At 40, Abby goes for the young in mega rejig

NEW DELHI: Abby, the Ad Club of Bombay’s (ACB) creative award, is in for a major rejig. The 40th edition of the awards, virtually the ‘Oscar’ of Indian advertising, to be held in March 2007, will introduce a full international section in ‘Abby Asia’, open to all Asian agencies.

And that’s not all. For the first time, ACB is also introducing an award category for young creative professionals, under 30 years of age, in ‘Young Abby’, besides launching a completely new category in ‘Ambient Media’.

“The move to go international is to reposition Abby as an international standard out-of-India, much like AdFest is from Thailand,” says Ajay Chandwani, chairman of the Abbys judging committee and COO Percept.

The awards for the international section will have limited categories and will be open to entries from countries such as Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Middle East, besides all of SAARC and may even include Japan.

The Abbys would get on board international judges for this category, only from the creative discipline as is the case with Abbys domestic judges, a practice it adopted last year. The Abbys this year too will follow last year’s procedure of open judging.

Another significant inclusion in 2007, Young Abby, will be open for creative individuals and teams, and not for agencies.

Interestingly, this award would not be judged on work already done but on the basis of a brief provided in the awards entry forms, to be out early Jan 2007, with winners here getting a trip to Cannes (gold winners), One Show (silver) and D&AD (bronze).

Last year, there was much furore in the Indian ad world after Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) pitched its Cannes-style festival-type AAAI awards, GoaFest, against the Abbys, which till then practically had a monopoly in the ad industry as far as creative awards go.

The imbroglio between ACB and AAAI had split the Indian ad world right at the middle, with loyalties clearly drawn out as Abby-agencies and non-Abby agencies.