Surina Sayal
OOH

OAC 2010: Mudra Max bags top spot at the Outdoor Advertising Awards

A total of 48 awards were given away this year

With much celebration and fanfare, the Outdoor Advertising Awards (OAA) were announced in Mumbai on Saturday, June 12.

Starting this year, the judging process has been modified. Until last year, there were two panels of judges -- one for the creative awards and the other for the media awards. This year, however, only one jury judged both the creative and media entries.

This year, Shashi Sinha, CEO, Lodestar Universal India was the chairman of the jury. Other jury members comprised Shams Kabir, head media buying, STAR India; Arminio Ribeiro, CEO, Madison Outdoor; Punitha Arumugam, group CEO, Madison Media; Madhuri Sapru, managing partner, Kinetic and Dialect; Ajay Kakar, CMO - financial services, Aditya Birla Group; Pratap Bose, COO, Mudra Group; S Yesudas, MD, Indian sub-continent, Vizeum (Aegis Group). The jury went through a day-long rigorous judging process.

OAC 2010: Mudra Max bags top spot at the Outdoor Advertising Awards
OAC 2010: Mudra Max bags top spot at the Outdoor Advertising Awards
Another significant change this year was the decision to drop the Poster category, which was introduced in 2007. The decision was prompted by two considerations. First, posters, as an OOH format, hardly exist in India; therefore, they do not warrant a specific category. Second, apart from posters, all entries are judged by product / service categories, and not by OOH formats; hence the decision to drop the category entirely.

At the awards ceremony, Mudra Max walked away with the maximum awards -- 21 in all, comprising nine gold, six silver and six merit certificates. The agency won multiple gold awards for its work on Aircel, including the Inflatable Raft, and VW's Roadblock.

Its gold wins included one for Media Plan of the Year - Local for Aircel's Mumbai launch, and Media Plan of the Year - National for Aircel again. The Campaign of the Year was awarded to Mudra Max for its work on Volkswagen's Total Roadblock for Beetle.

Last year too, Mudra Max was at the top, winning 11 awards including two gold awards. The other top winner from last year, Ogilvy, was conspicuous by its absence.

Commenting on the wins and the agency's winning edge, Mandeep Malhotra, senior vice-president, Mudra Max tells afaqs!, "It is good, hard work that has kept us going. We've built meaningful relationships with media owners, and our brands trust us now more than ever."

JWT and Purnima Advertising Agency won a gold and silver each. JWT won gold for its work on Birla Global Finance Car Loans - Sliced Car in the Financial Services category.

JCDecaux struck gold as the Media Owner of the Year. Cartel Outdoor Advertising, Macromedia Digital Imaging and Kinetic's Poster Publicity also won a gold award each. Kinetic's gold came for its work on Yahoo's brand campaign; while Cartel won for its work on Vodafone's cricket alerts outdoor campaign.

Autographics Digital won two silvers and a merit certificate. 141 Wall Street won a silver for its Idea Cellular - Oongli Cricket Finger Bowl campaign in the Telecom category; and a merit certificate for Idea Cellular's Walk When you Talk in the Campaign of the Year category.

Times Innovative Media, Kinetic's Dialect, NS Publicity, Navia Asia and Platinum Communications won a silver metal each.

RK Swamy BBDO, Grey Worldwide, Meru Cab Company, Atin Promotion & Advertising, Kinetic's Portland and Encyclomedia Networks won a merit certificate each. Laqshya Outdoors also won a merit certificate in the Media Owner of the Year category; while Shlok Media won two merit certificates for its work on Tata Indicom.

For the complete list of winners, click here.

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