The award for the restless, young, and creative is back with its third edition!
It is common knowledge that traditional awards are dominated by larger agencies. These agencies are the ones which have been around for quite a while and take away the top honours, leaving the smaller and younger agencies no field to prove their mettle.
Do these younger agencies not deserve a platform where they can showcase their work and be honoured for it? This is what led to the birth of Foxglove awards - an award show celebrating work done by the younger agencies. Interestingly, foxglove is also the name of the fastest-growing plant in the world, teaching us that one can achieve great success irrespective of age.
Established in the year 2015, Foxglove awards, now in its third edition, has seen participation from more than 120 agencies in the last two years. These agencies range from lesser-known start-ups to well-known names like Happy Creative, Taproot, Interactive Avenues, and many more. And just like the foxglove plant, the award has grown too, becoming one of India's largest advertising awards.
Initially open to only agencies, this year the award is also accepting entries from production houses and design units. Scouting for not just National heroes but also Regional champions, the award allows participants to compete at both levels, that is National and Regional, or at a single level. This year, an agency can also select the region it wishes to compete in, from North, East, West, and South. In order to help the participants enter their diverse set of work suitably, the award has 8 categories - Ambient Media, Brand Activation, Design, Digital, Direct Marketing, Film and Print, with the addition of a new category - Content Marketing. Each category is further divided into sub-categories for better classification of work.
To better judge the entries, Foxglove follows a two-panel jury system - Jury and Grand Jury. The Jury, which comprises of new and budding creative talent, first screens the entries and creates a shortlist. The shortlist is then presented to the Gods of Advertising - The Grand Jury, for the second stage of judging, making sure that the best of the best work wins. In the past, Abhijit Avasthi, Agnello Dias, Arun Iyer, Ashish Bhasin, Josy Paul, KS Chakravarthy, Kunal Jeswani, KV Sridhar, Lulu Raghavan, Prasoon Joshi, Sanjay Mehta and Sonal Dabral have been on the Grand Jury.
Keeping up with the spirit of the awards, this year all the shortlisted entries will be given an excellence certificate. And since it is not a regular award show, the presentation isn't regular either! Honoring these young entities, each year a Wall of Fame is unveiled on the award night with the winners' trophy. Last year, a book called Foxglove Showcase was also released, which included a gallery of winning works in addition to interviews and write-ups of personalities from the advertising world who shared their story of running a young agency.
Last year, 32 agencies bagged the Foxglove award and winning didn't seem to favor age. From Happy Creative Services winning 5 Golds in National to the 4-year-old The Brand Brewery winning 2 Silvers, to the relatively new PlainSpeak winning 3 Metals, overall victory sided with the creative and the restless who had big ideas!
So if you're an agency, a production house, or a design unit and are young, restless, and creative, then don't wait! This is the award for you! Submit your entries and be the Titan among mortals!