Anant’s blog: back from Cribfest

To begin with, a clarification. The table that we (and all the others in the press) received from the Awards Governing Council was in alphabetical order. When we made a table, which we believe is only an extract from the original table, we had mentioned that we had reproduced the table as we had received it. What we did do was to extract the top winners from the table and arrange them in descending order sorted by quality of metals won. 

Since the AGC had arranged the columns in the order Grand Prix, Gold, Silver, Bronze, the top row had O&M, which was the only agency to win a Grand Prix, which is how the Olympics treats the winners table.

Was O&M the overall winner, on top of the table as we saw them? Or was Mudra, who had more metals than O&M? Different publications have interpreted the same data received from the AGC differently; Campaign India sees O&M as the winner – in the absence of any clarity from the AGC.

This is not the first year that there is a hue and cry over the tally and the interpretations. Can this be the last, please? What prevents the AGC from arriving at a weightage for each metal? Once this is done, the matter ends, and no energy need be extended by all of adland in the chaotic exercise that all have just gone through.

Worse, the current stony silence leaves the Award with no clear winner. O&M could feel cheated, as could Mudra. I cannot imagine the AGC taking a position for this year’s interpretation, so we will meander in an uncertain gloom till the Abbys is forgotten.

…as was the shifting of the digital part of the creative Abbys to the previous day – with no one being informed of such a change. Many of the winners, were, indeed in Goa, even at the Goafest venue, only to learn that they had missed the presentation. If they’re livid, one can easily empathise with them…

… but time for the Cribfest to end. Shashi Sinha has done a fantastic job in bringing as much of the industry together. I’ve spoken to many of the jurors, and, while things are not perfect, there is consensus that this year’s judging has been significantly better than it has been in the last few years.