MAM
Social Samosa award-winners announced
MUMBAI: Social Samosa, one of India’s leading news aggregator on social and digital media industry, has announced the winners of its first edition of Best Social Media Brand Awards, via a Facebook Live stream event.
The first edition of the awards saw entries from more than 130 brands across 16 categories which include Automobile, Cement, B2B, Beauty, BFSI, eCommerce, Education, FMCG, Food & Beverage, Healthcare, Media, Real Estate, Retail, Tourism & Hospitality, Technology, and Telecom.
The journey of creating this formidable benchmark for the social media industry involved a pragmatic analysis of the nominated brands’ engagement on key social media platforms using Unmetric, a rigorous evaluation across parameters from our distinguished Jury Members and Social Media Voting powered by Newsfeed to adjudge the brand’s popularity among social media savvy users.
Social Samosa head Hitesh Rajwani said, “We thank all our participants and winners from the entire team at Social Samosa. We hope to scale to larger heights in our next edition.”
Dentsu Aegis Network chairman & CEO – south Asia and Posterscope chairman Ashish Bhasin said, “The quality of their work was good and the jury had a tough time choosing the winners.”
Hungama Digital Services shared CEO & CCO Carlton D’Silva, commented, “Digital Advertising being a part of our daily lives, most of the entries seemed very familiar to me but I was enlightened by the thinking behind most of the winning campaigns. I particularly liked the Ola and the Zomato Campaigns.”
Brand curator Lata Subramanian said, “I hope that these brands serve as case studies to help other marketers understand the role social media can play in building brands.”
Social Samosa had partnered with Unmetric to power the Best Social Media Brands Index, Treize Communications for media outreach and Newsfeed SmartApps for online voting.
MAM
VML India lands two finalist spots at Cairns Hatchlings 2026
The Mumbai agency is back in Australia with two teams, a UN brief and 24 hours to impress
MUMBAI: VML India is heading to Australia again. The Mumbai-based creative agency has secured two finalist spots at the Cairns Hatchlings 2026 competition, one in the Audio category and one in Design, making it the only Indian agency to have reached the finals in both editions of the contest since its launch in 2025.
Four people will make the trip. Senior copywriter Shilpi Dey and senior art director Raj Thakkar will compete in Audio. Art directors Shabbir and Shruti Negi will go head-to-head with the world’s best in Design. The finals take place at the Cairns Convention Centre from 13th May, culminating in an awards ceremony on 15th May.
The work that got them there is worth examining. For the Audio category, Dey and Thakkar tackled a brief for LIVE LIKE MMAD with a campaign called Inner Voice, Interrupted. Using spatial audio techniques, the campaign recreates the overwhelming self-doubt that descends after a long workday, physically panning negative thoughts left and right before cutting the noise entirely to reveal a confident inner voice. Strategically targeted at commuters via Spotify during evening rush hours, the campaign reframes the hours after work as an opportunity for personal growth and charitable action.
For the Design category, Shabbir and Negi worked on a brief for Canteen’s Bandanna Day, a campaign highlighting how cancer pushes teenagers out of their own defining moments. Using a pixelated design language to create stark contrast between a blurred world of isolation and a focused world of connection, the campaign, titled The Flipside of Cancer, shows teenagers fading into the background of birthdays, skateparks and school proms. As a Canteen bandanna appears, the blur flips and the teenager snaps back into sharp focus.
Kalpesh Patankar, group chief creative officer of VML India, made no attempt to disguise his satisfaction. “We are immensely proud to see our teams consistently excel on the Cairns Hatchlings platform since its inception,” he said. “They have masterfully tackled challenging briefs across diverse categories, demonstrating both layered storytelling and a unique creative approach. This exceptional teamwork is truly inspiring.”
Dey and Thakkar, returning to the finals after last year’s run, were candid about the demands of the audio medium. “It’s one of the most demanding mediums, where we only have a few seconds to capture a listener’s world with sound alone, so absolute clarity is essential,” they said. “The true measure of creative work is its ability to create positive change, and our audio submission was made to help those who need it most while encouraging people to silence the inner voices that hold them back.”
Shabbir and Negi, competing in Design for the first time, described the experience as “a completely different beast.” “We see it as an opportunity to showcase our expertise, raise the bar, and challenge ourselves in new ways, while also learning from creative minds from across the globe,” they said.
In Australia, the four finalists will face a live 24-hour brief from the United Nations before presenting in a live pitch session. Twenty-four hours, one brief, one shot. VML India has been here before. It knows exactly what is at stake.
