Emvies 2011: 717 entries received this year across 16 categories

Emvies, the media awards instituted by The Advertising Club of Bombay in 2001, has received its highest ever number of entries with 771 entries across 16 categories from 31 agencies. Round one of judging is spread over three days, with 64 media agency professionals going through the cases and shortlisting them for round two scheduled on August 17 and 18. Round two will follow the case study presentation format, and will be judged by marketing professionals. The awards night is scheduled for 26 August, 2011 at Taj Land’s End in Mumbai.

Commenting on the response received for this year’s awards, Sunil Lulla, chairperson, Emvies 2011 and managing director and chief executive officer - TV Business, Times Global Broadcasting said, “The 717 entries received this year is the highest ever for Emvies, and is the signs of an evolving award property as well as the excellence and confidence of the media industry because more entries mean that there are more people believing that they are innovating and have the best solutions to offer.”

Though traditionally preferred categories like media strategy for products has seen an increase in the number of entries, digital seems to be the main draw amongst entrants. Some of the jury members that Campaign India spoke with, informed that digital has been weaved into most brand’s media plan.

PM Balakrishna, vice president, Allied Media, who judged the ‘Best Media Research’ and ‘Best Media Innovation – Print’ categories, felt that the quality of entry presentation has improved significantly compared to previous years. “The structured format has helped us judges to go through the entries and understand them relatively quicker than before,” he added.   

Sharing a similar point of view, jury member ‘Best Media Strategy – Properties’ and ‘Best Media Strategy – Services’, Pat Vinayak, principal partner, Mindshare added that while some of entry presentations have definitely improved, India still has quite a distance to cover in order to reach international standards.  

T Gangadhar, managing director, MEC who judged ‘Best Media Strategy – Products’ and ‘Best Media Strategy – Durables’ pointed out that the work entered as well as the quality of entry presentation can be improved. “Clearly there is intent from agencies to do innovative work and there are some good works, but they need to package it better. Personally speaking, there was no work that I felt like saying ‘Wow, I should have thought of this idea’,” he remarked.

Organisers have also announced the ‘Band Baja Award’, a band baja competition amongst media agencies and media companies scheduled on the awards night. The competition is intended to showcase the best of musical and performance talent amongst the participants. Entries can be sent to the Ad Club of Bombay across the categories of – ‘Best Band Performance, Western’, ‘Best Band Performance, Indian’, ‘Best Solo Performance, Western’ and ‘Best Solo Performance, India’ before 10 August, 2011.