The Rather Long Shortlist

Half the entries made it to the shortlist, with the largest number getting through in the OOH and Design categories.

The fever surrounding the Creative Abby Awards went up one notch at Goafest 2013 with the release of the shortlisted entries. While the organisers released the names of the entries that made it to the shortlist, in a departure from the past, they decided against identifying the agencies that had done the work. Since the shortlisted entries totaled more than 2,000 it was impossible for the media to compile the whole list with agencies attached.

The highest shortlisted categories were in out of home (OOH), which saw 304 entries make it to the next round. This was followed by the Design category with 290 entries and the Print Craft category with 258 entries being shortlisted. Digital saw the shortlisting of 218 entries and Film had 183 such.

The category that saw the fewest shortlists was Branded Content and Entertainment with 36 entries. It was followed by Integrated with 40 entries. The Direct and Ambient categories saw 59 and 66 entries respectively being shortlisted.

In all, 2,120 entries have been shortlisted across 13 categories. The largest number in the shortlist, 318, fell under the Print category followed by OOH (304) and Design (290). Print Craft (258) and Digital (218) bring up the next two places in the shortlist by absolute numbers.

This is broadly - though not exactly - in keeping with the number of entries received this year by category. afaqs! estimated the approximate number of entries in each category (with margin of error about 5 per cent either way). According to that, the maximum entries were received in OOH (633), followed by Digital (568), Print Craft (492) and Print (466).

The percentage of entries that has made it to the shortlist varies significantly across categories. Overall, 51 per cent of the entries have been included in the shortlist. Design (69 per cent) and Print (68 per cent) have seen the largest percentage of entries make it to the next round. Radio Craft with 66 per cent and Integrated with 62 per cent are the other two categories where more than 60 per cent of the entries have been shortlisted.

At the other end of the spectrum, Digital has the lowest percentage of entries to go past the first hurdle - 218 out of 568 for a pass percentage of 38. Direct is only slightly better with 40 per cent of the entries passing muster.