many golds. That means the jury has become tougher, they are willing to reject mediocre work.”

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