Balki and his team at Low Lintas have stayed away from all awards shows in the country for a decade now. But on Tuesday evening, the agency rasied a cheer to its own best work of last year – and also the best work of its competition. What a show!
Sohini Sen | Mumbai | June 6, 2013
It has been a principled stand they have stuck to for 10 years, staying away from all industry awards in the country. However, on Tuesday evening, at the Shangri-La Hotel in Mumbai, Lowe Lintas, one of India’s topmost creative agencies, organised ‘The True Show’ to showcase the best of its work from the last year. The agency picked out the best of the lot and awarded the in-house talent and creativity.
The invitation very aptly reflected the theme, declaring: 'Since we don't create work for award shows, we've created an award show for our work'.
Initially planned as an annual fixture, the last True Show was held in 2008. According to the agency, The True Show is held in only those years when the agency has done some outstanding work which need to be appreciated some more.
"We firmly believe awards are just an excuse to drink and party, therefore, it will not make or break anyone's lives. All we want to do is do an awards transparently and give something extra for the team," Lowe Chairman and National Creative Director R Balakrishnan said in his opening remarks. According to Balki, as Balakrishnan is popularly known, the 'true' in the title reflects how the awards are “free from biases”.
According to Lowe team members, the awards are not just about awarding themselves or awarding the people who helped them make the work so good. There is a lot more to The True Show, they emphasise.
"A lot of clients have given us the best ideas... Secondly, directors, cinematographers, lyricists, music directors, etc., contribute to the ads more than people realise. They make the ads very good and therefore must be appreciated individually as well," summed up Balki.
The awards included Voiceover (Coca Cola - Cricket), Lyrics & Music (Idea Cellular - Honey Bunny) and Direction (Lifebuoy - Pledge to Help a Child Reach the Age of 5) among others. The ‘True Idea of the year’ award was won by Idea Cellular's Telephone Exchange campaign. The silver for the same went jointly to Havell fans ('Hawa Badlegi') and ICICI Prudential ('Bande acche hain').
Lowe Lintas went on to award rival agencies as well – as works that they envy! The prominent winner in this segment was Ogilvy & Mather for The Hindu campaign (Stay ahead of the Times).
The awards were attended by the who's who of the advertising industry as well as major clients. Among them were Prasoon Joshi of McCann WorldGroup India; KV Sridhar ‘Pops’ of Leo Burnett; Josy Paul and Ajai Jhala of BBDO; Madhukar Sabnavis and Abhijit Avasthi of O&M; Agnello Dias of Taproot India; Sonal Dabral of DDB Mudra Group; and KC Chakravarthy ‘Chax’ of Draftfcb Ulka, to name some.
Arun Iyer, National Creative Director, Lowe Lintas, and Fali Vakeel, Vice-Chairman and COO, Lowe Lintas, were also present.
On the client side, there were Axis Bank CEO Shikha Sharma, Bajaj Auto MD Rajiv Bajaj, HUL CEO Nitin Paranjpe; Tanishq COO CK Venkataraman, and Idea Cellular’s Director Sanjeev Aga, MD and CEO, amongst others.
The True Show Awards winners:
True Craft Awards:
Voice – Ad : Coke (Cricket ki Khushi) - Dev
Design – Ad: Fastrack – Akash Lyod & Karl
Cinematography – Ad: Lifebuoy - Tapan
Lyrics – Ad: Idea Honey Bunny campaign – Amitabh Bhattacharya/Subodh Menon/Ashwin Varkey
Music – Ad: Idea Honey Bunny campaign - Amit Trivedi
True Show Talent – Anupam & Urfee
True Show Best Editor – Ad: Axis Bank – Shekhar
Work that we truly envy – Ogilvy and Mather – The Hindu
Work that we truly envy for craft – Shoojit Sircar for directing the TVCs for Gujarat Tourism
Work that we truly envy – Ad: Big Bazaar – Mudra
True Simplicity – Ad: Havells Idli - Sriram Iyer + Team
True Activation Idea – Ad: Tata Tea Jaago re campaign, Chotti Shuruvat
Best Continuing campaign – Ad: Surf Excel
True Brand Portfolio – Ad: Tanishq
Blockbuster of the year – Ad: Idea Honey Bunny campaign
True Idea:
Bronze – Ad: ET Half Knowledge campaign
Silver 01 – Ad: ICICI Prudential (Bandhe Ache Hai)
Silver 02 – Ad: Havells Fans (Sriram + Team)
Gold – Ad: Idea Exchange (Telephone Exchange campaign – Himanshu + Team)
Truly Special Award – Ad: Lifebuoy Gondappa
Ads Shortlisted:
Idea Honey Bunny
Tanishq – Diwali campaign
Surf Excel – Daag Achche Hai
Tanishq – Diamonds
Havells Fans – Rajesh Khanna
Axis Bank – Badhti ka naam zindagi
Idea – An idea can change your life
Tanishq – Teri Shaadi ka gift
ET – Half Knowledge campaign
Tata Tea – Jaago Re Women’s Day campaign
Fastrack – Come out of the closet
Havells – Save Bijli campaign
Coca Cola –Khelte Raho Khush Raho
HIT – Agli baar Ungli Nahin HIT Uthav
Tanishq – Sridevi campaign
Havells – Mixer Grinder
Idea – Telephone exchange campaign
ICICI Prudential
Havells Fans – Hawa Badlegi
Lifebuoy – Gundappa campaign
