Ogilvy reigns supreme at Abby

Ogilvy & Mather is crowned the creative agency of the year.

An Abby of sorts is how one could define the advertising awards hosted by the Ad Club, Mumbai, this year.

With a host of leading agencies absent -- Lowe, McCann Erickson, Leo Burnett, Satchi & Satchi -- The Abby 2006 did not have the same flavour this time.

The awardees were a bit too predictable -- the men in black (the Ogilvy & Mather team) walked away with almost all of them. J Walter Thompson and Everest Brand Solutions also made their mark -- but only just.

Ogilvy & Mather was crowned the creative agency of the year as they have been since time immemorial. The final tally for O&M was two golds and 32 silvers, while JWT bagged four golds and six silvers.

With the recent schism splitting the ad fraternity between the Abby and the Advertising Agencies Association of India  awards, Kalpana Rao, the president of the Ad Club, rather dramatically referred to the Abby as the Kohinoor.

"Our Kohinoor was going to be stolen from us and renamed. Imagine calling the Kohinoor something else."

With a spate of leading agencies not participating in the Abby as they are part of the AAAI's clan and its awards function is scheduled to take place in Goa following the Cannes format on April 29 and 30, O&M's usual domination became a bit too overwhelming.

Interestingly, Lowe, which recently stated that they would be entering the Abby, was conspicuously absent.

Pranesh Misra, president and COO, Lowe, said, "We had decided to enter the Abby as we felt that it would unite the ad fraternity. Since that did not happen, we decided not to enter the Abby this year as well."Whether Lowe would be entering the AAAI awards, Misra stated, "That is still under consideration. We thought this year we would abstain from all the award functions due to the controversy. But the decision as to whether we should enter the AAAI awards has not yet been finalised."

The Abby awards this year received a total of 2,500 entries from India and the south Asia region comprising Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

Ads bagging multiple Abbys were JWT's Levi's Slim Jeans, which also won the creative advertiser of the year, O&M's Mentos series of ads, O&M's Tata Safari Dicor -- Reclaim, O&M's SBI Life Insurance -- Sister Act, and JWT's The Times of India -- Pakya select Hua. Everest bagged five Abbys, dominating the direct mail category with XPS Courier and ING Vysya Mutual Fund.

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