AD Agencies
Wavemaker and HUL bag top honours at Emvies 2022
Mumbai: Wavemaker and Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) grabbed the top honours at the 22nd edition of Emvie Awards, organised by The Advertising Club on Friday at Taj Lands’ End here. The much-anticipated event celebrated the very best of strategic, ground breaking and high impact media campaigns by media agencies in the year gone by.
Wavemaker with 395 points was recognised as ‘The Media Agency of the Year,’ while also bagging the Grand Emvie for Mondelez India Foods for the Cadbury Celebrations – Not Just a Cadbury Ad (Best Response to Covid-19).
Mindshare with 375 points stood second and Lodestar with 160 points stood third.
HUL was declared as ‘The Media Client of the Year.’
‘The Best Implementation Team of the Year’ award went to Wavemaker for Mondelez India Food for Cadbury Celebrations – Not Just a Cadbury Ad
This year, The Advertising Club (TAC) received 1,054 entries with around 25 agencies participating in the competition to win the prestigious media award. More than 1,200 professionals from the media, marketing, advertising and research fraternities, witnessed 26 gold and 51 silver Emvie trophies being presented to the winners in addition to 42 bronze winners receiving recognition.
Google, the ‘presenting sponsor’ instituted special recognition for work done in the area of “Inclusion.” The campaign that bagged the honour was McDonald’s – Eatqual – One Bite Closer to Equality by the agency DDB Mudra Group. This will be a regular category in the Emvie entry form from the next year, it was announced.
The Times of India Group instituted the Pradeep Guha trophy for the category ‘Young Emvie of the Year.’ The Pradeep Guha trophy was on stage by Partha Sinha- president, Dia Mirza as distinguished guest, and Papia Guha, wife of the late Pradeep Guha.
Emvie Committee chairperson Aditya Swamy said, “It is the privilege of The Ad Club to shine the light on the best work in our industry and it is our endeavour through our award shows to inspire our community to keep raising the bar.”
“It’s great to be back on the ground. The energy was infectious and the agency and clients had an excellent time celebrating the spirit of excellence. The winners were not only just best in class in India but they were of global standard. No wonder Emvies is called the Oscar of media awards,” said The Advertising Club president Partha Sinha.
The awards were presented by Google, powered by Colors and in association with The Times of India.
The entire list of the winners is as given below:
1. EMVIE 2022 Agency of the Year
2. EMVIE 2022 The Client of the Year
MUMBAI: Mar-tech network Wondrlab Network is in talks to acquire advertising major Madison World, according to media reports, in a move that could reshape India’s agency landscape.
In a statement shared with Social Samosa, Wondrlab Network founder and CEO Saurabh Varma, confirmed that the group is actively evaluating acquisition opportunities but declined to confirm any specific transaction.
“We have consistently stated that Wondrlab is building for scale, and acquisitions remain an important part of that strategy. We are in discussions with multiple companies across capabilities that strengthen our platform-first, full-funnel marketing and technology offering. Any development will be communicated at the appropriate time,” Varma said.
Wondrlab has pursued acquisitions as part of an ambitious plan to buy 26 agencies across three phases. In 2025, it completed its seventh acquisition, underscoring its appetite for inorganic growth.
According to reports, Madison founder Sam Balsara is seeking around Rs 1,000 crore for the agency. If the Wondrlab deal goes through, it would rank as the largest acquisition of an Indian agency by another Indian agency.
Wondrlab was launched in November 2020 by Saurabh Varma, Vandana Varma, and Rakesh Hinduja. Its first acquisition followed swiftly with the December 2020 purchase of Amit Akali’s creative shop, What’s Your Problem.
Since then, the group has steadily expanded its footprint. It acquired influencer marketing firm Opportune and performance marketing agency Neon in 2022. In 2023, it bought Salesforce consultancy and data analytics firm Cymetrix, alongside Poland-based WebTalk, marking its entry into Europe. It later added influencer marketing agency OPA and, last year, took a majority stake in BigStep Technologies, a generative AI and cloud-native software firm.
Madison, meanwhile, has long been a target for global advertising groups. Over the years, it has drawn interest from WPP, Publicis Groupe and Dentsu. In May 2025, Havas was reported to be the frontrunner, with an offer of about Rs 700 crore for a majority stake.
Earlier talks with WPP in 2015, when Madison was valued at roughly Rs 500 crore, collapsed over valuation and equity differences. Discussions with Publicis and Dentsu also failed to yield a deal.
