Ravi Deshpande and Senthil Kumar to judge at Clios 2009

Contract’s Ravi Deshpande and JWT India’s Senthil Kumar have been selected as jury for the Clio awards festival, set to take place in Las Vegas from May 12 to 14, 2009.  This is the fiftieth year of the festival’s existence.

Ravi Deshpande, chairman and chief creative officer, Contract Advertising has been selected to judge the Television/Cinema/ Digital category. Senthil Kumar, executive creative director, JWT India will be judging the Radio category.

Speaking to Campaign India, Deshpande said, “What goes into making a great ad is exactly what goes into evaluating it. The definition of what is award worthy has been changing over time with respect to new trends and techniques. But what has remained constant, is the power of a great idea, supported by an execution that turns it into an even greater one. When I am judging work, I'm basically struck by something 'new' and may be even 'strange', something that surprises and inspires me. I love a new story, a new way of telling the story, a new style of art directing the idea. Overall, a new idea, no matter how old the media is. I like work that's not trying very hard 'to win an award', work that is creative but also honest.”

Commenting on the development, Senthil said, “This is the first time that I will be judging at the Clios. Radio is a challenging category, given that it only uses one half of the audio visual medium and therefore requires that much more to make an impact. I will be looking for ideas that can live up to the language of sound and are able to move away from the formulaic radio spots that one tends to see often in the category.”