Emvies 2011: Mediacom grabs the Grand Emvie

Marking the eleventh anniversary of the Emvie Awards, organised by the Ad Club of Bombay, the evening gave the media agencies ample reason to celebrate as they were felicitated with a variety of special awards.

The most sought after Grand Emvie was awarded to Mediacom Communications for Volkswagen. Playing on the tagline 'People read newspapers. Till we made the newspaper talk!', the agency executed the campaign to mark the launch of the Vento. The Vento is an entry-level sedan in India from the German car maker.

The creative was a full-page ad of the Vento, on which a small, black box was stuck -- this provided the 'voice' of the ad. As the newspaper was unfolded, readers could hear a recorded message about the new sedan. The chips used in the black box were light-sensitive; the message would turn off automatically when the paper was folded.

The innovation came from the idea of the Vento. The sedan is positioned as a car that has been crafted with such passion that even its engineers find it hard to see it being driven away.

Therefore, the minds behind it thought that it would be great to give the same passion with a voice to a medium that has no voice. For the record, last year, the Grand Emvie went to Mudra Max for its out of home media innovation for National Association for the Blind (NAB).

Speaking of popular choice, three audience awards were given out at the event. These People's Choice awards were the result of an audience vote taken on the case presentation days (August 16, 17 and 18). Lodestar UM won a People's Choice award for its presentation on Day One for the Best Media Strategy crafted for Mahindra Samriddhi, celebrating Indian agriculture.

MEC won the second People's Choice award for its presentation on Day Two on its print innovation for Colgate Dental Cream's 'The Night Hammer' campaign.

Meanwhile, Mindshare won the third People's Choice award for its presentation on Day Three on its TV innovation for Pond's White Beauty's 'Romancing the Consumers' campaign.

The TAM award for the Best TV Research (Paper) went to Mindshare for Frito-Lay (its property tracker for sponsorship evaluation). The TAM award for the Best Innovation on TV was also picked up by Mindshare for its 'Surf Excel Little Big Film Maker' campaign.

Maxus was felicitated with the RAM award for Best Radio Innovation for its 'Angrezi Ki Pathshala' campaign for Tata Sky.

The Best Media Agency of the Year award, meanwhile, went to Mindshare. This the fourth consecutive time that Mindshare has won this coveted award.