Media Abby Awards: Lodestar Universal, Mudra Max win top honours

CAVELOSSIM: Lodestar Universal and Mudra Max have been awarded with three golds each for Media Abby at Goafest 2010, the maximum catch for any agency this year.

Tata Nano, the cheapest car in the world, blessed Lodestar Universal with three golds - for mix media strategy, print and radio.

For Mudra Max, the golds came for their work on Big Pictures’ Paa (television) and Aircel (which won one each for outdoor & ambient media and special event & stunts/live advertising).

Meanwhile, Maxus took home the maximum metals, aggregating to 11.
 
The agency won one gold for its work on Vodafone (radio) and five silvers for Vodafone (television), Tata Sumo Victa (cinema), Nokia 5800 Xpress Music (radio), Nokia Music store (Internet & Digital Media) and Nokia Xpress Music 5130 (sponsorship).

Additionally, Maxus won five bronze metals for its work on Nokia N97 (cinema), Nokia 6700 Classic (branded content), Red Bull (special event & stunts/live advertising), Nokia 5800 Xpress Music (radio) and Nokia 6700 Classic (branded content). 
 
This year’s Media Abby received 484 entries against last years’ 415, a 15 per cent increase. The jury of 65 members, headed by Lodestar Universal CEO Sashi Sinha, pared this number down to 81 and finally 39 metals were awarded. Of the 14 categories, awards were given for 13, with no award for the best use of vertical category.
 
The handing over of the awards came with a twist, or an additional delight - the winners of metals had to ring a UTV Bindaas gong either on or after receiving the award.

"Quality wise, entries from mixed media and internet were quite good, while those from television were of middling to average quality," revealed Sinha during a media interaction. "There is no Grand Prix for the media awards at Goafest," he added.