<font color="#FF0033"><b>Abby Awards 2005</b></font>: Phoenix Ogilvy shines bright

When the Ad Club invited entries from the neighbouring countries for the first time in an effort to go international, it was happy with the 200 entries that it received. But on Saturday evening, there was not much to talk about from our friendly neighbours, other than the work from Phoenix Ogilvy, Sri Lanka. Even as other countries almost drew a blank, the agency walked away with six trophies, which included three golds and three silvers.

But Ruchi Sharma, executive creative director, is far from happy. If anything, the wins and the shower of praise that followed, has only served to whet her appetite. “Next year, we would want to enter the Abby not only as the best of Sri Lanka but in all the categories with the Indian agencies,” she told agencyfaqs! “And, we will still rock.”

Phoenix Ogilvy is estimated to be the second biggest agency in Sri Lanka. While McCann leads the pack, the others include JWT, Leo Burnett and Lowe. But Sharma is quick to point out, “McCann is number one simply because whichever agency handles Sri Lankan Airlines becomes the biggest outfit in Lanka.”

Ogilvy Phoenix has a number of MNC clients to its credit, including Nestle, GSK, DHL, Kodak and United National. “We are the only agency in the region to handle Coke, while McCann handles it everywhere else,” adds Sharma.

With a 120-member team, Phoenix Ogilvy has its finger in every pie, whether it is print, television or radio, which incidentally is a very popular medium in the country. “But we have no presence in the interactive media category and that is one area I want to focus on,” says Sharma.

The advertising industry in Sri Lanka, being in its nascent stage, is plagued with many problems. “The economy is not at all competitive. Most of our clients are already market leaders and are not interested in advertising,” rues Sharma. “It takes a lot of convincing on the agency’s part to sanction creative ideas. And we work on very tight budgets. On an average, we make films with only Rs 5-7 lakh. We cannot fight the economy but we can certainly fight the idea,” she adds enthusiastically.

“Sri Lanka is another Thailand in the waiting. Instead of wanting to be a wannabe India or anyone else, we should be ourselves,” she concludes.

© 2005 agencyfaqs!