Chennai: MMA India, a part of MMA global the world’s leading not-for-profit marketing trade body with a heightened focus on the future of marketing, today unveiled 2021 shortlist for SMARTIES India in its tenth edition. SMARTIES is the only global mobile marketing awards platform honoring outstanding innovation, creativity, and success. The winners will be announced during SMARTIES on September 24, held virtually.
126 entries have been shortlisted from across 23 categories under four key themes – marketing objective, media channel, technology, and creative awards. This year, MMA also introduced a new category on ‘Contextual/Native Advertising’, assessing brands in terms of advertising on a website that allows them to fit into – and not disrupt – the audience experience. Submissions were received from various sectors including FMCG, OTT, retail, BFSI, technology amongst several others. Smarties this year in India witnessed a 40% increase in entries as compared to last year.
Those shortlisted for this year’s Awards include brands like Google, Unilever, Intel, Discovery, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Disney + Hotstar, Aditya Birla Capital, HDFC Bank, Swiggy, UltraTech Cement, Fossil, MX Player, Amazon Prime Video, amongst other leading national and international brands. The leading agencies that worked in collaboration with these brands are Mindshare India, iProspect, Madison Media, Omnicom Media Group, Kinnect, and several others. The full list of shortlisted entries can be found here.
This year’s jury was led by Hemant Malik – Divisional Chief Executive – Foods at ITC Limited and comprised of up to 25 senior-level brand marketers. Some of them included Meghna Apparao – Chief Business Officer, Licious; Ajay Kakar – MMA India Board Member; CMO, Aditya Birla Capital Limited; Moneka Khurana – MMA India Board Member; Country Head – India, MMA; Tarun Jha – Head of Marketing, Skoda Auto India; Rohit Dadwal – MMA India Board Member; Managing Director – APAC, MMA; Prabha Narasimhan – Executive Director & VP, Home Care – South Asia, Hindustan Unilever Limited; Roshni Das – MMA India Board Member; Director – Marketing, Intel India; Girish Kalyanaraman – Vice President, Brand Operations, P&G India; Sunil Suresh – CMO, Make My Trip; Shilpa Dureja Puri – Director Marketing – Luxury, Flagship & Ecosystem, Samsung, amongst others.
Moneka Khurana, MMA India Board Member; Country Head – India, MMA said, “Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, the large number of entries that we received this year demonstrates how marketers have remained adaptable and innovative. It has been a pleasure to collaborate with the panel in identifying the most innovative ideas and campaigns that delivered business success whilst keeping the customers at the forefront”.
“The jury panel, including myself, were impressed by how each of the shortlisted campaigns leveraged mobile’s interactive capabilities to deliver real business results. SMARTIES is the only platform where from a local or regional entry you can compete at a global level”, added Hemant Malik, Divisional Chief Executive – Foods, ITC Limited and Jury Chair at SMARTIES 2021.
Rohit Dadwal, MMA India Board Member; MD – APAC MMA APAC, said “The selection showcases the most intriguing and forward-thinking work in the digital space lead by mobile. It is always exciting but a challenging task to review the campaigns based on innovation and creativity, along with their capabilities to generate tangible and quantifiable business results for brand marketers. The smarties are an appreciation of the great work submitted and shared by the industry leaders who are helping shape the future”.
