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The esteemed jury members, who have given the country some of the most memorable ad campaigns, came together to judge the overwhelming number of nominations that came in from the advertising fraternity for the awards.

The Jury Meet also saw the face of Kaan awards this year – Grannyji, make an appearance and interact with the jury. This unique character conceptualized by McCann Erickson Mumbai has been part of the Kaan campaign and was launched through the Kaan microsite www.evengrannycancrackit.com about a month ago. She has also been interacting with the ad fraternity thorough her facebook id – “Grannyji”.

Like every year, the 7th Mirchi KAAN Awards received an overwhelming response with entries across 14 categories vying with each other for the Gold, Silver & Bronze awards. Other awards include Client of the Year for the most outstanding advertiser of 2009, Radio Writer of the Year, Agency of the Year, Production House of the Year and the Voice of the Year. And to top the list, the Crystal Award will be awarded to the most outstanding Radio Commercial of the Year. This year also saw the introduction of two new awards– the Best Use of Radio as a Medium and Best Radio Creative of the Year – Clients’ Choice.

The winning entries will be felicitated at a gala event in Mumbai on the 3rd of September.

Commenting the initiative of recognizing brilliance in radio through the 7th Mirchi KAAN Awards, Sujata Bhatt, EVP – Strategy & Marketing, said, “The best minds in advertising have joined forces to confer honours on the best works in radio that we have seen this year. With the awards into their 7th year now, we are very happy with the kind of response we continue to get from our partners in the advertising community”

Sharing their thoughts on the theme of the Kaan Awards this year as well as the quality of entries received, the honourable jury members said:

Prasoon Joshi, Executive Chairman & Regional Creative Director, McCann Erickson Asia Pacific, said, “Radio is a writers’ medium ..it is tougher than other advertising media..Radio advertising is about the idea , the writing and finally the execution, unless you get all these right , you cannot have an effective radio ad..it is also tough because it doesn’t have a captive audience like TV and print.”

Josy Paul, Chairman and National Creative Director- BBDO India, said “The overall quality of radio advertising is good this year, however one hasn’t seen any break through ads …India is a country which has a very rich soundscape, many languages, very expressive people… In this kind of social environment it is difficult to create impactful radio ads which rely only on sound – since the expectations are so much more.”

Priti Nair, Managing Partner, BBH, commented “The overall quality of advertising this year has seen an improvement…. Unlike TV where there is a clear differentiation between content and advertising and thus easy to create an impact, on radio not only is the content quite similar to advertising, the content across channels is also similar. This makes the work of the radio ad more difficult”