Abbys 2017 launches new campaign to showcase the 'truly Indian award'

The core thought behind the campaign, conceptualised by Scarecrow Communications, is an award that is 'by, for and of the industry'

BestMediaInfo Bureau | Mumbai | January 5, 2017

Abbys 2017, which signals the beginning of the awards season, has rolled out its latest campaign. Conceptualised by Scarecrow Communications, which also worked for Abbys 2016, the campaign is witty, topical and has all the elements of a classic ad communication.

As part of the campaign, ads announcing the arrival of Abbys 2017 have been launched. There are ads on different categories, including one inspired by Dangal to promote gender sensitivity, and one for the new Champions of Excellence Awards.

Ramesh Narayan

Speaking about the campaign and the genesis of the idea, Ramesh Narayan, Chairperson, Abbys, said, “The campaign is something that began last year. At the annual Town Hall meeting, Manish Bhatt suggested to the President of the Ad Club, Raj Nayak, that as 'Make in India' was very much the flavour of the day, why not use that thought for the Abbys since the awards are 'Made in India'. Raj loved the thought and mentored Manish and Scarecrow to take it further. I was the Chairman of Awards Governing Council so I got involved. I suggested that since the Abbys were the only awards that were truly 'by the industry, for the industry, and of the industry', this thought should figure prominently in the communication.”

According to Narayan, no brief was given to Scarecrow for this year's campaign. The core thought behind the latest campaign still is 'Made in India' and 'by, for and of the industry'

“For this year's campaign, Manish and his team brought back the nostalgia of people who worked in the advertising industry, have been part of it and have grown from it into politics, Bollywood, etc. They related these two aspects with the fact that these people may not come back to the industry in 2017 but the beloved Abby awards certainly would. After that, there were stand-alone ads aimed at individual categories while all the time maintaining the look, feel and central message. The campaign is on-going and will have separate ads for different categories,” Narayan added.

Manish Bhatt

Speaking about the campaign and the style of advertising, Manish Bhatt, Founder Director, Scarecrow Communications, said, “This year's campaign is very similar to how Volkswagen advertises. Basically, each ad highlights a particular feature and uses the classic fundamental elements of an ad, which are a visual, a headline, a body copy and call for action. Last year when we did the campaign for Abbys, we wanted to remind the fraternity that it is their awards. So we sharpened the positioning of Abby by calling it 'Truly Indian Award' and we highlighted the Indian-ness of the awards. This year we are continuing with that thought but we are also highlighting different attributes and facets of Abbys.”

The agency had come up with a hash tag for last year's campaign -- #That'sWhyAbby. Bhatt said the agency was in the process of doing something similar this year too.

“Last year we had come up with the hash tag #That'sWhyAbby. This year too we are in deliberation to come up with a new hash tag. Hopefully, in the next few days, we should be able to come up with something. So, there will be one thread of functional campaign that goes on like it is happening now but there may be a more thematic campaign. But it is still in deliberation,” said Bhatt.

While creating any good campaign requires hard work and skill, creating communication for Abbys, which will be subject to scrutiny from others in the industry, requires special care. On being asked if the experience was little more daunting than creating communication for a regular brand, Bhatt said, “Personally, I have taken up such challenges before too. I had started something called Virtual Museum of Advertising and Design back in 2005 or 2006 but had to stop after Scarecrow happened. Also, when I was still at Contract, I and my team had worked on Goafest's campaign in 2008. So I have gone through that challenge of “what will the industry think?” because obviously there is a little more pressure when the industry is going to look at your work. But one now has the understanding of what works and what doesn't.”

The Ads:

Credits:

Client: The Advertising Club

Creative Agency: Scarecrow Communications

Scarecrow Creative Team: Manish Bhatt, Yogesh Rijhwani, Nikhil Kerkar, Sakhi Shah, Gaurav Vaswani, Shilpa Potekar, Gaurav Kumar, Aniruddha Banerjee

Scarecrow Account Management Team: Mangesh Mulajkar, Diya Sarkar

The Advertising Club Dignitaries:

President (CEO Colors Viacom18): Raj Nayak

Chairman of Goafest 2017 Awards Governing Council (Founder - Canco Advertising): Ramesh Narayan

Special Invitee, Managing Committee – The Advertising Club (Head of Marketing, Hindi Mass Entertainment, Viacom18): Sapangeet Rajwant

COO: Bipin R Pandit

Public Relations: Sonia Huria – Special Invitee (Head of Communications and CSR Viacom18)

Colors Viacom18 Team: Vishal Desai (AVP Marketing, Colors Viacom18), Spraha Magan

Special Thanks:

Steve McCurry (Photographer – Afghan Girl)

Colors Viacom18 (Photo Courtesy - Naagin)

Star Sports (Photo Courtesy – Mauka Mauka)

Cadbury's (Photo Courtesy – Kuch Swad Hai Zindagi Mein)

Perfetti (Photo Courtesy - Chlor-mint)

Getty Images

Shutterstock

Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Ministry of Commerce, Government of India (Courtesy – Make In India Logo)

AAAI

Derek O'Brien, Shyam Benegal, Juhi Chaturvedi, Rahul Bose, Vikas Bahl, Kamlesh Pandey, John Abraham, Jaideep Sahni, Dibakar Banerjee, Pradeep Sarkar, Shantanu Moitra, Nitesh Tiwari, Ashwini Iyer Tiwari

Info@BestMediaInfo.com

Info@BestMediaInfo.com