Ogilvy's Envy, owner's pride

Ogilvy celebrates Year Two of its own awards show - The Envy; introduces new category - Envy for Good.

The green-eyed monster of jealousy reared its head once again in Mumbai as Ogilvy & Mather celebrated the second edition of their in-house awards. Envies 2014, held on Monday saw the best works of Ogilvy from the past year being honoured at a ceremonial gathering.

While the first edition of the awards, held in December last year, had 35 winners, this year (and in coming editions as well), the number has been kept at 25. Ogilvy, while not participating in the country's biggest advertising awards - The Abby's - since 2013, had invited a panel of judges to look and select the best of the work done by Ogilvy in the past one year. This year's jury included KS Chakravarthy or Chax (former FCB Ulka), Vikram Gaikwad (Underdog Communications), Raj Kamble (Strawberry Frog), Josy Paul (BBDO), Bobby Pawar (Publicis), Arun Iyer (Lowe Lintas), Malvika Mehra (Grey), Rahul Mathew (DDB Mudra) and Ashish Chakravarty (Contract).

As the format of the award goes, this year too, the Envies did not have any category or ranking. It was just about the best work being recognised and shared with others. The first set of awards was given away by Malvika Mehra from Grey. Mondelez India Foods took home the first Envy for Cadbury Dairy Milk's 'Snowfight', followed by VithU App's (Star India Pvt Ltd) The Seatbelt Crew. Vodafone India took an Envy for Vodafone Music's Rest Break, as did Hindustan Unilever's brilliant new piece of activation - the Jump Pump (a follow up of Lifebuoy's very popular initiatives under which 'Gondappa' and 'Roti' campaigns became famous). Veteran ad filmmaker Mahesh Mathai gave away the next set of awards that went to Vodafone's MPesa, Mondelez India for Cadbury Dairy Milk's 'Oh Chit' and Perfetti Van Melle India for Center Fresh's 'Madvertising Campaign'. Television show Satyamev Jayate's season three teaser - Mumkin Hai got Star India its second Envy for the evening.

Publicis' Bobby Pawar gave awards to Bombay Traffic Police and Castrol for 'The Good Road Campaign', the Akanksha Foundation for 'A for Anthem' campaign and Google India for 'pledge to vote' campaign featuring Indepenedent India's first voter Shyam Saran Negi. While most of the campaigns were of digital or television medium, a few from print and radio shared the limelight as well. Pidilite Industries won for Fevicol's 'Crossword' campaign as well as Fevikwik's 'Object Tears' and Perfetti Van Melle received an Envy for Mentos Sour Marbles' Dacoits, Eve Teasers and Tigers campaign.

In radio, meanwhile, Vogue India (Conde Nast) came to the forefront with the 'I support Vogue Empower' campaign. Perfetti Ven Melle received another award for Center Fresh' radio spot called 'Gunday'. Asian Paints' Smartcare Waterproofing - The Ultimate Waterproofing Guide also got an award as did Castrol India for the Biker's Code Book.

Ad film director, Prasoon Pandey presented the next set of awards. The winners were HUL - Brooke Bond Red Label (Taste of togetherness), Fortune Foods (for their goose-bump inducing 'Ghar Ka Khana' campaign) and Breakthrough Trust (for an innovative campaign on 'Video Matrimonials). Siddharth Mukherjee from Mondelez gave away the final set of awards to Hot Wheels (Mattel Inc) for 'Drive in' campaign, Cadbury Bournvita (Mondelez India) for 'Boxer' campaign, Federal Bank for 'Partnership' campaign and the much-talked about 'Abki Baar Modi Sarkaar' campaign from BJP.

Piyush Goyal, Minister of State with Independent Charge for Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy, who was present at the event shared his experience on working with the agency and persuading Piyush Pandey to work on the campaign. While he applauded the winning BJP campaign as something that had caught the sentiment of the people, he shared the anxieties of a party, which doubted if "an English thinking Ogilvy would be able to connect with the citizens in the hinterlands. But Ogilvy, and Piyush, proved us wrong. And now I can say, (borrowing a line from advertising) that Piyush (Pandey) is 'Winner's pride and Loser's envy".

Ogilvy also introduced a new category this year - called the Envy for Good - recognising a campaign done for social good. The polio eradication campaign (which Ogilvy started handling over a decade ago) won the award, in light of the fact that India was announced as a polio free nation in February earlier this year. Amitabh Bachchan - the face behind the campaign in 2003, Piyush Pandey and Ajay Gahlaut were each given an award for this.

The final award - the 'Most Envied' - was given to Breakthrough, an NGO working against child marriage. The campaign 'Video Matrimonials' consisted of fake marriage proposal videos made by young 10-11 year boys, asking for interested parties to contact them. Upon seeing the video, many fathers of young girls called on the number (provided in the video), which is actually the NGO's number. This has helped the NGO to track many fathers interested in marrying off their under-aged daughters.

The event was part of a bigger celebration which saw performances and talks by street magician Ugesh Sarcar, improvised comedy group 'Schitzen Giggles' and a panel discussion by chef Ajay Chopra, music director Amit Trivedi and Prasoon Pandey. The evening also included a musical jamboree with Indian fusion band, Indian Ocean.