International Advertising Association's (IAA) India Chapter is holding the sixth edition of its IAA Leadership Awards in Mumbai on Friday, July 27, 2018.
An annual event, the leadership awards function will recognise and honour leaders in business, marketing, advertising and media. The event is expected to see some of the most prominent names in the corporate and media sector making their presence felt.
Presented by the Zee Group, the event will also celebrate outstanding achievements of individuals and teams.
Speaking with DNA Money, Ramesh Narayan, president, IAA, said, this is a five-year-old property and is in the sixth edition this year. "The idea is to acknowledge, salute leaders who have really changed the game as far as marketing goes across various categories. That's because at the end of the day, these are the people who are actually driving the entire economy," said Narayan, adding that the power-packed event will witness the crème de la crème of marketing who will be flying down from all over India.
IAA has identified 14 award categories ranging from auto, mobile devices, e-commerce, consumer durables, cellular services, fast-moving consumer goods, food, beverages, home care, retail, banking, finance and insurance. A comprehensive marketer's award, it includes companies in all the business categories from across India. Accordingly, it will be the chief marketing officer or the person designated as the head of marketing who will receive the awards on behalf of their organisation.
"We have a very good jury who are all leading and hands-on marketers themselves. They have deliberated on the basis of some parameters given to them and have arrived at their conclusion. You will have an event with 14 of India's top marketing luminaries under one roof. That apart, we also have seven other awards that are not connected with marketing," said Narayan, adding that the other award segments honour game changers in business, media, advertising and entertainment.
Among the non-marketing recognitions is the 'business leader of the year' award which is the biggest of all. Interestingly, it was won by Mukesh D Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries last year and in the year before it was Aditya Birla Group chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla.
"These awards are not judged by the marketing jury but a collegium of the past presidents of the IAA itself. We will be honouring Piramal Group chairman Ajay Piramal as the business leader of the year," said Narayan, adding that IAA is the only body of its kind that has advertisers, advertising agencies and the media as its members.
The last award will be an induction into IAA's Half of Fame. And this year will see the doyen of Indian advertising industry Sam Balsara getting inducted. Others who have been inducted into the IAA Hall of Fame in the past years include Pradeep Guha, Ramesh Narayan, I Venkat, Bharat Patel and Srinivasan Swamy.
