<font color="#FF0033"><b>Abby Awards 2004:</b></font> Ogilvy, McCann consolidate; rmg david gains significantly

If any doubts persisted in people's minds about Ogilvy's ability to maintain its creative lead over the rest of the industry, they were firmly put to rest on the evening of Saturday, March 20, as award after award went to O&M, and the ‘hoard in black' went hoarse cheering for the agency. In fact, once the award ceremony came to a close, it became quickly evident that O&M had actually succeeded in stretching its lead over the pack - however unlikely the prospect may have sounded, pre-Awards.

The figures bear it out all too conclusively. At the 2003 Abbys, O&M had picked up a total of 22 awards and tallied 28 points. On Saturday last, the agency claimed the same number of awards, but managed scoring 33 points - five more than last year. The agency also won a greater number of gold Abbys this year (six, as opposed to just two last year), and in addition, made a clean sweep of all the big categories - Campaign of the Year (gold for Hutch), Best Continuing Campaign (gold for Fevicol and silver for Hutch), Copywriter of the Year (Mahesh V) and Art Director of the Year (Rajiv Rao, who shared the credit with Santosh Padhi of Leo Burnett India). The ‘big wins' is something that had evaded O&M last year, and the agency had had to settle for silver Abbys in the Best Continuing Campaign and Campaign of the Year categories.

The extent to which O&M dominated this year's Awards can be judged by looking at the comparative scores of the agencies in its immediate vicinity. Second-placed McCann-Erickson India tallied 8 points, while joint No 3s Leo Burnett and rmg david scored 6 points each. Rediffusion | DYR came in at No 4 with 5 points, while Enterprise Nexus and Ambience Publicis won 4 points each to jointly take the fifth place. Now if one were to combine the tally of the six agencies that constitute the No 2 to No 5 ranks, the total one arrives at is 33 points - exactly the number of points O&M has won for itself. Even in terms of the total number of awards won, these six agencies, between themselves, have claimed 27 awards - just five more than O&M.

McCann is another agency that has reason to be pleased with its performance this year. Not only did it successfully defend its No 2 position, it also won a greater number of awards (six, which is three better than last year) and improved its scorecard by one point (the agency scored 7 points last year). For the record, McCann's gold Abby count this year (two, for Coke and Sweetex, respectively) matches last year's.

One agency that is likely to be more than thrilled with its showing at Abby 2004 is three-and-a-half-year-old rmg david. For an agency that did not even figure in last year's awards tally, rmg came back splendidly this year, picking up six silver Abbys and making it to the No 3 spot along with Burnett. In fact, during the early stages of the award distribution ceremony, rmg momentarily had those in the audience speechless - when it was picking up more Abbys than big brother O&M. O&M eventually caught up with its sibling before outstripping it, but it goes without saying that rmg had its moments on Saturday evening. The small agency also caught the audience's interest for handing out little ‘return awards' (made of aluminum foil) every time it went onto the dais to receive an award.

Burnett, which shared the No 3 position with rmg, had a better outing when compared to Abby 2003. Although the agency won a fewer number of awards (one less than last year's five silvers), it improved upon its last year's score of 5 points by one point, by virtue of two gold Abbys (for Senso Restaurant and Darna Mana Hai). In the context of the No 3 spot, it must be added that had Rediffusion entered the work for Thomson televisions in its name (instead of entering it under the name of second agency Paragon Advertising), it would have ended up as the No 3 agency - as the points for the two silver Abbys that Thomson was awarded would have accrued to Rediff, giving it the 7 points it needed to get ahead of Burnett and rmg. Nonetheless, Rediff still made marginal headway into the Abbys by increasing its score to 5 points (last year, the agency managed picking up 4 points) and claiming the No 4 position this year.

For Enterprise and Ambience, Abby 2004 was more or less a no-gain-no-loss proposition. Although Enterprise saw a drop in the number of Abbys (from six last year to two this year) and points (from 6 to 4) this year, the two gold Abbys (both for The Times of India) balanced things out for the agency. And on any given day, two gold Abbys look better than six silver Abbys, so Enterprise isn't likely to be disappointed with this year's showing. Ambience too dropped a point on account of one silver Abby less, but the 4 points it won still placed it ahead of Saatchi & Saatchi India and JWT India, who picked up 3 points each.

Among the agencies that failed to make an impression at Abby 2004 are Mudra Communications, Quadrant Communications and, to an extent, Contract Advertising. Mudra had picked up six silver Abbys (and 6 points) at last year's awards, but it drew a blank this year - which was not entirely unexpected. Quadrant too didn't have a particularly good outing, and it closed Abby 2004 with a lone silver Abby, down four Abbys (and 4 points) from last year. Contract was one agency that was expected to win a fair share of Abbys this year. However, to the surprise of quite a few people, the agency managed picking up just two silvers, resulting in a 1-point drop in its score from last year. © 2004 agencyfaqs!