Indian agencies bring home nine awards from MAA Globes 2010

The 25th Annual MAA Globes award ceremony culminated on the night of October 18 in Washington DC, USA. 48 Globes, silver and bronze awards, as well as Order of Merit Certificates in 16 categories were announced at the ceremony.

This year, five Indian agencies brought home nine awards in all from eight categories; in comparison, Indian agencies performed better in 2009, when a total of 12 awards were won.

The MAA Globes recognise the very best of the Promotion Marketing Award Programs executed in 26 countries with its partners, including CAMPRO (Argentina), the APMA Stars (Australia and New Zealand), AMPRO (Brazil), CAPMA PROMO Awards (Canada), the JPM Awards (Japan), PMAA Dragons (Asia), the Silver Mercury (Russia), the ISP Awards (the UK) and the PMA Reggie Awards (the USA). Country entries were also received from Israel and Ireland.

This year, 140 judges from 23 countries, representing agencies, clients, academia, media and industry associations carried out the judging process between July and September.

Mike Da Silva, vice-president, marketing, MAA Globes, says, "The Globes Recognition Program continues to grow in quality, creativity and indeed numbers of executions submitted, despite the ongoing global economic situation still present in many countries."

He adds that this year, the number of integrated campaigns utilising multiple techniques, including social media, increased markedly, continuing the popularity of digital techniques.

The awards also received their first entries from Pakistan and Vietnam, with Vietnamese winners, too.

The five winning Indian agencies include Mudra Max, JWT, Solutions Digitas, Jagran Solutions and Accentiv'.

It also won a silver for 'Mumbai Smiles for a World Record' - the world's largest oral care marathon - in the Best Trade Marketing, Retail Specific or Channel Specific Campaign category.

In addition to this, two Orders of Merit were also won. One was awarded in the Best Sponsorship or Tie-in Campaign category for 'The Film God Speaks on India's Biggest Religion'. This unique promotion saw superstar Amitabh Bachchan giving live cricket commentary as the popular character, Auro (from the movie Paa) during the India-Sri Lanka T20 match.

The second Order of Merit was won for 'Aircel-History in the Making' in the Best Small Budget Campaign category.

JWT Mumbai won a bronze award in the Best Cause or Charity Marketing Campaign category for its 'Street to School' campaign for client Balwadi Night School. The client's brief to the agency was to find a way to convince the 'haves' of the city to contribute towards the education of the 'have nots'. Since the appeal was for a night school for street children, the design involved 12 nights, 35 streets and a simple everyday school book brought to life like a live A-Z picture book.

This live picture book was projected at the locations every day at nightfall. Every letter slide was projected at a different spot and the picture corresponding to each letter of the alphabet was replaced by a real street object of Mumbai.

JWT also won an Order of Merit in the Best Brand Awareness and Trial Campaign category for 'Kellogg's Special K - Be Special'.

In the Best Use of Direct Marketing and CRM in a Promotion Campaign category, Solutions Digitas took home a bronze for 'HP-Original Beats'. In the same category, Jagran Solutions won an Order of Merit for 'Internet Explorer 8 - Explore Your Way'.

Accentiv' India, too, won an Order of Merit in the Best Activity Generating Short or Long Term Brand Loyalty category for 'Indian Oil Xtra Power Programme'.

For the entire MAA Globes 2010 winners list, click here.