Kaan Awards: 750 entries received across 15 categories

Televisionpoint.com Correspondent | Mumbai
Even as millions of Indians exercised their franchise on Thursday in the first of the five-phase Lok Sabha elections, a galaxy of personalities from the advertising world too voted to nominate the best work for the Mirchi Kaan Awards.

In its sixth year now, Mirchi Kaan Awards, instituted by Radio Mirchi, has emerged as a sole platform which lauds and celebrates the best work in radio advertising. If 2008 was the 'March Against Mediocrity', then 2009 at the Mirchi Kaan Awards is aptly aimed at Vote Against Mediocrity. The award function will be held on May 8 in Mumbai.

For the Mirchi Kaan Awards 2009, the juries undertook a rigorous evaluation process, which involved listening to over 750 entries across 15 categories vying with each other for the Gold, Silver & Bronze awards.

The other awards include Client of the Year for the most outstanding advertiser of 2008, Radio Writer of the Year, Agency of the Year, Production House of the Year and the Voice of the Year awards.

And to top the list, the Single Crystal Award will be awarded to the most outstanding Radio commercial of the year. Some of the categories covered under the awards are foods, beverages, business products and services, health and cosmetic care and consumer durable to name a few. Leading agencies like O&M, McCann, Leo Burnett, JWT and others have sent their best work in radio across categories.

Commenting on the entries, Prashant Panday, CEO, Radio Mirchi, said over the years, the quality of radio ads has shown significant improvement. "Radio advertising is now far more included in multimedia campaigns unlike earlier times," said Panday.

On the work side, Prasoon Joshi, executive chairman, McCann Worldgroup India, said radio is also showing the finesse like print and television . "The entries reflect that radio is no longer an afterthought and is a serious medium in the entire communication plank," he said.

Even for some members who participated as jurors for the first time, the experience was an eye opener.

For Agnello Dias, co-founder, TapRoot India, it was the first ever Mirchi Kaan Award jury duty and the quality of work, according to Dias, was impressive. "Earlier, radio received a step-motherly treatment. But the quality of work is so good that some can easily become audio track of a film."

The jury for the Mirchi Kaan Awards 2009 comprised of Agnello Dias, Ashish Khazanchi, Deepa Krishnan , Gullu Sen, Josy Paul, KV Sridhar, Prahlad Kakkar, Prasoon Joshi, Priti Nair, Ram Sampath, Ramesh Ramanathan, Rekha Nigam, Shantanu Moitra, Suguna Swami, Sunil Thoppil and Prathap Suthan.