Indiantelevision.com Team

(28 September 2006 5:30 pm)

MUMBAI: Grey Worldwide India has won a bronze in the travel and tourism category at this year's EACA Euro Effies Awards for its global Incredible India campaign 2005-2006 in a ceremony held at Brussels. This is also the first advertising agency in India to win a Euro Effie Award.

Announcing the win, Grey Worldwide COO Ashutosh Khanna said, "Winning a Euro Effie is in itself a great feeling and being the first agency in India to be honoured with this award makes the win much more special. It also is affirmation of our ability to deliver synchronized solutions across the board. The Incredible India campaign brings together Grey Worldwide, G2, Grey Interactive and Mediacom to deliver a truly impactful campaign as well as a new benchmark in effective communication."

The winning campaign, commissioned by the Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, was aimed at persuading affluent travelers from the USA, Europe, Asia Pacific and the Middle East to visit India for tourism. It used a combination of three disciplines: advertising in print and outdoor media, interactive marketing activity and direct mailing. Ayurveda, yoga, festivals and fairs of India and wildlife were the key attractions highlighted in the campaign.

A combination of mainstream and niche offerings was chosen to be highlighted in the campaign so as to meet varying need states of the target audience. In addition, the Incredible India campaign has also previously won the Travel and Leisure Highest Recall Worldwide award.

Grey Worldwide National Creative Director Prathap Suthan said, " Even getting nominated for the Euro Effies was an achievement. Winning it has been better, and being the first ever Indian agency to do this has been remarkable for Grey! This has been the combined effort of all our departments along with our clients- Amitabh Kant and Leena Nandan. What makes this moment even better is that last week at the World Travel Awards in the Caribbean Islands, India was voted as Asia's leading destination, and the commercial was voted as the World's Leading Travel Destination Television Commercial. All of this essentially should redefine the potential and the trajectory of this campaign from now on."

The Euro Effies programme supports and promotes the role of commercial communications as an effective and efficient use of marketing resources. Introduced in 1996 to reward advertising that builds brands across borders, the Euro Effies were the first pan-European advertising awards to be judged on the basis of effectiveness. The Effie award, introduced in 1968 by the New York American Marketing Association and now celebrated in 30 countries, is the symbol of proven advertising effectiveness and a tribute to the client and agency partnership.