Abby Awards: O&M is Agency of the Year <b><font face="Verdana" size="1" color="#FF0033">Abby Awards!</font></b>

With a total of 73 points, O&M has captured the Agency of the Year title at the Abby Awards. Lowe Lintas comes second with 44 points, while Enterprise Nexus is at No. 3, with 40 points

When the announcement for the Agency of the Year was finally made at the fag end of this year's Abby Awards presentation, it was more for the record, than for anything else. For somewhere during the course of the evening of March 31, 2001, the issue had more or less been settled - O&M was making way too many trips to the dais for the other contenders to take heart. In fact, almost every second award that was announced went to O&M.

What a haul it has been for the agency! It picked a total of 73 points, which is 29 points more than the agency that came second - Lowe Lintas & Partners. And in the process, O&M won five golds, 12 silvers and one bronze (for the Abbys, Emvies and Effies, collectively).

Lowe Lintas picked up 44 points, while Enterprise Nexus final tally read 40 points. HTA (with 36 points) came at No. 4, while Contract Advertising was fifth (with 33 points). The other notable mentions were Quadrant Communications, McCann-Erickson, MTV (with 21 points each) and Leo Burnett (19 points). Lintas, however, stayed away from the ceremony.

Before we look at who won what, here's a look at how the points were tallied. For the Abby Awards, in both the Single Ads and Campaign subsets, each gold Abby was worth five points, and every silver was worth three. However, for the Best Continuing Campaign of the Year and Best Campaign of the Year subsets, the gold carried 10 points, and the silver, five. In all, 17 categories were judged, by product category type. However, points were not awarded to winners in the Unpublished category. Other than the 17 product categories, Abbys were awarded for Internet Advertising, Website Design, Radio and Outdoor. And the Best Campaign, and the Best Continuing Campaign categories, of course.

The Emvies were categorized into three groups - Media Invention, Media Research and Media Strategy & Implementation. For the first two categories, the gold fetched the winner five points, and the silver, three. In the third category, however, it was the 10:5 scoring ratio that was applied. For the Effies, each gold carried 20 points, each silver 15, and each bronze, 10. And the Grand Effie carried an additional 10 points.

O&M struck it rich in almost every category. It won four gold Abbys - for its ‘shadow' commercial for Fevicol (in the Daily Household Products category), two print ads (one for Fevicol; the other for Navbharat Times - in the Media & Communications category) and a radio spot for Pulse Polio (Rotary International). It also won a gold Emvie (for its work titled Measuring Passions in the Media Research category) and a bronze Effie (for Kelvinator).

Lowe Lintas won three golds (two Abbys and one Emvie). The gold Abbys were for the Pepsodent ‘ghattam' commercial (in the Toiletries, Pharmaceutical & Healthcare Products category), and the indya.com ‘autorickshaw' spot (in the IT & Telecom Sector category), while the Emvie gold was for Britannia 50:50 (courtesy Initiative Media), in the Media Strategy & Implementation category. (Incidentally, Lintas shared the gold in this category with HTA.) Lintas also won a silver Effie for Surf Excel.

Enterprise Nexus too won three golds (all Abbys); one for the Gati ‘suicide' commercial (in the Corporate & Financial Services category); one for the ‘paper pusher' film for The Times of India (in the Media & Communications category); and one for the Best Continuing Campaign of the Year (The Times of India, again).

HTA rode on the might of its ‘strategic planning strength'. It shared a gold Emvie (with Lintas) for De Beers, in the Media Strategy & Implementation category. And although this was HTA's lone gold, its silver Effie (also for De Beers), and a clutch of other silver Abbys (including one for Pepsi's Mera Number Aayega campaign) helped the agency reach the No. 4 spot.

Surprisingly, Contract (an agency known for its creativity, which makes it a better Abby prospect) made it to the Top Five through an unlikely route - the Effies. It managed picking up just one silver Abby, but won the gold Effie for Cadbury's Milk Treat. In fact, this was the only gold Effie to be awarded this year. And to add to Contract's euphoria, the agency also won the Grand Effie. Wow!

The other gold winners were… Quadrant (three gold Abbys), Leo Burnett (two gold Abbys), Ultimedia Technologies (two gold Abbys; one for Internet advertising, and another for Website Design), McCann, Ambience D'Arcy (one gold Abby each), Select Direct (a gold Emvie for its work on Locator in the Media Invention category) and the Rensil D'Silva-Anup Chitnis combine (two gold Abbys).

This time, there was no gold for the Best Campaign of the Year. But there were two silvers - one for Enterprise Nexus (for The Times of India), the other for O&M (yes, Fevicol). Enterprise and O&M also shared the honours for the Best TV Commercial (Single) of the Year and the Best Press Ad (Single) of the Year categories. Enterprise won for its ‘paper pusher' spot, while O&M won for the ‘train' ad. The clients? The Times of India and Fevicol, respectively. It may be noted that points were not awarded for the Best Commercial and Best Print Ad categories.

Interestingly, neither Bennett Coleman (TOI and Navbharat Times) nor Pidilite (Fevicol) was the Advertiser of the Year. This award went to Cadbury India (33 points). Bennett Coleman and Hindustan Level shared second spot (31 points each), while MTV came third (with 26 points).

© 2001 agencyfaqs!