Goafest 2012: Mindshare grabs first ever Media Grand Prix

MEC, Lodestar UM and Madison Media Infinity also won big at the Media ABBY awards.

GroupM's Mindshare has bagged the first ever Media Grand Prix award at the Media ABBYs held at Goafest 2012. The agency won the award for the 'Little Big Film Maker' campaign for Hindustan Unilever's detergent brand, Surf Excel. In the final tally for media ABBYs awards, Mindshare India walked away with five metals which includes two silvers and two bronzes, apart from the Grand Prix. The Media Grand Prix award has been introduced this year at the Goafest.

Following Mindshare in the metal tally is MEC, which was the only agency to win two gold metals. The media agency won a gold for Colgate Dental Cream's Night Hammer campaign, in the Best Use of Newspaper & Magazines category. It also won a gold for Reliance 3G-Feeling is Believing campaign, under the Best Use of TV category.

Lodestar UM won six metals including one gold, two silvers and three bronzes. The gold for the agency came in the Pro Bono Marketing category for Bombay Psychiatric Society's 'Zindagi Se Dosti-Make Friends with Life' campaign.

Madison Media Infinity won one gold, one silver and a bronze metal at the Media ABBYs. The agency's gold came for the 'Turning Print into Social Media' campaign for Parachute Advanced Ayurvedic Hair Oil. With this win, the agency shared a gold metal with MEC in the Best Use of Newspaper & Magazines category.

Starcom Worldwide won a gold metal for Samsung Galaxy Tab's 'Touch Cinema with Galaxy Tab' campaign.

Last year, Maxus, again a part of GroupM, walked away with 10 metals, including two golds, six silvers and two bronzes. However, this year, the agency did not win any gold and managed to get two silvers and three bronzes.

Mediacom Communications and Madison Media Plus managed to win a silver each at the Media ABBYs. DDB MudraMax and Interactive Avenues won a bronze each.

The Media ABBY awards were decided after a two day judging process, which was apparently videographed in order to induce transparency in the procedure.

KPMG took care of the validation process this year, too. There were a record number of media entries, almost 16-17 per cent more than the earlier record. Last year, there were about 537 entries. This year, the participation from the agencies has also increased, with 33 agencies entering. In all, there were 29 metals awarded to various agencies at the Media ABBYs this year.

For the first time this year, the festival invited delegates and entries from countries across South Asia, including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Interestingly, there were a lot of entries from Pakistan for the Media ABBYs this year.

Click here to see videos and pictures of Goafest 2012.