The Judges decision is FINAL!

The campaign was a roaring success; the cause seemed to be close to many hearts. It was encouraging to see the number of people that reacted to a debate that has been raging in India for decades. The steps to enter were simple, log on to www.photosindia.com or click on the link sent in the mailer and you will reach a landing page where details of the contest were given. Further on there was a simple registration form and that took the designer to the page were our images were available for downloading. The designer could select any one image that inspired them, then download it and start making a difference.

The registrations were in triple digits and the response was as good. By end of week 1 we had more entries than we had imagined, it brought a sense of peace to all of us. The contest ended in a fortnight and we were swamped with designs, one better than the other. The entries were scrubbed of all personal information about the entrant and submitted to our revered judge Mr. Namchu, who has recently joined Contract Advertising as ECD. He was kind enough to respond within days and then we had our 3 big winners. All of us unanimously agreed with his decision, we were happy to see path breaking visuals and ideas come out of a campaign open to all.

I had the pleasure of meeting our 1st prize winner Ms. Garima Arora the week after announcing the results; we wanted to personally hand over the prize. We had a nice chat over coffee and I was happy to learn that Garima was in the corporate sector and had no formal design training. She definitely fooled us because her creative was impactful and extremely easy to absorb. Garima came across as a proud, hard working, focused young woman, much like the women we hope all our daughters will grow up to be, provided we let them and support them. Having lost her father 5 years ago, I could see the pride and confidence he had imbibed in his daughter and I knew his presence was with her. I guess that is what propelled her to become the winner.



To be honest, the 2nd and 3 rd prize winners were no less creative, imaginative and opinionated; one ad just had to stand out. On that note we would like to congratulate Aanton from RK Swamy BBDO, the winner of the 2nd prize. Unfortunately I don’t know under what mindset Aanton created his visual piece because I would love to, his entry was so highly thought provoking and bang on. Apart from the endangered tag what got me in the gut was that women are truly another species, well maybe not scientifically but socially they are.



This entry was outstanding because it addressed the issue in the language that is understood by a large section of Indian society, the people responsible for causes like ‘save the girl child’ to be actually become a cause! Done by Pranav Harihar Sharma and Amol Dhanukar, this Ad had the sensibility to promote an acute design sense and power of local lingo, loved it! I also especially liked their choice of enterprising women, perfect balance of eras and professions.



We hope you liked the entries, we hope they spoke to you the way they spoke to us and I hope this message doesn't end with the campaign.