When they're good, they're very good: Piyush

The final round of judging for Effies 2008, organised by Ad Club, took place on November 14. Campaign India caught up with the judges during the lunch break to get their views on the quality of this year's work that they had seen so far.

O&M's Piyush Pandey (pictured) felt that there were some entries which had good results but were quite mediocre. He added, "We have only gone through half of it right now and as it's a long shortlist, there will be ups and downs. But the good ones are very good."

JWT's Dhunji Wadia expressed resent on the repetition in the work submitted. "Some brightness or some new aspect should be there in the work." However, he also felt that the good ones were really good. "They seem to be redefining the standards of Indian communication."

Leo Burnett's KV Sridhar brought out an interesting point about the FMCG category. "In the most competitive category, which is FMCG, there are quite a few big ones. One can say that apart from traditional players: Unilever and P&G, ITC is making a huge impact in the category which is a very healthy thing. There are a couple of regional players making an impact in this category which is very heartening to see. Therefore, by and large there is good news. There is a healthy competition and not just two big players in the category. There are Indian multinationals coming up who are also doing great work."

Prashant Panday of Radio Mirchi called the overall quality of the work average. "Some pieces are really good. But a lot of the work is very standard. You can see patterns emerging. For example, everybody talks about how the brands have gone old and how they bring in the younger flavours. But there are some interesting case studies too including a mass brand which wanted to go premium, brands which are entering new markets and new segments. However, the amount of innovation is still very predictable."

Govind Srikhande from Shoppers Stop said that, "When we see advertising from a consumer's point of view, we don't really know what has gone into it. A lot of hard work goes into creating the brief and then the creative, so that you actually achieve your marketing objective. You can see the work and toil in some of the cases here."

Prasoon Joshi pointed out an interesting trend that's emerging, "One trend that I see emerging is the inclusion of social messaging in advertising, making brands socially significant. It is an international trend which is happening in companies like Microsoft. So that is a positive sign. Otherwise, in terms of quality, I see very incremental marginal difference compared to last year. However, the cases are written much better this year. They are more focused and crisp in nature."

Shashi Sinha of Lodestar Universal predicted the growing importance of Effies more than ever because of the current economic downturn. "With the economy downturn, people will focus on results more than anything else. Thus, Effies is very important as it completely focused on results."

To see the shortlisted entries, visit: http://www.adclubbombay.com/index.php/awards/effies/effies-2008

The case study presentation is scheduled for Thursday, November 20th. The final awards ceremony is scheduled for Wednesday, November 26th.