By Shephali Bhatt
The Ad Club is celebrating ’15 Glorious Years of Emvies’ this year. Emvies doesn’t just award excellence in media planning, it celebrates the business of communication. It sees expats tweaking flight schedules to make sure they’re present to cheer their network. The energy, in all these years, has been infectious to say the least. But do the case study presentations, get the same love? Let’s find out: Just a day before the presentations, we saw this tweet on our timeline: https://twitter.com/S_kotnala/status/637942894318485504
We agree time is a luxury not many media professionals have but INTRADIA consulting’s Kotnala, an ex-media man himself, makes a valid point. The case study presentations were spread over five days this year with at least 30 cases presented everyday. That’s great wealth of information for agencies (and their competition.) Or as Punitha Arumugam, agency director of media business at Google India and chief organiser of Emvies puts it, “Attending Emvies case study presentation is like going to a classroom.” Now, the choice between sitting in a classroom and attending a party is easy. But making a difficult choice might ensure a better reason to party next year, no?
The participation has only improved over the years, says Arumugam, adding that most attendants are perhaps busy rehearsing for their presentations which is why you see lesser people in the room sometimes. But that’s a sign of how seriously they take their job at the dais. “We have to devise ways to get all of them back in the room though,” she admits.
Come One, Come All
Shekhar Banerjee, SVP and head – media at Madison Media Infinity and Pinnacle, observed a poor turnout on Day 1 but attributed it to inertia. “You always have a full house for prestige categories like Strategy and Integrated,” he points out. Perhaps the categories can be better arranged, he suggests, so that not all important ones fall on the same day. He also suggests that 24 Frames Digital – the live webcasting platform for the event – should employ two cameras instead of one, so the viewer sitting in his office can get a better sense of what’s happening. But as long as you can, try and attend the presentation event. More than anything, it allows for interactions with jury members and a sense of what’s being appreciated in real time.
The Jury Has Spoken
The teams’ presentation skills have been the jury’s pet peeve. It’s not so much about accent and intonation as it is about content and confidence. Says Aditya Save, CMO of Shaadi.com and one of the jurors, “The teams indulge in a kind of jingoism that doesn’t help. They should remember who they’re finally presenting to – the judges.”
(We) Can Do Better
Nikhil Mayne, senior director of branded content at GroupM was one of the presenters this time. He admitted a lot of presentations could be guilty of taking a page out of a dated soap opera script. And then there were those loaded with numbers corroborating the belief: If you can’t convince them, confuse them. “I think we tend to get lost in parameters like ‘reach’ and other numbers when mediums like digital go way beyond that. They are about being able to talk to the right user without causing spillage,” he admits.
Even the analytics data category was marred by similar issues which led to it having a slightly soporific effect on some audience members. “For a data-driven industry, it’s ironic how poor our understanding of using data is,” he adds. Mayne points to an IBM case study they were hoping would win in the data category which fetched a shortlist in ‘social media’ instead. In the next four years, he hopes data will become the most sought after category.
For all that, the Emvie presentations are unique: perhaps the only opportunity for young media folk to hone skills that will certainly be useful during pitches or even workaday presentations. They may create a next generation of media folk who are a lot more confident and articulate than their creative peers – considering the Effies have scrapped live presentations after trying them out for a year.
Between the occasionally lame gags, jokes and inter-agency sniping, there’s often an undeniable youthful exuberance. The best presentations – which may or may not coincide with the most compelling cases – allow young media folk to actually practice one of the most abused words in the business – storytelling.
Pick from the shorlisted case studies
Colgate Palmolive: ‘Sugar Receipt’
Agency: MEC
Category: Best Media Innovation – Events/Experiential Marketing and Best Media Innovation – Direct Marketing
To catch the attention of customers who actually bother to check their bill, Colgate seeded sugar receipts along with grocery bills at select malls. This was to highlight the danger of cavity owing to the extra sugar in their grocery items. Based on the sugar content, consumers were given adequate discounts on Colgate maximum cavity protection toothpaste. The presentation showed a Bengali couple fighting over extra sugar in their bill which was thoroughly entertaining. On day two, the couple was accompanied by a rat on stage but that didn’t deter their enthralling performance. As they say, the show must go on!
Lenskart: Eye for an Eye
Agency: DDB Mudra Group
Category: Best Media Innovation – Events/Experiential
Lenskart organised an eye donation camp specifically inviting transgenders, right after the Supreme Court awarded them equal status as the male and female community. The presentation centered around the thought – ‘Those who can’t see being helped by those who can’t be seen.’
Ariel: Share the load
Agency: Mediacom
Category: Best Integrated Campaign – Consumer Products and Best Media Innovation – Branded Content
Ariel’s claim to have removed the stain of inequality in one wash with ‘Share the load’ was well received by the audience. Bonus points for not dishing out the same presentation on different days given it was nominated in multiple categories. And it’s not just the presentation that shone through, the product sales went up by 60 per cent, they claim.
Lenovo: By Gamers for Gamers
Agency: Mindshare
Category: Best Media Innovation – Digital – Video
Lenovo got top gamers to influence the gaming ecosystem about Lenovo products that have a good processor, illuminated keyboard, high-res display, better sound – all necessary armoury for a dedicated gamer. Where most entries in the digital category spoke about reach, this one made a strong case of using the medium to talk to the right set of people to avoid spillage. The result? Lenovo experienced an 80 per cent increase in traffic on its online store.
Zee News: The Misunderstood Scoreboard
Agency: DDB Mudra Group
Category: Best Media Innovation – Out of Home
15th Feb: India against Pakistan, ICC World Cup. Zee News installed four billboards, one each in J&K, New Delhi, Lahore and Karachi. They looked like manual scoreboards. Only instead of showing the runs each team made, they ended up clocking the total number of lives lost in all the India-Pak battles since 1947. The message: When lives are lost, no one wins. The activity garnered half a million views.
Source:The Economic Times
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