MUMBAI: It was indeed a memorable evening. Memorable for those who won and even for those who attended. The 3As of I awards held in Mumbai's Taj Land's End Ballroom on 6 March 2003 had glamour, glitz and guts.
Glamour and glitz in the form of filmmaker Ismail Merchant,Vivek Oberoi and Ashutosh Gowarikar, and of course the numerous CEOs of ad agencies and marketing companies who made it a point to attend the award function.
Guts in the form of the fact that the 3As of I went ahead with the awards despite the fact that O&M, Leo Burnett India, Quadrant Communications, Lowe, Publicis Ambience, Lemon, Euro RSCG India and Contract Advertising chose to abstain. Sponsored by Star India with The Hindustan Times and Dainik Jagran being associate sponsors, the awards function nevertheless had a classy yet pulsating feel to it with advertising professionals opting for formal togs and cheering in sync with the music everytime their peers went up to collect an award.
The maximum cheers went out for McCann-Erickson, Enterprise Nexus and Mudra - agencies which walked away with a clutch of the small triangles. Rediffusion DY&R also pocketed many awards but the cheers were not as loud.
The four agencies cornered more than than three-quarters of the awards, with McCann and Enterprise walking away with all five golds awarded. McCann had the added pleasure of being associated with the Copywriter of the Year and the Advertiser of the Year awards, while Enterprise did itself proud by winning the lone Grand Prix Silver in the International Jury Awards category.
But the standout campaign of the 2002 was the Coca-Cola one which featured actor Aamir Khan in the ‘Thanda matlab…’ series. McCann Erikson and its national director Prasoon Joshi got a bagful of trophies for their efforts.
Among the 13 jury members for the eighth 3AAAs of I Awards were, Indu Balachandran (JWT), Agnello Dias (Leo Burnett), Prasoon Joshi (MccANN Erickson), Deepa Kakkar (RK Swamy BBDO) and Kaushik Roy (Mudra). Among the six members for brand performance awards jury were Arun Adhikari (HLL), Sam Balsara (Madison Communications), Sarang Panchal (AC Nielsen) and Bharat Patel (P&G).
The international jury that decided on grand Prix winners had Christopher D' Rozario (JWT, New York), Neil Johnson (DDB Worldwide, Singapore), Milka Pogliani (McCann Erickson, Milan), Piyush Pandey (O&M, India) and Mohammed Khan (Enterprise Nexus, India) among others.
The host for the night was Kaushik Roy.
