Inside Abby Awards 2024 Powered by One Show with Ajay Kakar

As the Abby Awards 2024 Powered by One Show enters its 55th year, the Advertising Club celebrates its 70th anniversary. Ajay Kakar, Chairperson of the Awards Governing Council for the Abby Awards 2024 and Managing Committee Member of The Advertising Club, shares the journey and aspirations of these awards.

This year they received 3,506 entries from 273 companies. This includes 1,258 entries from 73 media agencies and 2,248 entries from 198 creative companies. The New age categories such as Digital, Mobile, and Technology garnered 626 entries from 75 companies, making up nearly 20% of the overall entries.

The story 

Reflecting on the long-standing history of the awards, Kakar noted, "The Advertising Club is 70 years old this year and the Abby Awards is in its 55th year”

Kakar attributes the awards' success to two main factors. He said, "For any institution or organisation to survive and flourish for so long, you have to be a brand, and a brand is nothing but relevance and being contemporary.”

Another key distinction of this awards is their industry-centric focus. Kakar said, "We are the only award that I know of which is for the industry, by the industry, and of the industry. Most awards are business platforms or commercial platforms. So this is to promote our own industry." 

To ensure that the awards evolve in line with industry needs and trends, they actively seek and incorporate feedback from industry partners.

Explaining their annual process, Kakkar said, "Every year, what we do also, we start with the open house where we call all our partners and ask them last year was great, what should we do next year, and that becomes our agenda for next year." 

The jury

Kakar believes to evaluate such high-calibre work, a robust jury is essential. "Any award is as good as its jury," he said. There will be 23 categories, each with its own jury chair, and a total of 204 jurors. Among these jurors, 68 are women, representing 33% of the jury. Additionally, two of the jury chairs, Kate Stanner and John Austin, are international. Nine are women, constituting 40% of the chairs.

Kakar highlighted that the focus isn't just on gender diversity but also on youth and contemporary relevance. "We have 53 new young award-winning judges introduced to the process for the first time," Kakar said. This accounts for 26% of the jury, comprising individuals who, despite their youth, have already made significant names for themselves in the industry.

Returning titans and new alliances

One of the highlights of this year's awards is the returning of major agencies. "We've also got Lowe Lintas who never believed in creative awards for many decades. We also have McCann Worldgroup India, DDB Mudra, Famous Innovations," said Kakkar. 

"We've got all these big agencies participating, some of them choosing to come back, some of them choosing to come back in much larger numbers than ever before," Kakar added. 

As the Abby Awards 2024 Powered by One Show steps into another year, they continue to celebrate the best in advertising, fostering innovation, and setting benchmarks for excellence in the industry.