Stark Communications adjudged Agency of the Year at Pepper 2012, too

TCC Chennai was the runner up. Malayala Manorama won the Advertiser of the Year award.

The results of the 6th edition of the Pepper Creative Awards, the annual creative competition jointly held by The Advertising Club Cochin and the Pepper Creative Awards Trust, have been announced.

The competition was open for agencies from all over South India. The authorities received more than 1,020 entries from 96 agencies. In all, there were 104 competition categories.

The winners were felicitated at an event held on March 30, 2012 at Le Meridien Hotel, Kochi.

For Stark Communications, it was a repeat act; like last year, this year, too, the agency was chosen as the Agency of the Year. This award was accorded on the basis of maximum points received in all categories of the competition. TCC Chennai was the runner up.

In all, Stark Communications won 23 awards. Of these, three were gold, six were silver sand 10 were bronze awards. The remaining four were finalist mentions.

The agency won its gold awards in the Photography, Corporate Brochure and Design-Logo categories. The silver awards were won in the Media Press Campaign, Media TVC, Illustration Campaign, Illustration Single, Copywriting Campaign and TV Single categories.

The bronze awards won were in the Art Direction Campaign, Design-Logo, Direct Mailer Single, Collateral-Poster Campaign, Press Single Colour, Press Campaign Unpublished and Press Campaign Colour categories. The finalist mentions the agency received were for its work in the Media Outdoor, Outdoor Hoarding Campaign, TV Single and Press Campaign Colour categories.

TCC Chennai won a total of seven awards. Of these, two were gold and five were silver awards. The agency won its gold awards in the Press Campaign Colour category for the brand Prime Sharp Knives and in the Press Single Color category for the brand Striker.

Malayala Manorama won the Advertiser of the Year award. It may be recalled that in 2011, Karnataka Tourism and Classic Polo shared the Advertiser of the Year award.

The awards ceremony was inaugurated by A P Anil Kumar, Hon'ble Minister for Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes and Tourism, Govt. of Kerala.

Sudeepkumar, president, Advertising Club Cochin, gave the welcome note at the function and T Vinaykumar, secretary, Pepper Creative Awards Trust proposed the vote of thanks.

"Pepper is currently one of the most respected creative competitions in the Indian advertising industry. Our endeavour is to make it a globally benchmarked premium event every year. We hope the legend of Pepper and the creative spirit of the present will jell well to create a niche for Cochin in the global creative space," conveyed Sudeepkumar in a press statement.

The other committee members who participated in the event are Oommen Kurian, U S Kutty, R Madhava Menon , P K Natesh, V Rajeev Menon, K Venugopal, Sandeep Nayar, Lakshman Varma, Anil James, Raju Menon, G Sreenath, Reghu Ramachandran and Chitra Prakash.

The entries were judged at Mumbai on March 17 and 18 by a four-member panel comprising Agnello Dias, co-founder and chief creative officer, Taproot India; Prathap Suthan, chief creative officer, iYogi and founder, The Advisory; Priti Nair, co-founder, Curry-Nation; and Raj Nair, regional creative director, Mumbai and South, Contract Advertising. Taproot's Dias was the jury chairman.