Exclusive | Ad-men celebrate Effies'14, feel encouraged....!

Creativity in advertising is one thing that makes a campaign stand tall among others but what is more important is the effectiveness of the campaign and keeping that in mind, the Ad Club Bombay has been hosting Effies in Mumbai year on year.

The Effie Awards are known by advertisers and agencies globally as the pre-eminent award in the industry, and recognize any and all forms of marketing communication that contribute to a brand's success. Today, Effie celebrates effectiveness worldwide with the Global Effie, Effie Asia-Pacific, the Euro Effies, the Middle East / North Africa Effies, the North American Effies and more than 40 national Effie programs.

Thousands of people crowded the seaside lawn of Mumbai’s Taj Lands’ End on Friday evening to celebrate the Effie 2014 award night. With lots of fervor and excitement the agencies were celebrating the great work that they produced in the year gone by. While advertisements are a source of entertaining and educating people, what can be better than getting awarded for your work...!

Campaigns like Ogilvy & Mather’s ‘Google Re-union’; Soho Square’s ‘The Political campaign that Created History’; Hindustan Unilever Limited’s ‘Kan khajura Tetion’ and a lot more were the most appraised one.

On asking how was Effies 2014 different, Pratap Bose, President, The Advertising Club (Bombay) said, “The inputs were the same, the judging standards were much higher this year, the cut offs were higher and all in all it was a very good show. The numbers of entries were much higher this year and the quality of the entries was even better than that. It was up to the judges to judge the winners. All in all it was a great show. Effies is about what works in the market place and makes it effective as a brand and I think that's more important.”

On the winning spree’s, Ogilvy & Mather’s, Navin Talreja, President, Ogilvy Mumbai & Kolkata and the ad-man, Piyush Pandey said, “It is been a great year and with so many 

awards I strongly feel proud  of my team. We are back to our track and take back our throne. We have always been an agency that manages and balances creativity and effectiveness.”

Amer Jaleel, National Creative Director with Lowe Lintas + Partners said, “As far as advertising work goes, we are really proud to represent our clients, our brands and our work. We believe that probably we have the best work in the industry and when we see the work up there, we listen and learn to as to implement in our strategy too. In terms of Creativity, very honestly, we dint have much of a leap over last year. Much of the work looks the same. But it’s an enjoyable game and we're happy to play the game.”

On the client front, Aditya Birla Group’s CMO, Ajay Kakkar said, “Effies is all about the fact that effectiveness of idea is equally important as creativity. I think we once again celebrated 465 cases which is one of the highest record we have ever had and that from across 60 plus agencies. The response that we get year on year encourages us to realize that effectiveness is the order of the day.”

Bobby Pawar, Director, Chief Creative Officer, South Asia at Publicis Worldwide said, “Looking at the kind of work the industry produces it is quite encouraging and positive for senior level people. As like always, Effies 2014 has also been a great platform once again with such amazing work and great enthusiasm.” | By Aanchal Kohli | Twitter: @aanchalkohli