This year, the association received a record of 1,300 entries from 30 agencies and 19 agencies won 57 awards in 15 exclusive product categories, informed AAAI president Ramesh Narayan. "For the first time, 19 agencies shared the Triple A awards," added Mr Narayan. This year, however, 50 ad agencies did not send in their entries for the prestigious AAAI awards.

Amongst leading agencies, Ogilvy & Mather Advertising did not participate in the competition this year.

Recognising the discipline required for an agency to continuously produce high quality creative output across campaigns, product categories and brands, the association has instituted a special award `Showcase of the Year,' separately for press and television campaigns this year. In the TV category, Lowe Lintas bagged a gold and Contract won a siver. In the press category of the `Showcase of the Year,' Contract Advertising and Enterprise-Nexus won a joint silver award. `The Campaign of the Year' award was won by Lintas for its Indya.com campaign. As for other winners, HTA bagged a silver in `The Campaign of the Year' for its client De Beers Consolidated Mines (Nakshtra Jewellery).

At present, AAAI has 89 advertising agencies as members and they contribute about 80 per cent of total ad spend in the country. In a bid to ensure that scam ads do not reach the judging table this year, the AAAI has introduced a Scrutiny Committee this year for the first time. According to Mr Narayan, there was a dramatic reduction in the number of scam entries this year.

AAAI Awards (awards committee) chairman Sam Balsara said that the entries were examined by a panel of judges comprising of 10 members. "We chose five creative heads and five agency heads to select the winners," added Mr Balsara. The panel included the who's who in the Indian advertising industry. The association has chosen, R Balakrishnan (Lintas), Bharat Dabholkar (Publicis), Deepa Kakkar (HTA), Sunil Mahadik (Flagship) and Adrian Mendonza (Rediffusion DY&R) from creative department. The agency heads included, Anil Kapur (FCB- Ulka), Ishan Raina (Euro RSCG), Sam Balsara (Madison) and Colvyn Harris (Contract).