Ogilvy came up tops in four of the 13 categories at the fourth edition of Kantar’s Creative Effectiveness Awards India unveiled on Thursday, 4 July.

The agency bagged the ‘Most Creative & Effective TV Ad’ laurel for its work for HUL’s Ponds Dreamflower. It also won awards in the food & beverage and personal care verticals and ‘Unstereotype’ (female) category for Choco Chips, Colgate Max Fresh and Dove respectively. 

McCann Worldgroup won the ‘Most Creative & Effective Digital Ad’ for its ad film for Maggi, while also winning in the ‘Adaptations for South’ category for its work for Complan.

The winners’ list, which included the most effective and creative work from India in 2023 had 10 standout performers in the Television ads category and four in the Digital ads category. 

Kantar tested more than 12,000 creatives of 2023, of which over 11% (1,400+) were tested in India. The India report of the marketing data and analytics company shortlisted close to 300 ads, tested across categories, markets, TGs and media channels. 

Soumya Mohanty, managing director and chief client officer- South Asia, Insights Division, Kantar said, “Earlier this year, Kantar launched the Blueprint for Brand Growth– a breakthrough understanding of how businesses build strong and profitable brands. One of the growth accelerators for building strong brands is to pre-dispose more people. Great advertising builds pre-disposition and loads the dice in favour of the brands. Creative content can and should punch above its weight”.

Prasanna Kumar, head of creative domain and executive vice president- South Asia, Insights Division, Kantar, added, “Truly creative ads are the ones that are effective. The journey from being just creative to being effective starts by including your key stakeholders - your target consumers, into the process by pre-testing your ads. This year we have seen some original creative ideas shine through by ensuring that they have brand and consumer at their heart.” 

Television categories included food & beverage, home care, personal care, services and unstereotype. New categories introduced included ‘original creatives for south’, ‘adaptations for south’, ‘most creative and effective TV ad’ (overall) and ‘most consistently effective advertiser’. 

Creatives for digital continued to grow this year as well, stated Kantar, with awards for standout performers in four categories- three based on ‘ad length’ format and one for the most creative and effective digital ad.

Here is the full list of the Creative Effectiveness Awards India 2024 winners: