Scarecrow's AAP award

In a unique gesture, the agency felicitated 24 'aam aadmis' of the advertising industry. Bipin Pandit, COO, The Ad Club, was one of the awardees.

It's not just the political arena that has seen the effects Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), even the advertising industry seems to be taking its cues from the nascent political party's principles.

In a bid to recognise the work done by the "behind-the-scene" people of the ad industry, Scarecrow Communications organised a felicitation function, aptly named as 'Aam Aadmi Party' recently. Interestingly, the invitation mentioned the dress code to be the iconic AAP topi (cap) enclosed along with it. And, not surprisingly, this move created a lot of buzz in the ad fraternity, especially online. The function was also a way to celebrate the agency's fourth anniversary.

The awardees belonged to a wide pool of talented individuals including voiceover artists, specialty colourists, hair stylists, exceptional musicians, product window specialists, animal trainers and even rainmakers. Interestingly, Bipin Pandit, COO, The Ad Club, and Aarti Shirodkar, manager, The Ad Club, also found mention in the list.

Besides felicitating them, the agency also exhibited many of their works, which provided insights about how they contributed to enhance the final product - the advertisement. Besides this, the "aam aadmis" were given a diamond shaped trophy with the inscription, 'Real gems of advertising' handed over by the chief guests.

The event's chief guests included Bhaskar Das, CEO, Essel Group; Rajiv Rao, NCD, Ogilvy & Mather; Manisha Lath Gupta, former executive vice-president and CMO, Axis Bank; Ajay Kakkar, CMO, Aditya Birla Financial Services; Ajay Chandwani, director, Percept; Prashant Godbole, founder, Ideas@work; Ravi Deshpande, founder, Whyness; Vikram Gaikwad, founder, Underdog; and Rajesh Kejriwal of Kyoorius, amongst others.

Speaking about the idea, Manish Bhat, founding director, Scarecrow Communications, said that AAP is the agency's take on awards, considering there has been a lot of debate on awards in the industry recently. However, he clarified that this will not be an annual event. "We have started an initiative but we are not an award body. It's an open format and we can inspire these agencies to it take it up," he said.

Unsung heroes

The agency felicitated people from across various disciplines, including Pramod Patil, (colourist), who worked on more than 15,000 ad films such as the memorable ad on national integration, 'Mile Sur Mera Tumhara'; Shyam Salgaonkar (Sally), an editor who has worked on 7000 ad films in his 25-year career; Deelip Khomane (illustrator), who has spent 32 years in the industry and won 20 national and international awards, including four Cannes Lions.

Milind Aglave (retouching artist) was the first Indian to be listed to the top of the Luerzer's Arhives illustrator (re-touch) list.

Other names included Joel and Gemma Fonseca (product window stylists), Pratap Rath (percussionist), Mili Fernandes (hair stylist), Shivananda Mohili (rain machine operator), Santosh Kharade (illustrator), Tufail Ahmed (producer), Daisy Joseph (production coordinator), Sahebrao Hare (illustrator), Miten Udeshi (colourist), Sunil Yashwant Chalke (studio manager), Ninad Karkhanis (print production expert), Joseph Paul (print production manager), Brij Bhushan Mehru (composer, producer and voice artist), Jagdish Agarwal (Dinodia founder), Shankar Narayan Iyer (animal trainer), Ratnakar Gowda (voice artist and music coordinator) and Lalu Jaisingh (founder, Lalu's audio video centre).