The men in black did it once again!
At the Abby Awards 2004 held on March 20 at the Tulip Star hotel in Mumbai, Ogilvy & Mather, the mega advertising firm, bagged a total of six golds and 16 silvers to emerge as the Agency of the Year. McCann Erickson was a poor second with two golds and four silvers.
Leo Burnett with two golds and two silvers and RMG David with six silvers jointly stood third. Rediffusion DY&R bagged five silvers while Enterprise Nexus won two golds. Ambience Publicis bagged four silvers.
Besides bagging the prized Campaign of the Year for Hutch, O&M also won the coveted Creative Advertiser of the Year for Hutch, and the Best Continuing Campaign - gold and silver for Fevicol and Orange respectively.
An elated Piyush Pandey, O&M group president and national creative director said: "It was an expected win for us."
O&M also won awards for Close Up, Cadbury's Chunky, Tata Safari Exi, Ad Asia campaigns.
McCann won the gold in the Beverages and Tobacco category for the Coca Cola 'Paanch matlab chota Coke' television commercial and for Sweetex in the Outdoor category. McCann's Public Service ad for Our Lady of Fatima Church fetched the agency a couple of silvers. O&M's 'kathakali' TVC for Eno also won the gold in the Best Television Single Ad in the toiletries and household care category.
The Ogilvy team dominated the INS Think Print Awards too. While the gold was won by Heetal Dattani and Ranjeet Sasidharan of Ambience Publicis, the silver went to O&M's Amol Ghotkar and Lovella Rebello. The bronze in this category was also bagged by O&M's Dileep Cherian and Priyanka Bhattacharya.
This year the Abbys also saw a new category -- Brand India -- for which also O&M grabbed a gold and a silver in the campaign category. In the press category Grey Worldwide jointly won the silver with Concept Communication.
The O&M team traditionally wears black.