Recognition by the fraternity is quite an honor for our team: Mindshare's Ravi Rao

Continuing its winning streak, Mindshare, the flagship media agency of GroupM, has bagged the title of ‘Best Media Agency of the Year’ at EMVIES 2012, the definitive media awards in the country, for the fifth straight year. With a total of 160 points, 20% higher than its closest competitor, Mindshare won four gold, seven silver and six bronze awards.

 

Commenting on the win, Ravi Rao, Leader, South Asia, Mindshare said, "To be recognized by the advertising fraternity as a winner in the Best Media Agency category is quite an honor for our team and our clients. But to achieve this five years in a row is a real testament to the tremendous innovation, passion and creativity that all of us at Mindshare have in partnership with our clients. More significant is the nature of the metals that Mindshare took home. The wins were not confined to just traditional categories like TV, OOH & Print, but also spanned a spectrum of digital categories. This emphatically underlines our belief in the philosophy of ‘No line thinking’ which forces us to think not from a media perspective first but to think of environments & moments when consumers are receptive to messaging and then aligning our plans against that insight. Each of our wins strongly reflects this philosophy. The Mindshare ‘Original Thinking Framework or the OTF’ is powering this journey for us and the width of our wins suggests that we are on the right track.”

 

Mindshare took home four Gold Metals for ‘AXE Deodorant – Fallen Angels!’ (Best Media Innovation (OOH) category), ‘Axe Shower Gel – Axe Shower Gel Launched – VJ Jose Kidnapped’ (Best Media Innovation- Digital (Video) category), ‘Bru Gold – If Morning had an aroma, It would be Coffee’ (Best Media Innovation-Print category) and ‘HSBC - The Day you were Born’ (Best Media Innovation-direct marketing).

 

For 'The Day You Were Born', Mindshare devised a plan where it could take specific corporate leaders back in time, to the day they were born. The agency tied up with The Times of India to come up with the exact replica of the front page of the national daily on the day each of the chosen business leaders were born. The front page was framed in a wooden frame with unbreakable glass and articles and pictures were recaptured as they were, giving a snapshot of how the world was on the day they were born. A subtle message and branding was incorporated at the bottom with the message 'Remembering this special day'. The frames were packed in customised decorated boxes. The idea was to give them a glimpse into the state of the world on the most important day of their lives.

 

The innovation for Hindustan Unilever's Bru Gold was such that readers of The Sunday Times in Mumbai, New Delhi and Bengaluru, quite literally, 'woke up and smelled the coffee' while reading their morning paper, as each copy of the newspaper was sprayed with the smell of coffee.

 

Mindshare also won Seven Silver Metals for ‘Axe Shower Gel – Axe Shower Gel Launched – VJ Jose Kidnapped’ (Best Media Innovation-Branded content and Best Media Innovation-TV category), ‘Boost – The Story Of India’s Fastest Viral Video’ (Best Media Innovation-Digital (Video)), Boost – A nation unites in the name of Sachin (Best Media Innovation-Digital (Social Media) ‘Pond’s – Life Is Beautiful – 66 Human Lives – Beautiful all over again’ campaign (Best Media Innovation-Print), ‘Kissan – Kissanpur - 2.5 People ‘Engaged’ Through print’ (Best Media Innovation-Print), and ‘Kissan – Kissanpur - World’s First Crowd Sourced Farm’ (Best Media Innovation-Events).

 

The Boost campaign delivered a record breaking 1 million hits for the “Boost Sachin Anthem” in just under 2 days, making it the fastest video on Youtube to have reached a million views. The challenge for Mindshare was to strengthen the ‘Stamina’ association for Boost by leveraging its more than two decade long association with Sachin Tendulkar. The team spotted an existing cultural theme in Dhanush used this to build the required association via executional excellence across content production, brand integration & social seeding.

 

For its Kissanpur campaign, the agency executed an idea that targeted children by offering them an experience of growing tomatoes. This way, consumers were made to experience the process first hand and see how Kissan's ketchup is made from 100 per cent real tomatoes. The campaign was driven through print and digital media and supported by BTL activities. Tomato seeds were distributed along with newspapers and through school contact programmes people were encouraged to grow tomatoes.

 

And finally, Mindshare won bronze metals for its campaigns for Kissan ('It's Jamlicious' innovation in the Best Media Innovation - Events category and 'Kissanpur' campaign in the Best Media Strategy - Consumer Products category), Slice (for the 'Seduction in a Bottle' campaign in the Digital - Display category), Knorr Soupy Noodles (for the 'Bheem ki Team' campaign in the TV category), Surf Excel (for its 'Movie in a movie' innovation for the movie Chillar Party, in the Cinema category) and Axe deodorant (for the 'Fallen Angels' campaign in the Ambient Media category).