MUMBAI: The Hindustan Unilever and GroupM’s Mindshare India partnership has proved to be as good as gold – yet again.
For the second year in succession, the WPP group outfit walked away with the Agency of the year Emvies award with a solid unbeatable 395 points in its bag. That was courtesy the eight gold, 18 silver and fifteen bronze metals it pocketed.
There are no prizes for guessing who the client of the year was: Hindustan Unilever.
With seven bronze, fifteen silvers and 11 golds, Hindustan Unilever maintained a massive lead over everyone else with its 310 point tally.
Straggling several laps behind was PepsiCo with just 75 points; yes, that’s how one sided Emvies 2016 results were. But to Pepsico’s credit, it along with GroupM, snared the grand Emvie for Best Integrated Campaign in Consumer Products : ‘when consumers became co marketers.’
Surprisingly, Mindshare did not take its Emvie wins lightly, considering the fact that it had already bagged the Cannes Lions 2016 Grand Prix with its work on Brooke Bond Red Label Six Pack Band. Theirs were the loudest cheers heard during the evening.
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| The Pepsico-Mindshare combine pocketed the Grand Emvie |
If one were to go by metal tally, the second best media agency at Emvies 2016 was Lodestar UM with six gold, three silver statuettes and three bronze. Its point tally: a pale 135.
The third placed agency – though it tied with Lodestar on the points tally of 135 – was Maxus with four gold, five silver and five bronze.
Commenting on the wins Mindshare south Asia CEO Prasanth Kumar said: “The awards are a direct result of the effort and hard work put in by each and everyone in the team. We at Mindshare believe in recognizing our employees’ skills and commitment, which is further driven to a level of aspiration that leads to rewarding experiences such as the Emvies. Winning these awards by such a large margin is not only a testimony to our accomplishments so far, but also significantly adds to the quality of service we intend to deliver. Creating ground-breaking innovations and strategies has been Mindshare’s forte and this has kept us at the forefront in the industry.”
Added GroupM south Asia CEO CVL Srinivas: “GroupM agencies have had a dream run at the Emvies this year like most other years. I must first of all congratulate our clients who push us to keep raising the bar year after year. Clients who believe in innovation and back our teams to take risks are the ones who win and in turn help us win. Our teams have worked very hard to keep delivering client delight year after year. We have a strong HR and Talent management culture at GroupM and on days like this we realize how important it is to keep the focus on talent development.”
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Hindustan Lever walked away with the client of the year Emvie
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“In today’s day and age of extensive media exposure, the greatest challenge is to create clutter breaking communication that is impactful, optimal and delivers the brand message,” exclaimed Emvies committee chairperson Punitha Arumugam. “ As always this year too at the EMVIES we have seen works by media agencies that have not only been pioneering and engaging but also helped change mindsets and helped drive resonance for the brand.”
“The response to EMVIES this year have been the highest ever with record number of entries clearly indicative of popularity of the awards,” pointed out EMVIES Committee co-Chairperson Vikas Khanchandani, “The works entered has been extremely encouraging and impactful showcasing the changing dynamics of both clients and agencies towards curating campaigns through content to deliver ROI, outreach and execution scale.”
In his welcome address, The Advertising Club President Raj Nayak said “In its 16th year. The EMVIES has grown from strength to strength and this year has established a new record in the number of entries. With a jury consisting of over 225 media professionals and clients with judging held across Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi, this has been a mammoth exercise in making the process transparent.”
