IAA India's Olive Crown Awards'13: Grey bags Agency of the Year!

Launched in 2011, the IAA Olive Crown Awards are India’s first (and possibly the world’s) award for creative excellence in communicating sustainability, or ‘green’ advertising.  The big awards night of the third edition was held on April 1, 2013  in Mumbai at the Shangri-La Hotel.

The event saw many Marketing and Media heads and other industry leaders gracing the occasion: Hrishikesh Mafatlal, R Mukundan of Tata Chemiclas, Suresh Bandi of Panasonic India, Kushal Desai of Apar Industries, Mukund Rajan of Tata Sons, Rahul Welde of Unilever, Raj Nayak of Colors, Siddharth Kothari of Rajasthan Patrika, Neeraj Roy of Hungama, Neville Taraporewala of Microsoft to name a few. It also had many agency heads like Piyush Pandey, Colvyn Harries, R Balki, Prasoon Joshi, Pops Sridhar, Chax K S Chakravarty, Arvind Sharma, Sam Balsara, Nagesh Alai, Sonal Dabral, Vikram Sakuja etc. Shri. Praful Patel, Union Minister for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises was the Chief Guest.

The IAA Olive Crown Awards have only grown in stature since inception and this year the entries had not only tripled in quantity but this year also witnessed pan-Asia participation.

M.G. Parameswaran, ED & CEO of Draftfcb Ulka and Chairperson Olive Crown Awards 2013  said “We saw an almost 45% increase in the number of entries this year alone and our Awards Jury consisting of veterans like Sonal Dabral, Pops Sridhar, Vinod Rao, Chax, Ramki and Charles Victor were of the opinion that the quality has also seen a dramatic improvement over the years”.

Padmashri Kartikeya Sarabhai was conferred the Olive Crown Green Crusader Award, an award which is presented to one unique individual who has dauntlessly fought our battle for going green. (pic attached)

The Green Hungama Award open to participants under 30 years of age where the task was to create a 60 second green film; the winner was Abhishek Saxena of Webchutney.

Srinivasan Swamy, Chairman R K SWAMY BBDO and President, International Advertising Association, India Chapter, said, “There has been widespread acceptance for these awards as corporates see the green message as a key differentiator in a competitive environment. And going green is no longer a luxury but an essential part of doing business. We are delighted to see that clients are roping in agency partners to help them build green awareness for their brands”.

A total of 35 Awards were handed over by the end of the night. Some of the big winners were Grey Worldwide, O&M, Cheil, BBH, Umbrella Design, DDB Mudramax, JWT and Draftfcb Ulka. The big award of the night – Campaign of the year went to Cheil Worldwide for Samsung Printers. Kewal Kiran Clothing won the Advertiser of the Year for their Green Turn Water Saver Jeans. And their agency Grey was named the Agency of the  Year.

The event hosted by former Miss World, Daina Hayden was filled with entertaining performances interspersed between various award categories.  The Award Function was opened by a performance in Indian Fusion music by Raghu Dixit Project, the Bangalore based band. Midcourse was a laser  pyrotechnic show was followed by a comic include by ‘A Slice of Ham’.

Olive Crown Awards which was born three years ago as a show at Goafest 2011 is now an award show that will prominently feature in client and agency schedules. With the increasing number and quality of entries, big name attendance at the award show from agency heads and clients, the Olive Crown is all set to grow bigger in the years to come.