Stark, Maxus, DDB Mudra win big at Big Bang Awards 2012

The winners of Advertising Club Bangalore’s Big Bang Awards 2012 were announced in a gala event on 21 September. Maxus, Stark Communications and DDB Mudra bagged most metals at this year’s awards.

Maxus won the Media Agency of the Year title bagging 40 metals including 13 Gold and as many Silver, and 14 Bronze metals, for work on clients including Vodafone, Perfetti van melle, Nokia India, Titan HTSE and Tanishq.

Stark Communications Trivandrum/Bangalore bagged the Big Bang Agency of the Year award for the second year in a row with 20 metals, including four Gold, eight Silver and eight Bronzes. The agency's campaigns for Malayala Manorama, Kerala Tourism, Karnataka Tourism and a host of other clients won honours. Besides which, Jasison Antony from the agency won the Art Director of the Year title, while Stark's Shelton Pinheiro won the Copywriter of the Year award.

DDB Mudra gave Stark communications ended with a rich haul of 25 metals.

Titan Industries was adjudged Client of the Year. Titan also won the Ayaz Peerbhoy memorial trophy for the multi-media campaign of the year for the Titan TS campaign.

Asked about the response to this year's awards, Arvind Kumar, executive director, The Advertising Club, Bangalore, noted that independents from across India entered the Big Bang Awards this year.

“We find that creative hot shops, small and medium agencies not only from the South but from all over India, taking part enthusiastically. It is time that (some of) the larger multinational agencies look at these awards more seriously for grooming local talent and develop the industry further,“ he said.

“It’s a big achievement for us, but an even bigger achievement for the Kerala advertising industry. A home-grown agency has beaten national and international firms with bases in metros like Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad to become South India’s Agency of the Year,” said Roy V Mathew, managing director, Stark Communications.

This year’s Big Bang Awards attracted 1,000 entries in 84 categories from 138 entrants. The event was co-presented by The Times of India. The other key partners were Travel Trendz TV (Hyderabad), Getty Images India, Zee Kannada and Radio City.