37 agencies in the race for metals at Delhi Ad Club’s ICE awards

Delhi Ad Club is quite gung ho about how its ad awards – the ICE or Indian Creative Excellence Awards – are going to be different from other national ad awards, including its own cousin, the Abby’s.

“It is common belief that advertising awards instituted in Mumbai, that is, the Abby’s and AAAI, have led to groupism or camp culture among the ad fraternity,” says a senior ad professional who wished to be unnamed, adding, “People are shouting from the rooftops, demanding explanations on the judging procedures.”

Probably this led the Delhi Ad Club to jump on to the bandwagon by upscaling its local awards – ICE – to a national level. Except, of course, it is offering the differentiated premise of a completely ‘transparent’ judging procedure. Explains VK Chopra, president, Delhi Ad Club, “We have invited judges from all over India. Our awards show, with its transparent procedures and fair mix of judges, will make sure that no groupism takes place, and no agency goes back complaining.”

This year, around 37 agencies across India have sent in over 500 entries already. “And we’re still counting on more coming in,” Chopra says optimistically.

Some of the agencies that have participated include JWT, Rediffusion DY&R, RK Swamy/BBDO, Dentsu Marcom, Grey Worldwide, One Advertising & Comm Service (Ahmedabad), Interface Communications, Percept/H, Hakuhodo Percept, Innocean Worldwide, Saatchi & Saatchi, Mudra, Capital Advertising, Euro RSCG, TBWA, Adfactors Advertising, K-Factor and Madison Communications.

“We’ll probably get 50 agencies to participate, by the time the judging procedure starts, which will commence in about two weeks,” Chopra says. In fact, he is quite pleased that this time, apart from local agencies and the Delhi branches of large agencies, other branches/agencies from the rest of India, too, have patronised ICE. According to Chopra, the ratio of participation from Delhi versus the rest of India is about 60:40.

There will be around 18 judges on the panel, including Prasoon Joshi, Piyush Pandey, and even Sanjeev Shukla of Hero Honda. Talks are also on to bring in a senior official from LG Electronics India.

There are 22 categories in all, some of which include Food & Beverages, FMCG, Clothing, Footwear & Accessories, Consumer Durables, Homes/Decor/Leisure, Automotive & Accessories, Services for the Household Sector, Business Products & Services, Travel, Hospitality, Events, Exhibitions & Festivals, Media, Public Services, Radio, Outdoor, Direct Mail, New Interactive Media, Art Director of the Year, Copywriter of the Year, Best Campaign of the year and Agency of the Year (national level). There will be two awards dedicated to Delhi – Best Delhi Ad Agency Campaign for a Delhi Client and Best Advertising Student Award for the best campaign from Delhi-based institutes which will honour two young prospects for their exceptional aptitude.

The awards ceremony has been postponed to early August on the agencies’ request, as many of their top executives were out of the country recently due to events such as the Cannes Ad Festival.

In 2007, Delhi Ad Club plans to take ICE to all the SAARC countries.

© 2006 agencyfaqs!