ABBY awards: O&M is Most Creative Agency — SAARC nations participate
Mumbai: Ogilvy & Mather (O&M) has been voted as the 'most creative agency' status for the sixth year in a row by the Advertising Club of Bombay at its 38th Abby Awards.

The agency has bagged 26 awards, including seven golds, 16 silver, two special golds and one special silver accumulating 41 points. It was followed by Rediffusion DYR with seven awards and Everest Integrated Communications with five awards. Both shared eight points each.

The advertiser of the year award was shared by telecom major Hutchison Max and Pidilite Industries. While Bombay Chemicals followed them, Perfetti Van Melle India was judged third in the race for this category.

Hutch - Network 2004 campaign created by O&M bagged the golden Abby for the campaign of the year, while the Tortoise Mosquito Coil's campaign from Everest Integrated Campaign received a silver award.

In the category of outdoor advertising, the gold was given to McCann Erickson for its Big Babol billboard and the silver was won by Ambience Publicis for its Sanctuary Asia Lonely Tree ad.
Ogilvy & Mather also bagged both silver and gold for best continuing campaigns. While the Fevicol campaign was selected with a golden Abby, the Amaron Batteries campaign was given the silver.

Radio Advertising saw three silvers each won by JWT for its Spice Ambulance ad, Everest Integrated Communications for Mango Bite Sholay and Colgate Fresh Energy Gel pick up lines ad.
The Advertising Club of Bombay also honoured a new set of winners. The awards had drawn entries from advertising agencies across Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Phoenix Ogilvy from Sri Lanka witnessed a clean sweep by winning every gold and silver award in the best of Sri Lanka Advertising category.
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Air India Express and Air Arabia lure traffic with low fares
New Delhi: Air Arabia, the low cost airline of Sharjah, has announced an introductory one-way fare of Rs2,999 for the Sharjah-Mumbai sector which will be valid at least till mid-May. Also, the airline is offering a one-way fare of Rs5,242 to Kuwait and Rs4,941 to Bahrain.

As part of its strategy of wooing travellers to the region, the airline is offering a return airfare of about Rs16,000 to Alexandria. The regular fares on offer by the airline are less than those charged by conventional airlines operating in the Gulf .

AI Express is looking at offering tickets at rates that would work out about 25 per cent cheaper than what is charged by conventional airlines in the market. However, unlike other global low-cost airlines, AI Express will offer a complimentary "moderate but decent meal" to passengers.

The airline plans to operate not only to various cities in the Gulf and West Asia, including Dubai, Muscat, Salalah, Bahrain, Doha and Kuwait, but also popular holiday destinations in the Far East such as Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.

The airline is said to start operations with three leased Boeing 737 aircraft, even as it is moving ahead with the process to acquire 18 such aircraft. The airline is hopeful that acquisition of the aircraft will start in the latter half of 2006.

However, unlike AI Express, Air Arabia has a fleet of five Airbus A-320 aircraft. And while the AI Express aircraft will have 181 seats, the Air Arabia aircraft will have 150.

In order to cut operating costs both the airlines are looking at operating to destinations which are about four or five hours away from the home country.

While these two low-cost airlines have already announced plans, there are several others including the Malaysian airline, Air Asia, which are keen on starting regular flights to and from India.
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Vanaspati: FDA test samples imported by Gujarat Ambuja Exports
Mumbai: The Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has "prohibited" the sale of vanaspati worth Rs6-7 crore from Gujarat Ambuja Exports' Bhiwandi godown on suspicion of the consignment being sub-standard, according to the FDA Commissioner, A. Ramakrishnan.

This stock of vanaspati of 1.7 lakh tins (of 15 kg each) was imported from Sri Lanka. FDA officials visited Gujarat Ambuja Exports' Bhiwandi godown and took samples from this imported batch for testing. The test results are expected in a couple of days and FDA's further course of action would depend on the outcome.

According to Ramakrishnan, samples taken from the market were found to be sub-standard, so the FDA visited the Bhiwandi godown on Saturday and took samples for testing. The FDA is suspicious that it does not consist of sesame oil, but may have, instead, a large quantity of palm oil.

Last week, the FDA had asked Johnson & Johnson to drop the mention of `Baby' from its products as they contain mineral oil harmful for infants. FDA said it was planning to put more products including cosmetics under the scanner.
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