The
24th Advertising Club Madras Awards was held at the Image
Auditorium, Chennai. The Chennai Advertising Triumph (CAT
2001) awards for 37 categories, covered the entire gamut of
advertising in South India. The main categories included Print,
Television, Cinema, Press, Multimedia and Websites. A
panel of 30 judges, headed by Ravi Deshpande (former National
Creative Director, Contract Advertising) as Chairman of the
Jury, selected the Gold, Silver and Bronze winners in each category.
The
awards were announced at a glittering function, with a welcome address
by Vijay Xavier, President, Advertising Club Madras. Welcoming
the gathering, Vijay Xavier said, "The number of entries
has taken a dip this year, though the quality of entries has improved".
The curtain raiser was a video clipping announcing what KBC meant.
KBC here being Kaun Banega CAT, and the presentation itself
was a take-off on the popular television game show, Kaun Banega
Crorepati. Announcement of the nominations was designed in the
gameshow's fashion and the compere of the evening would typically
invoke 'computerji' to come up with the winners. Surprisingly, many
categories drew a naught, with none of the nominations getting either
the gold, the silver or the bronze.
The
Agency of the Year award went to Rubecon with 180 points,
for the best product section (Color Plus) and the saregama.com
Cinema ad among others. The second position went to HTA ,
Chennai (170 points), for its work on the Ford Ikon commercial,
Aquafina cinema ad and the Pepsi door-to-door campaign.
The third position went to Lowe Lintas & Partners, Chennai
(105 points). The Art Director of the Year Award went to
Alexander Zacharia, Rubecon and the Copywriter of the
Year went to Meera Zacharia, again from Rubecon.
The awards were given away by members of the advertising fraternity
and prominent personalities from leading publications. The Agency
of the Year trophy was given away jointly by N Murali, Joint
Managing Director, The Hindu and Vijay Xavier.
The function was well attended. The major portion of the thousand
and odd crowd was however from the ad industry.
Author : Anuradha Sriraman
Photographs : V Ganesan