At the Effie 2008 awards, JWT India and Bennett, Coleman & Co managed to gather the limelight. The agencies were awarded last night at Mumbai’s Turf Club. The moment was a perfect replay of this year’s Cannes Lions awards. 

The Lead India campaign for The Times of India, revived its magic all over again by claiming four big awards—including the prestigious Grand Effie—that were given last night, following making a good impression on Cannes juries and winning India’s first ever Grand Prix Lion in June this year. 

JWT was immensely helped by the campaign to move ahead of creative powerhouse O&M in order to rise as the Effie Agency of the Year. The rate of Lead India’s strike also got Bennett, Coleman & Co the title of Client of the Year.

JWT and O&M were the two agencies which actually stayed under the limelight during this year’s Effie Awards. Both the agencies won many awards. Ultimately, it was the Grand Effie for Lead India that tiled the balance in favor of JWT and trailed O&M by a slender five-point margin. The Grand Effie was snatched by JWT in order to establish an unbridgeable gap. 

Six of the seven gold Effies that were given away, were taken by JWT and O&M, with Lowe laying its hands on the odd golden gong.

O&m won gold for Bingo! (in the Consumer Products and Integrated Advertising Campaign categories) and Vodafone (in the Services category), while JWT won gold Effies for Lead India (in the Corporate Advertising and Integrated Advertising Campaign categories) and Nike (in the Consumer Products category). 

One gold was won by Lowe for Idea Cellular, in the Services category. Overall, the three agencies dominated the awards, claiming 23 of the 30 Effies that were given away. McCann Erickson, Rediffusion Y&R, Bates 141, Mindshare and Mudra Multiplier, were the other agencies to bag the award for their contributions. 

The three special awards constituted under the aegis of the Effie Awards were also won by JWT and O&M, other than winning majority of the Effies. While JWT was awarded the Marico Uncommon Sense Award (for Lead India) and the Yahoo! Big Idea Chair, Team Bingo!, O&M were adjudged the winners of the Brand Equity Bravery Award for quite popular ‘No confusion. Great combination’ campaign for Bingo.