Campaign India has just received a copy of the official statement from the Ad Club Bombay, issued by its president Bhaskar Das on the controversy surrounding the Creative Abby judging. We reproduce the statement below:
Since the inception of Abby’s, Advertising Club Bombay has been committed to building and sustaining this award as the most preeminent creative advertising awards in the country. To this end, it has over the years considered and implemented constructive suggestions from its members to make process enhancement that would reinforce the high stature of the Award.
Abby’s jury consists of the country’s most eminent and respected creative brains, many of whom lead their agency’s creative fraternity. The process of judging has been fine-tuned and strengthened over the years, and is conducted in the most transparent manner.
This year the Award Committee received allegations that a part of the Abby judging process was breached as a result of some of the jury members voting for advertisements produced by their own agencies. After a thorough investigation of the facts, the Club has discovered that this process breach has occurred in 29 instances involving multiple agencies, out of 4117 entries for the awards.
The Club has taken serious note of this shortcoming in the process. For subsequent years, the Management Committee has decided to take steps to further tighten the process to prevent recurrence of similar breaches.
As the Awards have already been handed over for the current year, the Club has decided to point out the instances of this breach to the respective winners and would appeal to their conscience and better judgment to voluntarily return the Awards they have received.
Bhaskar Das
President
The Advertising Club Bombay