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Lalitha Srinivasan
Mumbai, Jan 25: It's celebration time at Hindustan Thompson Associates (HTA), India's leading advertising agency. The agency has won the coveted ``Gold Subhas Ghosal Trophy'' for effective advertising, for its client De Beers Consolidated Mines. On January 23, 1999, the Advertising Club, Mumbai held a seminar-AdWorks VI-to select the best out of the eleven case studies that were chosen from 33 entries for the Subhas Ghosal Trophy. The criteria for winning: did the advertising work? And how effective was the campaign in promoting the product?
It's for the first time in the history of Indian advertising, that the Advertising Club, Mumbai has announced a special trophy that recognises the effectiveness of an advertising campaign in the marketplace. In its inaugural year, this trophy is being given in the memory of the late Subhas Ghosal, a doyen in the Indian advertising industry. It was ten years ago that the Club had started a biennial seminar called `Advertising That Works'. ``And from this year, theAdWorks seminar is organised as an annual presentation and the judging was done along international lines,'' says Ramesh Narayan, president of the club.
The jury, comprising of eminent personalities, took into account the performance of the brand on the strength of advertising alone. As a first step, a distinguished selection jury went through all the case books nominated till January 1, 1999. A fortnight ago, the selection jury announced 11 outstanding case studies for the final presentation on January 23. The recommended case studies included: BPL Excell, Britannia Cheese, Clorets, De Beers, Britannia Tiger Biscuits, Clorets, Elle 18, Kissan Annapurna, Kissan Jam, Mauritius Tourism, Pond's Dreamflower and Decis Ltd.Finally, last Saturday, the Club announced five nominations for the gold Subhas Ghosal Trophy: Mauritius Tourism (Trikaya), Ponds Dreamflower (HTA), Decis (Contract), De Beers (HTA) and Britannia Cheese (Trikaya). While four of the case studies have bagged a silver trophy, HTA's De Beerscampaign was adjudged the best and was awarded the gold trophy.
``A diamond is for ever'' reads the tagline of the campaign. ``The product remained the same. The pricing remained the same. Yet the product has registered a 19 per cent growth (1997-98) with the help of advertising,'' says D Wadia, clients service diretor, HTA. The product was positioned as the `Ultimate gift of love,' and, ``Thus we could pull the heart strings of many buyers with our advertising alone,'' says Wadia. For HTA the moment must be especially touching. For, the first ``citizen-manager'' of J Walter Thompson India, Subhas Ghosal was also the first chief executive of Hindustan Thompson Associates--which swept the trophy in its inaugural showing.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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