March 10: The 31st Abby Awards, organised by the Ad Club of Bombay, will be presented at a mega-event on March 20, 1998. Set amidst hype and hoopla the show will be based on the theme of `Passion'. "We want to show that in a hard year like this, the one quality that made the advertising profession go that extra mile was passion," says Ramesh Narayan, president of the Ad Club, for the year.
And to epitomise this passion, read `hard work', the chief guest at the function to be held at Vallabh Bhai Patel Stadium, NSCI, will be none other than actor Kamal Hasan. The venue has been chosen to accommodate 2,500 people -- advertising, marketing and research professionals -- who flooded the Abbys with 3,905 entries in 39 categories. An increase by one category over the last year, as this year, the Ad Club decided to give Internet advertising its due. Though they received only 20 entries, they hope that this will give an impetus to the medium. Calling it the "Oscars of the advertising industry," Narayan, has bigplans for the event. The show will open an hour early with an exhibition -- "showcasing the best advertising of the year".
On display will be the shortlisted ads in all the various categories. "Being nominated is the important thing, winning an Abby depends on luck, chance and so many other factors," says Narayan. Also, 3,500 cassettes made specially by the Ad Club will be distributed at the venue. These tapes will include a remix version of famous jingles through the ages.
So, those present at the function will be able to listen to a hip-hop, techno-rap version of Lifebuoy or Cadbury's ad jingles. Preparations for this event started in October, 1997, when the task of getting 51 judges -- the who's who of the ad industry -- was undertaken. Considering that it entailed 70 grueling hours over one week, orchestrating this get-together was no mean task. For instance, the Best Continuing Campaign, the Most Outstanding Award and the Ad Campaign of the year meant coordinating the schedules of HTA's MikeKhanna, Contract's Ram Sehgal, Enterprise Nexus's Mohammed Khan and marketing research guru Rama Bijapurkar, to name but a few. After that the Ad Club busied itself with laying down the guidelines -- this time they were far more stringent to ensure that no fake ads got through. So, from issuing ads in Solus, the Ad club magazine, to sending 5,000 free copies of the entry form in The Brief, the seven-member secretariat had their hands full.
For the actual event, work starts by end-January but the stage -- 40 ft in depth, 50 ft in width and five ft off the ground -- will be erected only three days before the ceremony.
This year, though the event will be handled by Showbiz , the managing committee will work closely with the ad industry.
"All the managing committee members throw their weight behind this event and that's how this mega-exercise is done within a smallish budget," says Narayan. But the show will be larger-than-life with 10-second films (specially scripted for the show) as breaks,performances by rock stars like Indus Creed's Uday Benegal and a huge audio-visual on passion and the ad industry. The Ad Club will also be honouring three people from the industry for lifetime achievement. The criterion: longevity, contribution, and behind-the-scenes nature of work. "We need to recognise the work done by people who have been around for a long time, specially in an industry that places a huge premium on youth. An industry that forgets its elders will die," says Narayan.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
