iContract’s Gonsalves, Gupta are Young Lotus winners

As part of its diamond jubilee celebrations last year, AAAI announced an annual contest for creative professionals aged less than 30; the prize: a chance to attend the AAAI AdFest Young Lotus Workshop

On March 11, Fritz Gonsalves and Santosh Gupta, the copy-art team from iContract, Mumbai, Contract Advertising’s direct marketing arm, will leave for Pattaya, Thailand, to attend the AAAI AdFest Young Lotus Workshop 2007.

Gonsalves and Gupta are the winners of the AAAI AdFest Young Lotus contest, which received close to 111 entries from 21 agencies this year. The contest was judged by Prasoon Joshi, executive chairman, McCann-Erickson, India, and R Balakrishnan, national creative director, Lowe, India.

In 2006, its diamond jubilee, AAAI announced an annual contest for copy-art teams aged less than 30 from agencies across the country. This year, the theme for the contest was ‘Adoption’.

Gonsalves and Gupta began working on their prize winning entry in January 2007. Their entry was presented in staid colours, and shows a pedigree table with the names Mohammed Bin Laden on one side and Hamida Al-Attas on the other. Under the father’s name are the words ‘A Saudi billionaire/A devout Muslim’ and under the mother’s name are the words ‘Well-educated/Libertarian’. Their son is Osama Bin Laden, who needs no introduction. The words under his name are ‘Evading arrest’. Beneath that is a stark line in bold: ‘Bloodline Guarantees Nothing’.

While working on this theme, Gonsalves and Gupta asked themselves: What is it that comes in the way of adoption? The answer they came up with was: ‘Pata nahin kiska khoon hain (Who knows whose blood runs in his/her veins)?’ The duo decided to nail it there. “Once the idea was cracked, executing it wasn’t tough,” they say.

Gonsalves, 27, has been with iContract for a year. He is a post-graduate in advertising from Xavier’s Institute of Communication, Mumbai, and has spent his formative years in Bhopal. He has dabbled in careers as diverse as HR and market research, having dropped out midway from a Master’s course in computer science. After a stint with a shipping firm in Pune, he moved to advertising. Before joining iContract, he worked with GOD (the erstwhile Palasa).

Gupta, 28, has spent a year more than Gonsalves at iContract. He quit his graduation for a career in designing. He studied science at the undergraduate level in Thane. He has worked earlier with agencies such as IB&W, FCB-Ulka and Lowe Lintas.

When quizzed about their goals and ambitions, Gonsalves says, “I just want to learn swimming before I die. Otherwise, I just want to keep on doing good work, writing great copy, creating brands and having fun!”

Gupta says simply, “I want to be famous in advertising.” While the two share a common interest in travelling, Gupta also designs interiors. “I love practising my passion in various aspects of life. I also love to eat and that’s why I regularly subject my stomach to culinary experiments,” he chuckles. Gonsalves loves reading, writing and watching movies.

© 2007 agencyfaqs!