The Hindu Business Line : Diwali greetings

Mumbai prides itself on being a cosmopolitan city and in a warped way it shows up in the way Diwali is celebrated. Firstly there are gifts for you irrespective of whether you personally celebrate the festival or not. This results in return gifts from everyone and the merry-go-round continues in full force. Laxmi Pooja is translated into all-night card games, Dhanteras into a gold-shopping festival and Bhaubeej into a holiday, no matter if you don't know what it even means. Happy Diwali!

Gifts

While gifting normally takes the shape of sweets and dry fruits and cut glass (depending on who the gift is from), one must mention a corporate gift that the media types received from Dainik Bhaskar. It was a complete Diwali Pooja set with all the little things one needs to do a proper pooja. Rather different, and well thought-out too!

AdAsia Ho!

The Jaipur AdAsia (2003) seems to have gotten everyone rather interested in the AdAsia as an event. One is told that the size of the Indian delegation to the AdAsia 2005 in Singapore would be over 100.

That's pretty good going. Mr Bharat Patel would be rather pleased to lead such an impressive delegation. One is also told that media forms the main component of the delegation. Advertising agencies and advertisers don't seem to be as enthusiastic about the trip to Singapore. One wonders why.

Interestingly, companies such as Tata Motors and Kotak Mahindra Bank are appearing in the list of advertisers packing their bags. Something new, and a step in the right direction, no doubt.

For those who are inspired to follow the flight of these lucky persons, the AdAsia begins on November 20, so better decide pronto.

Effies

For the uninitiated, the Effie is an American brand that the Ad Club Bombay has bought into. It is an award for effectiveness in advertising. The advertiser community just loves these awards. One can't blame them. Think of the many times they have sat and watched creative directors scampering onto the well-designed stages of huge awards functions and accepting awards for advertising they have paid for.

Now finally they have an award that tells them how their advertising has performed in the market place.

One is authoritatively told that many years ago, certain large creative agencies were actually against the idea of introducing awards for effectiveness in India. I guess they were perfectly happy to create advertising, judge it, acknowledge it, reward it and walk away to line their agency shelves with awards for creative excellence in advertising that never sold anything. Kudos to the AdClub Bombay for introducing the concept of effectiveness in advertising and also persevering with it.

Sweet success

The success of the Effie award is as much a success of advertising as an industry as it is a success for the AdClub and the winners of the award.

The function itself was in two parts. The first half was a presentation of 18 case studies that made the short list. Frankly, someone in the AdClub Bombay should take it upon themselves to popularise this part of the function. It was an absolute delight to see clients and their agencies standing as one and acknowledging the role each other played in the success story. This is what fine communication is all about. And this is what the industry needs to showcase.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Ford's feisty gambit

Diwali greetings

The spirit of David

An open letter to the FM

A matter of conditioning

Effectiveness of brand repositioning

The future of interactivity

Customers insist on their human prerogatives

Toy Doy