The Advertising Club is all set to bring the 54th edition of The ABBY Awards, South Asia’s Gold standard, which has been recognising creative excellence in advertising for over five decades. With 60 plus media agencies and 180 plus creative agencies, the ABBY Awards are scheduled to take place from 24 to 26 May during Goafest at Grand Hyatt, Bambolim, Goa.
“At the Advertising Club, our sole agenda is excellence. We celebrate, discuss, and help people work towards excellence. Globally, all awards are owned by commercial organisations, whereas our awards are the only ones owned by the industry, a fact that means a lot,” Times of India group president and The Advertising Club president Partha Sinha told Animation Xpress.
According to him, it reflects the voice of the industry. The event includes the entire industry and not just the playground of a select few.
“We feel honoured in calling ourselves the voice and representatives of the industry. We also represent excellence in this market at a global standard. This is now an award of global stature and recognition, and we are extremely proud of this game,” Sinha said.
With a focus on innovation, research and strategy, ABBY’s 2023 received a good number of entries compared to previous editions.
“I have been working closely with Partha for two years and started this journey last year by restaging the ABBY’s. You can be an enormous agency or a small one. It doesn’t matter. Everybody wants to be a part of India’s coveted award, which is the ABBY One Show,” said Havas Group India group CEO and ABBY’s Award governing council chairman Rana Barua.
Sharing a detailed comparison of the entries received, he revealed, “Looking at both creative and media output, both have had higher entries this year. On one hand, creative agencies have had 2,282 entries this year compared to 2,007 last year. On the other hand, media agencies accounted for 1,019 entries this year against 1,014 last year. This year, the number of entries is 3,301 versus last year’s 3,021, which was a cumulative count of three years.”
As many as 63 media agencies participated this year compared to last year’s 54 agencies. Also, 181 creative agencies participated this year versus last year’s count of 142.
“With the addition of sharper categories, we have rejigged the categories this year. We introduced a category dedicated to youngsters, called the ‘Young Maverick‘. This award is to recognise and reward the work of people under 30 years of age,” Barua said.
Highlighting further about what has been done differently this year, The Advertising Club managing committee member and ABBY’s Award Governing Council co-chair Ajay Kakar said, “This year, we asked our senior industry leaders about what they wanted to see differently. We conducted Town Halls and as a result, we changed the categories to represent the voice of the industry. These endeavours make us contemporary in our field and help us stay relevant and at the forefront.”
It’s the second year ABBY has partnered with The One Show, a prestigious award program. They jointly promise to bring global recognition to outstanding achievements in creative advertising.
“On one hand, we have an industry-owned award that represents the voice of the industry and on the other, we have a global partner who understands this game and has been a part of the high stakes for several years. Last year was our first year with The One Show and we learned a lot from this big step,” Sinha said.
The association has already proven beneficial and going forward, this will only continue to multiply.
“Our standards have automatically become global and their credibility and process continue to remain impeccable because they have been doing this for years now. Therefore, as a result, we have a platform, ABBY One Show, which is neither owned by a select few, nor contains any bias, nor provides privilege to anyone,” Sinha concluded.
The list of jury chairs announced till date are:
- Nick Law
- Wesley ter Haar
- Prajato Guha Thakurta
- Avinash Pandey
- Valerie Pinto
- Ahmed Aftab Naqvi
- Ashwini Deshpande
- Emmanuel Upputuru
- Sabyasachi Mitter
- Bobby Pawar
- P G Aditiya
- Guneet Monga
- Mangesh Rane
- Russell Barrett
- Mandie van der Merwe
- Pallavi Chakravarti
- Rajdeepak Das
More than 2,500 professionals from the marketing, advertising, media, research and PR fraternity are gearing up for ABBY Awards, the country’s one of the most prestigious advertising award shows.
