The second day of the Abby Awards at Goafest saw some surprise wins for independent agencies across seven categories. While Enormous was adjudged the digital and mobile specialist agency of the year, Leo India was named technology specialist agency of the year along with Mindshare India. Leo India was also the biggest winning agency in the Direct category, while FCB India bagged the Public Relations specialist agency title.
Y&H was the other big winner among the independent agencies with the title of design specialist of the year. The broadcaster of the year was Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (ZEEL) for the third consecutive time.
The only Grand Prix of the night was awarded to FCB India in the Direct category for its ‘Lucky Yatra’ campaign executed for Central Railways to tackle the problem of ticketless travel. The campaign also picked up five gold honours in the PR and Direct categories. Yet again, the Abby Awards proved to be a stage for blurred boundaries where creative agencies were awarded for their work in public relations and even broadcast.
There was a total of 23 gold metals awarded on the second night, five of which went to FCB, three to McCann Worldgroup and two to Zee. Wavemaker leads the points table with 124, followed by Leo India at 120 and Enormous at 108.
The second day of the festival saw a keynote address from Karan Bedi, director & head at Amazon MX Player on India’s “free streaming revolution”. He pointed out how advertising on streaming platforms is significantly more effective than on user-generated platforms like YouTube.
There was also an interesting panel discussion on marketing moderated by Kartik Sharma of Omnicom Media Group India featuring Satya Raghavan of Google India, Rathi Gangappa of Starcom India, Ajit Varghese of JioStar and Shubranshu Singh of Tata Commercial Vehicles. The panelists discussed the need for integration and collaboration in fragmented media spaces. They also emphasised that connectivity plays a more crucial role than mere media placements.
The day wrapped up with a conversation between actor and entrepreneur Suniel Shetty and Amazon MX Player’s Aruna Daryanani on the former’s career, fan engagement and the recently released season two of Hunter.