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Goafest 2013 Media Abby: Mindshare tops with 21 shortlists
Of Mindshare's 21, one shortlisted entry has come in from Sri Lanka. Lodestar UM has 16 shortlists. Madison Media Pinnacle has 13 shortlists, while Madison Media Group has four; this takes Madison's overall shortlist tally to 17. Maxus has 15 shortlisted entries.
At a press briefing held at South Mumbai last evening, the Goafest authorities revealed the entries that have been shortlisted for this year's Media Abby awards. This list is the result of the first round of judging that took place on Friday.
The DDB Mudra Group has seven shortlists. Mediacom, Starcom MediaVest Group and Interface Business Solutions have six shortlists each. Omnicom Media Group and Interactive Avenues have four shortlists each. BBDO Proximity India and Isobar have three shortlists each while MEC, Vizeum and McCann Worldgroup have two shortlists each.
Aegis Media's Ashish Bhasin, head of this year's Media Abby awards, shared that this was the first time the entire judging process was digital in nature: agencies shared their entries on a USB device (as opposed to erstwhile hardcopies) and the judges worked on laptops and audio-visual equipment during the short listing process.
"This was done to make the process more transparent, efficient and eco-friendly, and to reduce any chance of manipulation. It also makes the computing part easy for us," said Bhasin, about this change.
This is also the first time the digital awards category has been split into finer aspects of the medium such as digital search, social media and mobile media, such that each realm of the digital space has its own separate awards category for agencies to enter their work in. As Bhasin puts it, "just one digital award for different types of digital work to compete for is a bit narrow and out-of-sync with the times."
In 2012, 628 media entries were received. This time the figure has gone up to 660. Apparently, the number of media entries for the Abby Awards has never been higher. Also, this time, 50 media agencies participated; the figure is more than last year's.
The final judging round is scheduled to take place on March 8.
KPMG is handling the auditing process for Goafest 2013, which will be held on April 4-6.