Three Indian agencies score at the AME Awards

O&M India, JWT India and Solutions Digitas have emerged winners at the Asian Marketing Effectiveness Awards (AMEA) 2008. The medal tally for India this year was eight.

O&M India won three metals - a gold, a silver and a bronze. O&M Mumbai’s Bournvita (Cadbury India) campaign, titled How Bournvita Let Children Be Differently Capable and Differently Successful, won a gold for Best Insights and Strategic Thinking and a silver in the Most Effective Use of Advertising category.

In an academically obsessed nation, Bournvita chose to inspire children to chase their dreams and nudged parents to re-evaluate conventional notions of achievement. As a campaign, it told children that it was okay to be unconventional, to chase whatever was important to them.

The other winning entry from the O&M stable came from OgilvyAction – Outreach Mumbai. The campaign, Lifebuoy Swasthya Chetna (Hindustan Unilever), won a bronze in the Most Effective Use of Events category.

This campaign started in 2002, and by the end of 2008, the programme will have covered more than 50,000 villages and touched the lives of close to 110 million rural Indians. In 2006, in recognition of the efforts, the Indian Postal Department released a special postal cover on the campaign.

JWT India won four metals – one gold, one silver and two bronzes.

JWT India's Mumbai branch won a gold for India Poised – Lead India (Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd) in the Best Marketing Campaign for National Brand Development category and a bronze for the same in the Most Effective Use of Branded Content category.

The Lead India campaign was launched on January 1, 2007. It was conducted in three phases. The first phase of the campaign was a series of print ads titled India Poised, along with a TV commercial starring actor Amitabh Bachchan.

The second phase of the campaign revealed the Lead India initiative and asked the audience what they would “do” if they were the leaders of the country. The objective of the third phase of the campaign was to garner as much support from the audience as possible for the final eight contestants in the Lead India reality show, which was aired on STAR One.

The agency’s second bronze was in the Best Insights/ Strategic Thinking category for its campaign titled Diamond Bride (De Beers Group Marketing). The campaign targeted brides rather than their mothers, and created a new concept about what it means to get married in India. The idea of an Indian bride being forthcoming isn't common in India. To that extent, the ad suggested woman power.

JWT Thompson Social, JWT India's social wing, won the silver for its campaign titled Red Ribbon Express – Uniting India against AIDS (UNICEF and the National AIDS Control Organisation) in the Best Integrated Marketing Campaign category. The campaign aimed at “positivising” HIV/AIDS as an issue. The award was won out of the Delhi branch.

The entire campaign brought forth the idea of celebrating life. The train used to spread the message was painted in vivid colours and it had coaches that dealt with various aspects of the syndrome. The communication was also translated into 10 languages.

The third Indian winner at the festival was Solutions Digitas, which won a bronze for its campaign titled Butterfly (Hewlett-Packard India) in the Most Effective Use of Direct Marketing category.

The campaign aimed at letting potential customers experience the amazing new capabilities of customisation and short print runs of HP Digital printing. Enterprise customers, designers and advertising agencies were contacted via various media. Personalised emails were also sent out, making customers aware of the need for personalisation.

On a global plane, WWF's Earth Hour campaign, created by Leo Burnett Sydney, scooped the top prize at the awards. Earth Hour, which encouraged consumers to switch off their lights for 60 minutes, took home the Platinum award, having earlier won four gold awards.

The AMEA are the only regional awards to recognise marketing campaigns that show real results. It identifies the apparent result achieved at the end of a campaign, when a company differentiates its product or service as a brand. There are 18 categories, spanning various marketing disciplines and covering advertising, direct marketing, product design, strategic thinking, brand content, sales promotion and event marketing.

This year, the event was held in Macau.