Indiantelevision.com Team

(6 May 2006 6:00 pm)

MUMBAI: The Mirchi Kaan Awards had ample display of the Can-do spirit at the JW Marriot Hotel in Mumbai's posh Juhu area last night. The Kaan Awards in their third year are meant to reward creative excellence in radio.

And it was McCann Erickson which bagged most of the honours pocketing 17 of the mike shaped statuettes under various categories. The agency took away one gold award for Pears Oil Control face wash under the toiletries and household category.

McCann also took home 10 silver awards for creative excellence in radio for categories such as beverages (Coca Cola), business products and services (Tata Indicom Smart P.C.O). and media (NDTV India - Sawal, NDTV India - Vishwas, NDTV India -Awaz, and NDTV India -Koshish).

The agency also took away seven bronze awards, apart from winning the agency of the year honour hands down.

Lyricist and McCann creative titan Prasoon Joshi (remember Thanda Matlab Coca-Cola) was conferred with the the radio writer of the year honour.

Words find a life with a voice that imbibes in them tone, emotion and bass,which in turn increases the involvement of the listener. And those did it the best were recognised as the radio voice of the year. The two who emerged tops were O&M India group president and national creative director Piyush Pandey (SBI Life Insurance) and Salim Ghouse (NDTV).

Interestingly, Pandey, after bagging the award uttered, "Being part of the jury I believe Raghuveer Yadav deserves this award." Yadav gave his voice for the ad-- Hutch --Hutch Delhi Marathon.

Under the special award, which was presented by Rang De Basanti director Rakeysh Mehra and the Femina 2004 -'Miss Beautiful Smile' cum bollywood actress Tanushree Dutta, NDTV scored the client of the year, Rediffusion DY&R, picked up the Crystal Award of the year, while Musica was awarded as the production house of the year.

O&M picked a gold award for Hutch --Hutch Delhi Marathon (after) under the sports, entertainment, travel and leisure category and a silver award for Hutch Delhi Marathon (before 2) under the same category.

On the other hand, the agency also bagged four silver for SBI Life Insurance (Grandmother), (Lakheerein), (Ramleela) and (Honeymoon). It also bagged five bronze awards under several categories.

Contract Advertising bagged one silver award for the radio ad spot on Toon Disney (Alphabets). Everest Brand Solutions Pvt Ltd took away two silver awards under the household sector for ING Vysya Dividend Fund (Voice) and ING Vysya Dividend Fund (Godfather).

Rediffusion DY&R won a silver award for the naukri.com -Pyare Mohan Jingle Bhai.

Leo Burnett bagged a silver award for Heinz Tamato Ketchup and three bronze awards for other radio ad spots.

Radio Mirchi received 550 entries from across India compared with 350 entries last year.

Entertainment Network India LTD MD and CEO A P Parigi said, "The third Kaan Awards was special because entries were received from all large agencies including Ambience, Contract, Euro RSCG, Everest, JWT, Leo Burnett, Lowe, McCann Erickson, O&M, Percept, Rediffusion, among others."

He added that it was a great feeling to have the crème de la crème of ad agency creative heads to be present for the judging, which was a testimony to the fair and objective procedure followed in the Kaan Awards. Ernst & Young was the notary and auditor while Ad Club Bombay lent its support in organising the judging process.

The jury included Abhijeet Choudhury, Agnello Dias, Elsie Nanji, Gangadharan Menon, KS Chakravarthy (Chax), KV Sridhar (Pops), Mohammed Khan, Piyush Pandey, Prahlad Kakkar, Prasoon Joshi, R Balakrishnan (Balki), Rajat Dholakia, Ram Madhvani, Ram Sampath, Ravi Deshpande and Rekha Nigam.

Click Here to view the slide show
The glamour side of Radio Mirchi Kaan Awards Night