Ogilvy & Mather Mumbai becomes first Indian agency to win Gold at IPA Effectiveness Awards

Ogilvy & Mather Mumbai became the first Indian agency to win Gold at the IPA Effectiveness Awards held last night in London. The award was won for Cadbury Dairy Milk’s 7 year long ‘Kuch Meetha Ho Jaaye’ campaign in India.

Launched in 2005, this campaign has led to Cadbury Dairy Milk increasing its business manifold, and has also contributed to increased revenues and profits for the company, Cadbury India Limited. This case also won a special award for ‘Best Use of Insight’.

The IPA, organiser of the IPA Effectiveness Awards, is the professional body for advertising, media and marketing communication agencies in the United Kingdom. Since their launch in the UK in 1980, the IPA Effectiveness Awards are recognised by agencies and clients as the industry’s most rigorous award scheme, because entrants have to prove their communications strategies have worked in hard business terms.

The rigourous judging process includes each entry being judged by two panels before it is considered worthy of an award – an industry panel and a client panel. The Industry panel decides the shortlist (by making sure that each shortlisted paper fulfills the requirement of clearly demonstrating a return on marketing investment). The Client panel then attributes each shortlisted paper a Gold, Silver or Bronze Award and allocates the special prizes.

The year 2012 has seen a total of 65 entries for the awards of which 35 entries made it to the shortlist. Ogilvy’s winning entry was India’s only shortlisted entry at the awards.

Piyush Pandey, Executive Chairman & Creative Director, Ogilvy & Mather South Asia, and also the brain behind the ‘Kuch Meetha Ho Jaaye’ campaign had this to say about the award, “I am totally delighted that we have won India’s first ever Gold at one of the most rigourous effectiveness awards in the world – the IPA. And that too for Cadbury. As I have always said in the past, great work comes out of great partnerships. A big salute to you, Cadbury India. And heartiest, heartiest congratulations to my young colleagues at Ogilvy & Mather Mumbai.”

Chandramouli Venkatesan, Director, India Snacking & AP Developing Markets – Chocolate Lead, “It is a matter of great pride that Cadbury diary milk is the first ever gold winner from India. It is a testimony to the exceptional advertising the brand has done over a long time. Special kudos to our partners Ogilvy India for being such an outstanding brand steward. Kuch Meetha ho jaye.”

Kawal Shoor, Head of Planning for Ogilvy Advertising Mumbai, and also co-author of the entry, was present at the gala ceremony held at the London Hilton Park Lane Hotel yesterday. Beaming with joy, he said, “This is unprecedented. Only time will tell what this means for us, and Indian advertising, but right now we’re over the moon. We have always loved and stood by our work, and knew it was world class, but to now get acknowledged as that, by arguably the most renowned and sceptical set of judges, ahead of other strong campaigns from around the world… across categories… Wow! And then to win another one for insights… perfect!”

Navin Talreja, Head of Ogilvy & Mather – Mumbai said, “This is absolutely fantastic! We strongly believe that our wins happen only because of the faith that clients show in us, and are invariably a result of a process of co-creation with clients. Cadbury has been one such relationship that we have enjoyed for over 60 years. As an office, we pride ourselves on the efficient working of the Creative, Account Planning and Account Management triumvirate. This win is a great testimony of the same”.