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Mirchi KAAN Awards: McCann is Agency of the Year
At the sixth Mirchi KAAN Awards for excellence in radio advertising, Chlormint walked away with the Client of the Year, while DDB Mudra’s spot, Bush, got the Crystal award for the most exceptional radio commercial
McCann Erickson could well be referred to as McKaan, after winning the maximum number of awards, including the ‘Agency of the Year’ title, at the sixth Mirchi Kaan Awards instituted in Mumbai recently by Radio Mirchi 98.3 FM.
McCann walked away with 20 metals, followed by Leo Burnett (14), Mudra Communications (6), Rediffusion – Y&R (5), Ogilvy India (5), Publicis (4), Bates 141 (3) and Pickle Advertising (2), while Contract, DDB Mudra and Lowe walked away with one metal each.
McCann’s 20 comprised of four golds – all for Chlormint and Chlormint Fresh Fills, five silvers (two for Chlormint, one for Chlormint Fresh Fills and two for Chevrolet Aveo) and 11 bronzes (five for Chlormint, and one each for Chlormint Fresh Fills, Chevrolet Aveo, Chevrolet Optra Magnum, Odomos, Heal Foundation of India and Ashirwad Chilly Powder).
Mudra won six metals: two silvers (both for Lingo India) and four bronzes – two for Lingo India and two for Indiaids.org. Rediffusion’s tally of five included one silver for Getty Images (Phone Conversation) and four bronzes – two for Getty Images, one for Tata Magic (Tata Motors) and one for American Foundation.
Ogilvy India won five bronzes in all: two for Hindustan, two for Asian Paints Corporate and one for Vodafone. Publicis won four bronzes – two for RR Copiers and one each for Pest Seal Aerosols and The Dignity Foundation.
Bates won a gold and two silvers – all for Virgin Mobile. Pickle Advertising clinched two golds for SAB TV. The single metal winners included DDB Mudra (a gold for its spot ‘Bush’ for Islamic Research Foundation), Contract (a gold for ‘Old’, a spot for Tata Indicom) and Lowe (Britannia 50-50).
750 entries from various creative agencies were in competition across 15 categories. The theme for the 6th Mirchi KAAN Awards was ‘Vote against Mediocrity’. The Crystal Award for the most exceptional Radio Commercial of the Year was won by DDB Mudra for its spot for Islamic Research Foundation, called ‘Bush’. Incidentally, the same commercial won a bronze at the One Show in New York last week.
The Client of the Year award was given to Perfetti Van Melle for Chlormint and Chlormint Fresh Fills. Musica won the Production House of the Year and McCann’s Akshay Kapnadak was the Voice of the Year for Chevrolet Aveo (‘Puff Daddy’). A special award for the Child Voice of the Year was won by Vidit Mishra for an ad for the Hindi daily, Hindustan.
This year, the jury consisted of names such as Agnello Dias, Ashish Khazanchi, Bobby Pawar, Deepa Krishnan, Gullu Sen, Josy Paul, KS Chakravarthi, KV Sridhar, Mohammed Khan, Piyush Pandey, Pradeep Sarkar, Prahlad Kakkar, Prasoon Joshi, Priti Nair, Prathap Suthan, R Balakrishnan, Rajat Dholakia, Ram Sampath, Ramanuj Shastry, Ramesh Ramanathan, Ravi Deshpande, Rekha Nigam, Senthil Kumar, Shantanu Moitra, Suguna Swami and Sunil Thoppil.
As part of the pre-event activity, Radio Mirchi organised a street play to motivate the advertising fraternity to be part of the Mirchi KAAN Sabha Elections. The team from Mirchi called itself the ‘Mirchi Morcha Party’, and campaigned in full swing across the election terrain (creative agencies), conducted rallies, shouted slogans and discussed the need to vote against mediocrity, reminding everyone to attend and witness the ‘defeat’ of mediocrity at the awards ceremony.