AdAsia 2003: 135 brands make it to Showcase of Indian Advertising Volume II

The Showcase of Indian Advertising Volume II - compiled by The India Chapter of International Advertising Association (IC of IAA), and to be launched at AdAsia 2003 in November - has got into the final stage of compilation, with over 350 ads, across media, making the grade. Announcing this to agencyfaqs!, Mukul Upadhyaya, chairman of the project's steering committee, and member of the IC of IAA's managing committee, revealed that Volume II of the Showcase would be launched as per schedule at the Asian advertising congress.

"We are in the process of collating the data, and we would want the agencies whose work has been selected to respond quickly, so that we catch the deadline for the launch of the Showcase," Upadhyaya says. "It is imperative that the Showcase - which will serve as a handbook of the best advertising India has produced over the past four years - gets launched to coincide with the biggest and most prestigious advertising event India has had in two decades." He adds that the concerned agencies would be intimated "very soon".

According to Upadhyaya, this time round, the IC of IAA received close to 3,000 entries in Print, Television, Radio and Outdoor under 40 product categories. "We had an increased number of entries from all over India, and over 350 ads were finally selected for showcasing, which is roughly a 20-per cent increase from the inaugural Showcase," he observes. For the record, the Showcase of Indian Advertising Volume I was released three years ago, and contained over 300 pieces of work (from 25 agencies and more than 130 advertisers) across categories and media. Upadhyaya also reveals that the work from 23 agencies (34 if one were to include individual branches of agencies) and 135 brands have made it to the current edition of the Showcase. Details, however, are not being disclosed at this stage.

Speaking about the composition of the selected entries, Upadhyaya says that television commercials have certainly increased in number since the last Showcase. "Even in terms of entries we received a greater number of TVCs from the last time, and some 85 of these commercials have been selected," he says. In comparison, Volume I of the Showcase featured some 50 television commercials. While the number of print entries received were "more or less the same", Upadhyaya is slightly disappointed with the number of entries in radio. "The quality of radio advertising has certainly improved over the past four years, but the number of entries in this category did not reflect this, which is not satisfying," he remarks. "While the radio work that has been selected (for showcasing) is of high order, one would have expected more good entries." He agrees that this could be an indication of the fact that radio, as a medium, is still not being accorded the importance it deserves.

Incidentally, the 350-odd ads that have made it to the current Showcase were selected through a process spread over three days, involving three panels of eminent advertising and marketing professionals. The panelists for Volume II were Ivan Arthur (chairman, Selection Committee), Amit Akali, Sunil Alagh, Abhijit Avasthi, Usha Bhandarkar, Bhaskar Das, Ravi Deshpande, C Gangadharan, Preeti Vyas Giannetti, Syeda Imam, Panna Jain, Prasoon Joshi, Deepa Kakkar, Bharat Kapadia, Milind Nabar, Rajan Nair, Alok Nanda, Ashok Nerker, Rekha Nigam, Prasoon Pandey, Rajesh Pant, Bharat Patel, Rajeev Raja, R Ramakrishnan, Bhupal Ramnathkar, Kaushik Roy, Ameen Sayani, Parveez Sheikh, KV Sridhar and Upadhyaya. Arthur and K Kurian are editing Volume II. © 2003 agencyfaqs!