Goafest 2011: Maxus tops Media Abbys metal haul, Lodestar UM at second place

Maxus has won the maximum metals at Media Abby 2011 this year with 10 awards. Lodestar UM managed to bring back nine metals, while Mindshare completed their tally with six. Mudra Max managed to win five metals, while Madison Media Plus won four. Other winners for the evening include Creativeland Asia, MEC, Mediacom and OMD with two metals each. Isobar and McCann Worldgroup won one metal each.

Commenting on their wins, Ajit Verghese, "Maxus's continued success at Goafest is a true reflection of our vision and product 'Relationship media' where we have made creativity the bedrock of consumer engagement and media solutions. We would really like to thank our clients who encourage us to deliver innovative thinking and challenge norms to get better ROI. We would have loved to convert more metals but was surprised by the stingy second round judging. It amazes me that every year judges keep saying they are not impressed by the quality of work. But these are the quality of work of their own people. We need to encourage and reward people more and to me that will inspire the GenY to do better work."

"Full credit to our Team Maxus who have. Maxus a way of life and are also the torchbeares of the Maxus AHA dna. They challenge themselves year on year to deliver media excellence. We saw this coming alive with 33 shortlists in Goafest '11 across spectrum of our clients like Vodafone, Nokia, Hero Honda, TataSky, Titan,Tanishq, Dabur, Perfetti, Arvind Mills, Baush&Laumb, IPL etc"

Of the ten wins for Maxus, the agency managed two gold metals for their work on ‘We Mixed India’ entry for Tata Sky under Best Use of Television category and ‘World’s first print advertising through co-creation’ for Indian Premier League 3 under the Best Use of Newspaper and Magazines category. The agency completed their tally with six silver and two bronze awards.

Lodestar UM managed its solitary gold for Amul Masterchef ‘Tasty dish varna game finish’ entry for Amul in the Best Use of Sponsorship category. The agency also managed six silver and two bronze metals to end the evening with nine metals. Mindshare could not manage any gold awards, but ended their tally with five silvers and one bronze.

Mudra Max won a gold for ‘7 Up Allu Non-stop’ entry for 7 Up in the Youth Marketing category. The agency managed four bronze awards to finish with five awards for the evening. Madison managed to win five silver metals at this year’s awards.

Creativeland Asia’s ‘Plan T-Tracking inventory through Twitter’ for Hippo Baked Munchies won two gold awards in the categories - best use of internet and digital media and best use of never before media.

Mediacom won gold for ‘People read newspaper, till we made the newspaper talk!’ entry for Volkswagen Vento under the best use of newspaper and magazines category. OMD managed to get gold for ‘Clean & Clear Times Fresh Face; make me famous’ entry for Clean & Clear under the category of Youth marketing.

No awards were presented in the Vertical Marketing and Pro Bono Marketing categories.

Aditya Birla Financial Services Group had won six metals at the Abbys (Creative and Media) this year, with the company bagging four metals. The company won a gold for the ‘Annaprashan’ entry from M&C Saatchi Direct and Digital Communication in Design category, and also won 3 silvers and 2 bronze metals.  Commenting on the wins, Ajay Kakkar, chief marketing officer, Aditya Birla Financial Services Group said, “It is humbling to have won six metals at this year’s awards.” 

As reported earlier, winners from two categories – Best Communication Strategy and Best contribution to a campaign by a media owner - for the Festival of Media awards were also announced at Media Abby 2011. While no entries managed to make the cut for second category, Mediacom won a gold and silver for two of its entries. ‘The most spectacular car launch that India had seen’ entry for Volkswagen Polo won gold while it managed silver for ‘Skoda Yeti right of way expedition’ entry. Creativeland Asia’s entry ‘Plan T-Tracking inventory through Twitter’ for Hippo Baked Munchies also managed to make the cut, but was not awarded any metal. In India, the entries were judged by Charlie Crowe from Festival of Media, Rahul Jauhari from Discovery Networks and Farokh Balsara from Ernst&Young. 

These three entries will now be fast-tracked to the Festival of Media Awards, Montreaux final short list which will be judged by a 25-meber jury panel comprising of agency heads from 20 different countries.