Delhi-NCR based agencies sweep 4th edition of Foxglove Awards

Grapes Digital, Tree Design and ADK Fortune had their hands full in the nicest possible way last night at Foxglove, a contest between ad agencies that are less than 12 years old.

Over the past three years, there has developed a tradition of Foxglove Awards being dominated by agencies from Mumbai (Taproot, PHD, Interactive Avenues, BBH India) and Bengaluru (held up mostly by Happy mcgarrybowen).

That changed last night when, for the first time, a trio of agencies from the Delhi region stormed proceedings. Grapes Digital walked away with 11 metals (five National and six Regional), Tree Design with 10 (National and Regional, equally) and ADK Fortune with seven, all of them National.

Team members of Tree Design celebrate post winning Gold, Silver and Bronze awards

Foxglove Awards 2018, hosted by afaqs! and powered by Dainik Jagran, took place at Hard Rock Café, Worli, in Mumbai.

Other major winners were Famous Innovations, Teen Bandar, Ignite Mudra, Happy mcgarrybowen, Mad About Digital and WAT Consult.

Team members of Social Kinnect pose after winning Gold and Silver awards

They were all contesting for National and Regional honours in 32 subcategories which fell under seven categories: Ambient Media, Brand Activation, Content Marketing, Design, Digital, Film and Print.

Team members of Dell India celebrate post winning Gold and Bronze awards

Foxglove Awards has been open to ad agencies, production houses and design firms. Keeping in mind the changing nature of brand communication, web publishers and content creators were also allowed to participate. While several of them won last night - Pocket Aces, The Quint, The Viral Fever, among others - the event continued to be dominated by ad agencies.

Team members of Hetarsh celebrate post winning two Gold awards

Says Sreekant Khandekar, co-founder of afaqs!, "Foxglove continues to be true to its original purpose: highlighting and celebrating the work of young agencies. It fulfills a real need because small agencies aren't generally heard at the big awards show. Foxglove is their platform. That is why it has become one of the country's biggest awards shows in just four years." Khandekar said that more than 130 ad agencies had participated in 2018.

Team member of My FM celebrates after winning a Gold and Bronze award

Entries at Foxglove Awards 2018 went through two layers of scrutiny. First, a 30-member Jury of young, hot creative folks reviewed all the work. About half the entries were considered good enough for the 22-member Grand Jury made up of some of the best creative names in marketing communications.

Team members of Oddinary Marketing India celebrate post winning Gold and Bronze awards

(Grand Jurors: Amer Jaleel, Amit Akali, Anish Varghese, Ashwini Deshpande, Bianca Ghose, Delna Sethna, George Kovoor, Itu Chaudhuri, Josy Paul, KV Sridhar, Karan Rawat, Lulu Raghavan, Malvika Mehra, Manish Bhatt, Navin Kansal, Rahul Mathew, Rama Manoharan, Rishi Darda, Sambit Mohanty, Saurabh Kanwar, Shekhar Badve, Sudesh Samaria)

Team members of Rapport Outdoor Advertising celebrate post winning Gold and Bronze awards

Team members of WittyFeed celebrate post winning a Bronze award

Foxglove Awards has another mechanism to ensure that only the most deserving take home a metal. Even if an entry tops a particular National category, it must have scored at least 7 out of 10 points to take a gold. Similarly a minimum of 6 and 5 is necessary to claim a silver or a bronze. In Regional, the minimum scores needed to win a gold, silver and bronze are 6,5, and 4 respectively.

A limited edition book - Foxglove Showcase - was also released which contained all the winning entries.

By category

Five agencies took home metals in the category Ambient Media which had two subcategories. Ignite Mudra was on top here, winning two National bronze along with two Regional silver and a bronze for clients Honda Motorcycles and Scooters India and OnePlus.

Team members of Starting Monday Design & Co pose with their Gold award

In Brand Activation, there were seven winners in the two subcategories. Isobar won the National gold while Teen Bandar got itself the National silver and a Regional gold.

Twelve firms were among the metals in the rapidly growing Content Marketing space, which had four subcategories. This category was pretty much taken over by web publishers and content creators. Pocket Aces Pictures presented the perfect symmetry by winning a National gold, a silver and a bronze for clients Lifestyle Stores, Epigamia and Furlenco respectively. The other winners were The Viral Fever (National Gold for Whisper), The Quint (National gold for Motorola) and Bloomberg Quint (National gold and Regional bronze for a self-ad).

Team members of Mad About Digital pose after winning Gold, Silver and Bronze awards

Delhi-based Tree Design won eight out of its 11 metals in Design, under which fall nine subcategories. Twenty six firms registered a win in this category. Tree Design won for the work it did for PVR Cinemas, Abaxial, Cadbury and Heritage Xperiential Learning School. Mad About Digital was the other big winner here with four awards.

In the Film category, it was ADK Fortune which emerged on top with a National gold and silver, both for Ghadi Detergent.

Team members of Famous Innovations pose after winning Gold, Silver and Bronze awards

Under the category Print, the National gold went to Famous Innovations for its work on Livpure Water Purifier.

By client

Foxglove Awards doesn't have a trophy for advertiser of the year but had there been one, Mankind Pharma would have been a strong contender. Teaming up with Grapes Digital and ADK Fortune, work for the corporate brand plus Manforce Condoms and Prega News won a total of seven National and one Regional trophies.

Team members of Blue Vector pose with Gold award

Team member of Big Trunk Communications poses after winning a Gold award

Team member of Color Features of India poses after winning a Gold award

Maruti Suzuki was the other marketer which found presence prominently at Foxglove. Work on its brands by Grapes Digital won two National and four Regional trophies.

The creatives for Livepure Water Purifier by Famous Innovations drew attention too, having won a National gold, two silvers and a bronze.

Team member of HS Ad poses with Gold and Silver awards

It was a profitable night for LG Electronics also because it picked up one National silver together with a Regional gold and two bronze thanks to its partnership with HS Ad.

afaqs! Foxglove Awards 2018 - Wall of Fame (National Winners)

afaqs! Foxglove awards 2018 - Wall of Fame (Regional Winners)

There were three special awards given at the event. The first award was given to HS Ad for HS Ad OLED LANDMARK in Best Innovation in Display category. The second award was given to SoCheers for Pensol's TVC under Brand Awareness category and the third award was given to iCubesWire for Central Park Flower Valley under Digital Marketing Excellence - Real Estate category.

Click here to see the list of national winners.

Click here to see the list of regional winners.