15th Effies to have 15 categories

The Ad Club Bombay's much esteemed awards Effies is back again this year with more categories and a revised freshness. The awards which were initiated to recognize effective and phenomenal efforts in marketing communications is back this year with as many as 15 categories compared to last year's seven categories.

The Effies board has decided to have more categories so as to keep the awards at par with its international counterparts. This is the 15th year since the awards' inception, the last day for submitting entries is 1st of November 2010 and the awards will be given away on the 7th of December 2010 in Mumbai.

Talking exclusively to Adgully, Shashi Sinha Executive Officer, Lodestar UM and Chairperson, Effies 2010, says, "We have added a few new categories and further categorized broad award categories like Consumer Products Category. There was a need to relook into the categories so as to improve the awards' appeal and to allow more recognition to some of the categories."

The Consumer Products category has been split into three new sub-categories like cosmetics and toiletries; beverages, confectionery and food; and others (including textiles, personal hygiene and stationery).

One more award has been introduced this year which is the David v/s Goliath award. Talking about this new inclusion Sinha says, "The award will recognize smaller brands that are making a phenomenal difference in the various categories amongst bigger names in the industry."

Sinha further adds that so far the response has been good but once the entries acceptance date closes on the 1st of November the board will be in a better position to gauge the response better.

Post the submission of entries, there will be two rounds of judging process, which will be followed by the case study presentations. Sinha says that this year the number of marketing professionals will be slightly higher in the jury. | By Prabha Hegde [prabha(at)adgully.com]