Double Dholki, #kolKOTHA campaigns power Times Group to 25 metals

Panaji: 'Waiting for you', a campaign by The Times of India that brought about awareness on organ donation, won the gold Abby, and together with 'Double Dholki' of Mumbai Mirror and TOI's '#kolKOTHA' campaigns powered Times Group's record sweep of 25 metals at Goafest.

For the organ donation campaign, ad agency Taproot Dentsu's creativity beautifully contrasted people's impatience over petty issues with the patience shown by a person waiting for that crucial organ, thus highlighting the importance behind organ donation.

Brand director, The Times of India and Mirror, Viral Oza said, "It is a proud moment for us in the group and the agency partners to win so many creative awards. We believe in being the drivers of innovation and change and thank the marketing and advertising fraternity for the honour."

The awards included one gold, 10 silver and 14 bronze metals, and acknowledged a year's worth of creativity.

The category-wise break up is: seven metals in the 'Print Craft', including six bronze and one silver, four in the 'Direct Category', including one gold, two silver and one bronze, four in 'Print Single' (one silver and three bronze), three in 'Film Single' (three silver and one bronze), one for 'Integrated' (bronze), three for Digital (all silver), and one bronze for 'Branded Content'.

A metal in the 'Film Single' category is the highest recognition an ad campaign can get and is the metaphoric equivalent of receiving an Oscar for say best actor or director. It was therefore, a very special moment for both Times Group and Taproot Dentsu, when four silvers were announced for their creative work in the category.

Speaking to TOI, chief creative officer and one of the two co-founders of Taproot Dentsu, Mumbai, Santosh Padhi, said, "It is an extremely happy moment for us. We are a small firm of 40 and we tallied 40 metals. We may not have eight offices and 1,000-plus employees, but I feel like we are the number one agency."

"Of the 40 metals we won, 23 were for Times Group campaigns," Padhi said, reiterating that the awards had left the team euphoric. Taproot Dentsu designed most of the winning Times Group campaigns.

The award-winning campaigns are: '#kolKOTHA (Ghyan Ghyan: PNPC; Jutki Torko)' in 'Print Single', '#kolKOTHA (Cholbe Na, PNPC and Boktrita)' and Rudaali in 'Film Single', 'Double Dholki', 'Driving Me Crazy', 'Times LitFest Delhi - the tale of two cities', 'Times Visual classifieds', 'Waiting for you', 'Khilona Rack' and 'Dil Se Gaana'.

#KolKOTHA, literally translating to tales of Kolkata, was a series of three films that aimed at creating that local connect for The Times of India, Kolkata. Using local parlance, the campaign touched on all that was relevant and dear to the Bengalis, whether it was their 'muri' and 'limericks' or their unending strikes. The advertisement struck the right chord.

Mumbai Mirror's 'Double Dholki' and 'Driving me crazy' were the brand's gutsy take on social issues, much in keeping with its image.

'Double Dholki', a nationwide campaign, emanated from the fact that the youth today are fed up with society's double standards. For this, Taproot Dentsu came up with the idea of designing memes that celebrated the hypocrisy of public personalities of immense standing like say Narendra Modi or Aamir Khan. The idea was such a huge success that eventually Taproot designed a meme generator website where the 'aam aadmi' could go and design their own memes!

On the other hand, 'Driving me crazy' was a more Mumbai-centric campaign targeting traffic violations and nuisances.

As co-founders of Taproot-Dentsu, Padhi and Agnelo Dias, said, finally it was quality that ruled the Abbys.

Radio Mirchi's campaign 'Rudaali' by ad agency McCann World Group India projected Mirchi's core philosophy no matter how bad the situation, the Mirchi listener is always happy.

National marketing head, Radio Mirchi, G G Jayanta said this ethos was first exemplified in the 2007-08 'gutter ad' that showed a man working in a gutter, but still singing happily. 'Rudaali' continued this series. The campaign showed young rudaalis (professional mourner at funerals), just unable to cry, much to the exasperation of the older rudaali 'amma'. The reason is revealed at the end of the ad; they are secretly listening to Radio Mirchi on their headphones.

It was rated the best ad of 2015 by Brand Equity, and it was again rated best ad in the week January 23 to 29, 2016 by Brand Equity. It also won the silver at the 'Adfest Asia Pacific' awards held at Bangkok in March 2016. "We are happy to have won the award along with McCann," he added. The ad was the brainchild of McCann's creative director Kapil Batra.

TIL's campaign 'Dil Ka Gaana' by ad agency M&C Saatchi February won it for best use or integration of music including music in original branded content, branded integration into music distribution or promotion. Vice president and head marketing for Times Internet Pratik Mazumder said, "We broke the campaign in June 2015 and ran it till December. It was India's first episodic musical love story which played out over six months. The episodes traced the lives of these two young protagonists, who were brought together because of their sheer love for music."

The creatives were made in-house by Pratik with music played by Amit Trivedi, and was the second campaign after the 'Bajna Chahiye Gaana' brand was launched. The Gaana campaign became the number 1 brand of choice in music streaming and recorded an aggressive growth of usage.