The judging will be conducted by a broad segment of industry professionals, comprising of names known for presiding over a section of awards Cannes, the most recognised awards for the advertising fraternity the world over.

Entertainment Network (India) COO Prashant Panday said, “Category building is an important aspect of radio advertising. With a visible lack of any awards instituted to laud excellence in radio advertising, we decided to institute these awards last year. Our objective is to provide a forum through which the advertising industry can showcase its creativity, reward individual accomplishment, and set new standards against which future advertising will be judged.”

McCann-Erickson regional creative director south and south-east Asia Prasoon Joshi said, “Presentation of awards is solely on the basis of merit and is not mandatory in any category. Thus some categories may have more than one winner whereas other categories may not have top winners. Interestingly, in the first year of these awards, none of the entries qualified for the GOLD category, because of the sheer paucity of talent. But clearly radio advertising has evolved over the last one year as is obvious from the sneak preview of the entries received this year.”

The 20 categories will look at the best in radio advertising. Meanwhile the crystal award will go to the Agency of the Year.

Radio Mirchi will sponsor two radio creative writers below the age of 30, to the Cannes Advertising festival. The panel of judges will comprise professional from advertising stalwarts and names in the business including Abhijeet Choudhary, D Ramakrishnan, Elsie Nanjie, Gangadharan Menon, K.V.Sridhar, Mohammed Khan, Piyush Pandey, Prahlad Kakkar, Prasoon Joshi, R. Balakrishnan, Rajat Dholakia, Ram Madhvani, Ram Sampath, Ravi Deshpande and Rekha Nigam.

There are special awards for the most outstanding voice of the year, radio writer of the year, excellence in production and client of the year. Last year's winners included McCann Erickson, JWT Bangalore, Euro RSCG, and Everest Mumbai.