It was Ogilvy against Ogilvy at the first ever Envies ad awards ceremony, held at the Lake Hotel Renaissance Powai in Mumbai. A sea of black-clad Ogilvy men and women cheered and thumped each other?s backs as they trooped on to the stage to receive their shiny trophies. The winning entries included Cadbury 5 Star ?Ek Bilang?, Bournvita ?Race?, IPL ?Carnival?, Lifebouy ?Roti?, Fevicol ?The Free Store?, Tata Sky ?Prison Break?, Vodafone ?Made for you?, Colours for Madhya Pradesh Tourism and ‘Behave yourself India? done for Kasturi & Sons. The Grand Prix ? or best of show?went to Google, for Google Search Reunion. The agency said that its internal awards will be held on an annual basis and 25 shiny trophies will be handed out each year. This time around, there were about 35 trophies since it was the launch year and there was creative work included from the last two years. The guest of honour was leading actor and brand endorser Amitabh Bachchan.
Ogilvy had chosen to keep out of the Goafest Abby earlier this year. Piyush Pandey, executive chairman and national creative director at Ogilvy said, ?We are not happy with the industry awards (Abby) and will not be participating in it. That said, we needed to recognize and reward the good work of our people. So we thought that we would do our own awards instead. We called it the Envies, because ?envy? does have a positive connotation to it. It is about taking inspiration from people around you. Ogilvy?s creative men Abhijit Avasthi and Rajiv Rao came up with the idea of the Envies. You can call me an enabler. But they are the true makers.?
The 35 awards were chosen from over 350 entries from across India, from all of Ogilvy?s offices. These included work done for different mediums. The 10-member jury which helped them in the process consisted of Agnello Dias, chairman and chief creative officer of Taproot, Josy Paul, chairman of BBDO India, Raj Kurup, founder of Creativeland Asia and Sonal Dabral, chairman and chief creative officer of DDB Mudra. Pandey reiterated that the beauty of the awards show was that they were not simply congratulating each other. ?There were 10 very well-respected jury members from the advertising industry. We didn?t have a 100-plus jury members, as other award shows do. We also separated the work from the partying.?
Ad agency Lowe Lintas also has its internal awards show called the ?True Show?. It was one of the first agencies to step aside from the industry awards, and instead concentrate on its internal awards. Balakrishnan (Balki), chairman and chief creative officer at Lowe Lintas, who was present for the Envies awards said, ?I believe that we are the best judge of our work. When you start your own awards, you make a statement to the entire agency and the world at large. You are saying – let us be ruthless and decide our own work. It is a ruthless process and make no mistake about it. You are not depending on luck or votes. You are taking a conscious decision.? On whether this move will inspire other agencies to step aside from the politicking of the industry awards and set up their own benchmarks, he said it was unlikely. ?You need a solid body of work, in order to make it count,? says Balakrishnan.
DDB Mudra?s Dabral said that the Abby and the Envies were mutually exclusive. ?If an agency doesn?t want to participate in the industry awards, it doesn?t automatically mean that it will set up its own internal awards. I am sure it didn?t work like that for Ogilvy. The two award shows are not connected,? he said. Dabral added that the judging process was fun and it was always exciting to check out creative work.
The best of show ? Google?s ?Reunion? ad?led to an emotionally charged moment when veteran adman Piyush Pandey was moved to tears while on stage. Actor Amitabh Bahchan who was giving out the award to the team was equally emotional.
Pandey recounted the incident later, ?Bachchan said to me on stage that he?s watched the Google ad multiple times and it moved him to tears. And I said, ‘Bachchan sahib, I?ve seen this ad 150 times till date, and it has touched me every single time. I have had no other response but this. Tears of joy. I have seen many good ads in my career, but for a lot of them, something or the other didn?t quite come together. But for this one, god has been kind and everything is in place. Every element comes together beautifully’.?
