AAAI announces winners of Young Lions Competitions

A total of 250 entries were received across categories this year.

Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) has announced the winners of the Young Lions competition in Creative (Print), Media and Marketers categories. A total of 250 entries were received across categories by AAAI this year.

The award in the Creative (Print) category was bagged by Gaurav Joshi and Siddharth Joglekar of Publicis India, Mumbai for the theme 'Come forward and help crime and accident victims'. In the Media category, Chinmay Kelkar and Rohan Sood of MediaCom, Mumbai won the award for their work, 'Don't bribe and kill the nation'. In the Marketers category, Samyukta Iyer and Janvi Parekh of Hindustan Unilever, Mumbai bagged the award for the theme 'A premium brand enters a traditional Indian category of hair oil but Indians are not willing to pay the premium. What ad strategy should they use?'

The winning teams will be flying off to France in the month of June to participate in the prestigious Young Lions Competition in Cannes Lions.

Announcing the result of Young Lions Competition, Vinod Nair, convenor, states, "The Times Group and Advertising Agencies Association of India are giving a rare opportunity to young professionals in India to participate in Cannes Lions and compete with the best young professionals in the world."

The competition is conducted by AAAI and supported by The Times Group, the official Indian representative of Cannes Lions. It had invited participation from creative people, under 28 years of age, from advertising agencies (for Creative); young media professionals, under 28 years of age, from advertising/media agencies (for Media) and young marketing professionals, under 30 years of age, from client organisations/advertisers (for Marketers).

The jury for Creative Competition comprised Josy Paul (chairman and national creative director, BBDO India), K S Chakravarthy (NCD, FCB Ulka), Bobby Pawar (director and CCO, South Asia, Publicis India) in Phase-I and Haresh Moorjani (creative director, FCB Ulka); Pawar; Nandan Srinath (director, Response, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd) and Vinod Nair (managing director, Network Advertising) in Phase-II.

For Media, the jury comprised Dinesh Vyas (general manager, India, Planning, MEC); Anand Chakravarthy (head, West, Maxus); Sujata Dwibedy (vice-president, Starcom India); Deepak Netram (VP, Lodestar UM) in Phase-I and Sam Balsara (chairman and MD, Madison Communications); and Jasmin Sohrabji (MD, Radeus Advertising) in the final phase.

The jury of Marketers competition comprised Ajay Kakar (chief marketing officer, financial services, Aditya Birla Group); Deepali Naair (chief marketing officer, Mahindra Holidays & Resorts); Rohit Srivastava (core consulting and national head of strategic planning, Contract Advertising); Nandan Srinath and Vinod Nair. The Marketers competition was conducted under the leadership of Dr M G Parameswaran, advisor, FCB Ulka.

The Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) is the official, national organisation of advertising agencies, formed to promote their interests so that they continue to make an essential and ever-increasing contribution to the nation.