Goafest 2014: Media & Publisher Abbys winners announced

PHD India picks only Media Abbys Grand Prix and maximum 3 Gold medals. BCCL, HT Media dominate inaugural Publisher Abbys awards

Sohini Sen & Sarmistha Neogy | Goa | May 30, 2014

It is that time of the year when Goa gets hotter, not because of its climate but because of the entire advertising fraternity getting together. And with 53 media agencies participating this year at the Goafest, it was sure to set the temperature soaring. The winners of both the Media and the newly introduced, Publisher Abbys were announced on the first day of 9th edition of Goafest. The event was hosted by none other than stand-up comedian, Cyrus Broacha, whose antics and one-liners had the audience in splits.

The 2014 Goafest saw around 619 entries for the Media Abbys. Around 150 entries were shortlisted which were judged by a total of 76 judges. Ravi Rao, Leader, South Asia, Mindshare served as the head of jury. The shortlists were finally narrowed down to 50 metals in the Media Abbys this year which includes a Grand Prix. What is remarkable is that this year also saw a higher number of entries from South Asian countries.

Lodestar UM won the Silver and the Bronze Abby in the category of 'Best Use of TV' for their campaigns, 'Safari Storme 24-The Real Action Hero' and 'A Recap to Remember', respectively. The agency again took home two Bronze Abbys in the category of 'Best Use of Newspapers & Magazines.”

Nandini Dias

"It is a proud moment. I had some idea that we were doing well because I was part of the jury, but I had no idea how well! I am glad that we have done it this year. Every year, Lodestar enters only two awards in India - Goafest and Envies. This serves as a reality check to know where we stand among others," explained, Nandini Dias, CEO, Lodestar UM.

For the category of 'Best Use of Branded Content', PHD India won the Gold for the brand BeBeautiful. Madison Media Infinity and Maxus, both bagged the Silver award for Asian Paints and Tata Tea.

In the Best Use of 'Digital as a medium' category, Mindshare took home the Gold for Horlicks and Maxus bagged the silver, for Center Fresh.

'Mothers win the Elections' campaign by Mindshare Pakistan bagged the Gold in the category of South Asia category,-special award-best use of integrated campaign.

Amin Lakhani

Amin Lakhani, Leader, Mindshare Fulcrum, South Asia, said, “We are extremely excited to bag a Gold Abby at the Goafest, glad that our work got appreciated. We have had great experience and with the addition of new categories this year, it has been more interesting.”

Mindshare's campaign 'Closeup Reuniting One Tag At A Time!' won the Gold for the Best use of Experiential Including Large Events. Amul's campaign, 'How Amul Made 1 Lac People Consume 50 Litre of Ice-Cream in a single day' by Lodestar UM won the Silver in the same category.

So in the final metal tally, Lodestar UM led with 11medals-2 Gold, 3 Silver and 6 Bronze. Maxus and Mindshare shared the second spot with 7 metals each. PHD India and Milestone Brandcom followed close behind with 5 metals in their kitty.

The night however, belonged to PHD India, who took home the biggest award – The Media Grand Prix. “Oh my God! Oh my God! We did not expect this. This is awesome," said a superbly elated Rachana Dharia, VP - Digital and Mobility Services, PHD India. Dharia was the brain behind the BeBeautiful campaign on YouTube.

Meanwhile, Publishers Abbys saw a total of 62 entries for seven categories - which is not a small number considering it has only been introduced this year. There was no Grand Prix in the Publishers Abbys.

To make sure that media groups and conglomerates did not enjoy any unjust advantage, both categories had strict judging procedures. Only one representative from a media group was part of the jury. This essentially meant that if a person was from one media group, he could not judge any part of the media group's work. The entire process was also automated which meant that ambiguity was minimised.

The jury for the Publishers Abby was chaired by D Purkayastha, ABP Group. Other jury members included Nandan Srinath (TOI), Ajit Nair (Lokmat), Mitrajit Bhattacharjee (Chitralekha), Shree Kumar Menon (Malayala Manorama), Malcolm Mistry (DNA), N Parthasarathy (The Hindu Group) and Abhishek Karnani (Free Press Journal).

Bennett Coleman & Co. Limited (BCCL) and HT Media dominated the inaugural Publisher Abbys awards.

Hindustan Media Ventures won a Bronze in the 'best marketing in a printed newspaper/ edition' category for their 'Leaves' campaign. They took another Bronze in the same category for their 'Let's make news better' campaign.

The Silver in this category was won by DB Corp and Amar Ujala Publications for their 'Junior Editor - II' and 'Amar Ujala - Beti Hi Bachayegi' campaigns, respectively. The might Gold went to DB Corp for the 'Unmetro your mind - Marketing the newspaper by marketing the markets' campaign.

Bennett Coleman & Co took home 3 Gold, 1 Silver and 1 Bronze in the Publishers Abby. The gold came in the categories of 'CSR/ cause related marketing initiative in traditional or online space' and 'Best brand innovation in newspaper printed or online' categories.

Both the Gold and Silver for the Most creative cover design for a printed magazine went to Chitralekha. The Hindu Tamil won the Gold in Best Launch of a regional newspaper/ magazine category for their 'World comes alive in Tamil' campaign.

Info@BestMediaInfo.com

Info@BestMediaInfo.com