The organisers of Goafest have organised a slew of changes as the ABBYs enter its 50th year.
A 'master jury' has been announced which consists of 15 members from the advertising industry:
- Agnello Dias, chairman and co-founder, Taproot Dentsu
- Amer Jaleel, chairman and CCO, Mullen Lintas
- Arun Iyer, chairman and CCO, Lowe Lintas
- Alok Nanda, founder and CEO, Alok Nanda & Co.
- Abhijit Avasthi, founder, Sideways Consulting
- Bobby Pawar, managing director and CCO, Publicis Worldwide
- K. V. Sridhar, founder and CCO, Hyper Collective Creative Technologies
- Nitesh Tiwari, filmmaker and ex-CCO, Leo Burnett
- Prashant Godbole, founder, Ideas@work
- Prasoon Joshi, chairperson of the Central Board of Film Certification and CEO of McCann World group India and chairman, Asia Pacific
- Raj Kamble, founder and CCO, Famous innovations
- Raj Deepak Das, CCO, Leo Burnett
- Santosh Padhi, CCO and co-founder, Taproot Dentsu
- Senthil Kumar, CCO, J. Walter Thompson
- Swati Bhattacharya, CCO, FCB Ulka
The 'master jury's' tasks includes screening all the entries received, across all the categories and verticals, to identify those worthy of being short listed. It will also decide which shortlists are worth winning an ABBY.
Ajay Kakar, chair, Awards Governing Council, Goafest 2018, said, “We want the ABBYs to be the gold standard, recognising creative excellence for brands. It is a fact that an award is as good or reputed as the jury that judges it. So recognising this, we created a master jury, for ABBY 2018. With the most credible jury that comprises of role models and thought leaders from the industry, who will lead the deliberation process. The master jury will set standards for not only the quality of the work that wins at ABBYs 2018, but also the standards that will inspire the industry, hereafter. Adjudged by such a versatile and visionary jury means that only the most creative campaigns will emerge victorious, making the winning of an ABBY a career defining moment. We look forward to an inventive, pioneering and inspiring ABBY Awards 2018."
The number of categories have reduced from 15 to 8. Each of these categories will have eight verticals.
Kakar added, "We recognise that digital is not a medium, but a technology that supports communication. Keeping this and such realities at the core, as against the past years, the categories and verticals have been brought down from 15 categories and 8 verticals i.e. 120, to 8 categories and 8 verticals i.e. 64."
This year's awards will also see the reinstation of the 'Agency of the Year' awards as the following winners will be announced:
• Creative Agency of the Year
• Design Specialist Agency of the Year
• Digital Specialist Agency of the Year
• Direct Specialist Agency of the Year
• PR Specialist Agency of the Year
• Branded Content & Entertainment Specialist Agency of the Year
• Media Agency of the Year
The last date to submit entries is 26 February 2018.
Goafest 2018 will be held between 5-7 April 2018.
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