Bhaskar Group has announced Srijan Advertising, Indore as the winner of ‘Think Negative’ contest 2008.
Aimed at promoting awareness, the objective of the contest was to encourage advertising agencies to produce creative ideas that through communication will lead to actionable directive with the audience.
The contest is an extension of the Group’s philosophy to mobilize the masses to bring about a positive change in the society. Part of the Zidd Karo initiative, the contest through its ideas seeks to change the perception of the people towards AIDS and HIV positive people in the society. In its third consecutive year, the awards received an overwhelming response with over 250 entries from agencies across the Country.
The entries were judged by the stalwarts of the advertising fraternity including Bobby Pawar, (NCD, Mudra Advertising), Priti Nair (Managing Partner, BBH India) and K.V. Sridhar (NCD, Leo Burnett India), Ravi Deshpande (Chairman & CEO, Contract Advertising) and Ayaz Memon (Editor, DNA). The judges as per brief looked at the insight and what impact the creative will have on the reader pushing him toward a defined action against prevention of AIDS.
The esteemed panel selected around 10 entries for the final round of judging and at the end announced Srijan Advertising as the winner for its thought-provoking campaign ‘Negative Beginning’. The team of Manish Gupta, Creative Director, Raj Jain, Art Director and Barkha Jain, Copywriter bagged the honors on behalf of the agency. Another entry from Srijan and an entry from Grey- made the merit List.
Speaking on the contest, Sanjeev Kotnala, Vice President and National Head, Marcom, Bhaskar Group, said, “AIDS is a social issue that is hidden, and a large section of population is not aware of the realities as it is not among the issues that get openly discussed, like sex and condom it is still a social taboo. The only way to control the spread of AIDS is through awareness of actionable directive and guidelines. We, at Bhaskar, recognize our responsibility towards the society and hope that through this contest – which helped us get a multitude of approaches on the same subject and judges who helps us chose the one they feel will impact the audience most, we shall be able to help people take some concrete action in this fight against AIDS”.
In addition this is the first time I had seen judges so involved and deliberating for a long time to decide the final winner. This is also first time that as per the wishes of judges, who felt that the merit entry from Srijan had a brilliant idea / insight but would make a far greater impact- if crafted a bit better and hence we shall be asking the merit winner to make a few changes before exposing the communication to our readers.
Commenting on the win, Manish Gupta, Creative Director, Srijan Advertising, said, “The initiative taken by the Bhaskar Group is unique and a very important step towards spreading AIDS awareness. We hope this contest goes a long way and helps in curbing the spread of the disease.”