Mumbai: Kyoorius announced the winners of the 2024 Kyoorius Creative Awards, presented by ZEE, at a grand awards night held on 24 May at Mumbai’s Jio World Convention Centre amidst an audience of more than 1450 professionals from India’s marketing communications industry, the highest ever in its history.

No entry was conferred the super-exclusive, highly-coveted black elephant award that recognizes work deemed to be the best of show, though there were two contenders - “Motorola Deep Connect” for Motorola India by Dentsu Creative and “Megh Santoor” for Hindustan Unilever’s Brooke Bond Taj Mahal by Ogilvy India. For the first time ever, they were awarded baby black elephants.  

Kyoorius also commemorated Bharat Ratna, and former Indian cricket captain, Sachin Tendulkar, with the master of creativity award. The honour celebrates cricket’s first true megabrand and a global icon, whose endorsements, brand associations and continued work in sports marketing paved the way for not just cricketers, but most Indian athletes. Instituted in 2018, the master of creativity award recognizes a stalwart who has continuously contributed to making the marketing and communication industry more creative in whatever they do.

Kyoorius received over 3600 entries from over 280 entrants to the awards this year, the highest ever in history. Only 1060 entries made it to the first list after the first round of online judging.

The eleventh edition of the awards will also be remembered for the GiveBack initiative. For every entry that did not make it into the First List (i.e. beyond the first round of judging) at the 2024 Kyoorius Creative Awards, Kyoorius is giving back 50 per cent of the entry fee to the entrant.

Post the in-person jury session, 282 entries emerged as winners of the baby elephant (in-book winners). Out of these 282 baby elephant winners, 89 entries were awarded blue elephants across disciplines. Seven entries were awarded purple elephants as part of the Zee Equality Awards.

Awards by Kyoorius do not follow a hierarchical structure - there are no golds, silvers or bronze medals. Instead, only the work that deserves recognition wins an elephant.

“My heartfelt congratulations to all the winners this year. GiveBack was not just a campaign idea for us - it was a way to recognise the pain points when it comes to award shows. We’ve already started the process and entrants are receiving their GiveBack money. We took this initiative to make the Kyoorius Creative Awards more accessible to smaller agencies and have recorded the highest number of entries this year. While there was no black elephant winner this year, we have two baby black elephant winners to celebrate,” said Kyoorius founder and CEO Rajesh Kejriwal.

“I am pleased to recognise and applaud the immense creative potential of the industry, and further encourage innovation by extending our support to the Kyoorius Creative Awards year on year. At ZEE, we are humbled to play a small role in nurturing the creative quotient through the ‘GiveBack’ initiative, and we stay committed towards supporting the advertising fraternity and celebrating memorable brands and campaigns. I would like to extend my heartiest congratulations to all the participants, wishing them continued success and an abundant creative spirit to create more such enthralling campaigns in the future.” ZEE Entertainment Enterprises Ltd MD & CEO Punit Goenka.

All the winning work can be seen at kca.kyoorius.com.

Besides various tweaks to the existing and popular award disciplines and categories, the eleventh edition of the Kyoorius Creative Awards also introduced new specialist awards for health and pharma, regional advertising and creativity In PR.

Blue elephants recognise work that sets new benchmarks for the industry, and is truly outstanding, while baby elephants recognize disruptive, showcase worthy work. Black elephants are reserved for work that represents the best of show, work that takes risks, creates new conversations and has a lasting impact on the industry.

Purple elephants are awarded to winners of the ZEE Equality Award presented by Indian Creative Women. These awards recognise and celebrate work that has addressed and impacted gender inequality in India through innovative thinking. The colour ‘purple’ signifies justice, dignity and has been historically associated with efforts to achieve gender equality.

The Kyoorius Creative Awards 2024 was presented by ZEE, with luxury experience partner Glenmorangie and is supported by Indian Creative Women. The venue was the Jio World Convention Center, Mumbai.