One remembers a time when Contract, Ulka, Mudra, Lintas, Trikaya Grey,Enterprise and even HTA being in the running for the prestigious title. Butthat was in the past. O&M has been in the forefront and setting creativestandards for the whole of the ad industry. Thanks of course to PiyushPandey, chief Ranjan Kapur and Sonal Dabral and the entire creative team.One was surprised how the Fevikwik campaign got the number of awards it did.Also by the number of accolades The Times of India ad by Enterprise Nexusgot. Finally, the Cadbury campaign - while it does still merit a looksee -should not be entered for any awards again. It has been stretched andstretched much too far; how many times can you reward a single good creativeidea?

Clearly, the Ad Club, Mumbai has to do something to encourage submissionsfor every category from most agencies by reducing the entry fees - keepingit a nominal Rs 50 or Rs 100 and let the sponsor pick up the tab for thefinal award presentation event. Additionally, the World Wide Web segment hasto be expanded to include some more categories for awards.

The right time to enter & exit of Net stocks
Lots of hype has been created around the Net and its potential. ManyInternet stocks in the US have been hyped up as the ones to watch out for.Many of them collapsed not so surprisingly. Fertilemind is one stoc kmarketresearcher which cuts out the hype and gives its opinion on which shares areabout to become untouchables.

The advisor says that Amazon.com is a strong sale option as its red inkcontinues to flow and it has no way of staunching the bleeding, despiterevealing flashy plans about alliances. It has labeled its strategies as piein the sky. In fact, Fertilemind has recommended that you should go short onthe scrip. The firm says that DrKoop.com, the hot medical information portalshould be treated like a dirty Kleenex and got rid of pronto. Here's moreno-holds barred advice: sell drugstore.com, the firm is losing more moneythan it can ever hope to recover. Yes, it has employees, it has customersbut they are not buying enough and when they finally will begin to makepurchases, the model for drugstore.com will have changed.

EarthWeb which publishes 15 Web sites that provide content, code andcommunity to information-technology professionals is another stronglyrecommended sell by Fertilemind.net. The reason: it's spending money onadvertising and marketing like there is no tomorrow; its marketing expensesare 76 per cent of sales.

Egghead.com the online software seller, fertilemind.net says should be sold,definitely. It is plagued by too much competition and there is no way itwill survive in such a malkrket. Emusic.com, another reputed site, is likelyto go under and it has losses about 10 times sales which are never going tobe stemmed. The best thing would therefore be to get out of the stock. Oncea leading sports goods retailer Fogdog.com is drowning in the competitionfrom better stocked and stacked up rivals, says Fertilemind.

The stock should be junked. Other red signal stocks that Fertilemind.netsays should be abandoned include: Inktomi (the search engine which haspatnered Rediff.com), priceline.com (it is expanding much too soon, toofast. What of the Indian dot com market? We have not had the dot comstampede hit Our bourses as yet, though a lot of companies are knocking onthe door. But one would doubt rediff.com's model no matter what the hype,not matter what the page views it gets. Yes, it may get a great price onlisting but one does not for how long it will stay perched over there.

It is spending too much to buy eyeballs and the eyeballs are not spendingenough on the site. Ditto for other sites such as indiainfo andSatyaminfoway's Indiaworld.com platform and Skumars.com. All one can say isget in early and get out early with Internet stocks keeping a close tab onmovements. Stay away from stocks that promise a lot and are not curbingtheir eyeball grabbing exercise through huge billboards and full page printand long drawn television ads. Get in on every fall and get out on everymajor rise whenever Internet stocks become available for trading. After all,isn't it all a gamble?

Anil Wanvari The author is CEO http://www.indiantelevision.com,India's cable satellite, and terrestrial television portal. Email:television@vsnl.com, television@hotmail.com.