Digital emerges as the undisputed hero at Media Abby, Goafest 2013

A press briefing  held last evening at South Mumbai has revealed  the shortlisted entries for Media Abby awards 2013 by the GoaFest authorities. This list is the outcome of   the first round of judging that took place last Friday.

Mindshare with 21 shortlisted entries topped the list. Interestingly out of the 21 entries one is from Mindshare Sri Lanka. While Lodestar UM has 16 shortlisted entries; Madison has 17 shortlisted entries (Madison Media Pinnacle has 13 shortlists and Madison Media Group has four). Maxus has 15 shortlists.

The DDB Mudra Group has 7 shortlists. Following is Mediacom, Starcom MediaVest Group and Interface Business Solutions which have 6 shortlisted entries. While Omnicom Media Group and Interactive Avenues have 4 shortlisted entries each; BBDO Proximity India and Isobar have 3 shortlists and MEC, Vizeum and McCann Worldgroup have 2 shortlists each.
MediaVest, Milestone Brandcom, Telibrahma Convergent Communications, Ad2C, Platinum Media, Ignitee Digital Services, Iprospect India, Blazar Media, Discovery Networks Asia Pacific (South Asia) and OMD have just one shortlist each.

Ashish Bhasin, chairman Media Abby awards 2013, while expressing his views said, “The entire judging process was digital in nature this time and interestingly agencies shared their entries on a USB device and the judges worked on laptops and audio-visual equipment during the short listing process.”

According to him, the digital process made the judging process more transparent, efficient fast and eco-friendly and it also reduced chances of manipulation and made the computing part easy for them. Sharing his view on evolvement of entries, he said, “It was quite interesting to see the digital evolving. This 40 to 50 percent of entries were in digital media category. Looking at the robust space of digital we broke the category into some sub categories like Best use of digital search, Best use of Social media etc.”

“GoaFest 2012 saw participation of around 3,167 delegates. We are certain that the number is going to increase this year. There have been a lot of entries from Sri Lankan agencies this year. Along with the awards in each category, there would also be a Grand Prix for all the nine verticals, along with a Grand Prix for Media,” said Bipin Pandit, Chief Operating Officer of The Advertising Club.
In 2012, there were 628 media entries whereas this time there is an astounding 660 entries, which clearly shows the growing success of the advertising festival. It is interesting to note that   out of 660 entries 260 entries were under the digital category whereas Cinema saw the participation of 20 entries, Newspaper 30, OOH was 38 and special events saw 58. Apparently, the number of media entries for the Abby Awards has never been higher. Also to be noted is that this time, 50 media agencies participated which is more than last year's.

Hence it becomes evident that this year digital rules and has emerged the undisputed hero. It has  outnumbered all other categories such as print , cinema, outdoor, radio,  television etc. This is also the first time the digital awards category has been split into finer aspects of the medium such as digital search, social media and mobile media, such that each realm of the digital space has its own separate awards category for agencies to enter their work in. As Bhasin puts it, "just one digital award for different types of digital work to compete for is a bit narrow and out-of-sync with the times."

The final judging process for the Media Abby Awards will be held on the March 8, 2013. The Media Awards will be held on April 5, 2013, along with Digital, Design and Direct. All other Creative awards will be held on April 6 2013.

This year GoaFest 2013, the annual South Asian advertising festival, will start from April 4 and continue till April 6. It will be held at the Zuri White Sands in Goa. This year the theme for GoaFest 2013  is ‘Just What You Unexpected’.