It’s difficult to believe that the Kyoorius Creative Awards is happening without Anant Rangaswami. While it’s the energy and drive of Kyoorius whole-and-soul Rajesh Kejriwal, its Rangaswami (Anant, to his friends) who ensured that the Kyoorius becomes a name to reckon with in adland as well. Until then, the paper merchant had earned its stripes with an excellent conference for the folks in design. Called Kyoorius Designyatra.
Happening this evening (Friday, May 24) is the 11th edition of the Kyoorius Creative Awards (KCA). As many as five dozen jurors populated the juries for varos disciplines and categories. All the jurors are listed at: https://www.kca.kyoorius.com/kca24-jury. KCA has also introduced the Next Jury, a group of six creatives from the industry who were given a chance to attend and shadow a jury group from start to finish. According to a communique, the aim of the exercise is to expose participants to the nitty-gritties of the judging process, and help them understand what it takes to be a juror – to be able to distinguish great from good.
So what’s new this year? “Besides various tweaks to the existing and popular award disciplines and categories, the eleventh edition of the Kyoorius Creative Awards also introduced new specialist awards for Health and Pharma, Regional Advertising and Creativity In PR.”
And how many entries? Kyoorius received over 3600 entries from over 280 entrants to the awards this year, the highest ever since it started. Only 1060 entries made it to the First List after the first round of online judging.
What else is new? The GiveBack initiative. For every entry that did not make it into the First List (i.e. beyond the First Round of judging) at the KCA, Kyoorius is giving back 50% of the entry fee to the entrant. According to an industry insider, Kejriwal is said to be paying back around Rs 1.25 crore to entrants.
Post the in-person jury session, 282 entries emerged as winners of the Baby Elephant (In-Book winners). How many win a Blue Elephant, or if a Black Elephant (equivalent of a Grand Prix) will be seen at the Awards Night. There are no golds, silvers or bronze medals. Instead, only the work that deserves recognition wins an Elephant.
“GiveBack was not just a campaign idea for us – it was a way to recognise the pain points when it comes to award shows. We’ve already started the process and entrants are receiving their GiveBack money. We took this initiative to make the Kyoorius Creative Awards more accessible to smaller agencies and have recorded the highest number of entries this year,” said Rajesh Kejriwal, founder and CEO, Kyoorius.
And, yes, Zee is the sponsor of the Kyoorius Creative Awards. The fact that it continues to be its primary benefactor despite all that the entertainment conglomerate has gone through speaks a lot for Zee and Kyoorius. And the friendship of the two bosses.