Business - Advertising;The Gunn Report 2008: India drops to No 17

Noor Fathima Warsia

One would have thought that after campaigns like Lead India and Luxor that have won Indian agencies an unprecedented number of awards in the last year, India would have scored higher in the Gunn Report 2008, which ranks agencies and their works after combining the winners’ lists across most of the important award shows. However, Indian agencies would be a tad disappointed with the results as the country has slipped from being the 15th most awarded country in 2007 to the 17th most awarded country this year.

Some top-line numbers with exchange4media shows that two Indian agencies that have scored better than last year are O&M India and JWT India. To be specific, O&M Mumbai and O&M Delhi are the 20th equal this year, as opposed to being 45th equal in the last year. This implies a marked improvement for the agency on the international award ranking. JWT Mumbai, which did not even feature among the top 50 in the last round, has ranked 43rd equal in this year – again quite a few notches up for the agency.

There were no Indian ads among the top 25 Interactive Awards. Among the top 50 most awarded TV ads is Nike Cricket (Traffic), which is ranked No. 36. This ad was done by JWT Mumbai. In Print, Luxor Highlighters ranked No. 21. Leo Burnett Mumbai had created this work.

This year also marks the completion of a decade of The Gunn Report, an initiative conceptualised and realised by Donald Gunn, who is now amongst the regular faces that one sees at India’s own award festival – GoaFest. Till 2006, The Gunn Report was based on combining the winners from most of the important award shows for TV and for Print, encompassing Press and Outdoor. Last year, Interactive was added to this mix. This year, based on agency and industry feedback, The Gunn Report added a fourth component – All Gunns Blazing.

All Gunns Blazing combines everything that goes under the labels of Integrated, Mixed Media, Innovative, Content and Contact, Titanium, etc. Industry officials can order The Gunn Report and Showreel to get a more detailed analysis