The winner of the top Direct Lotus award, handed out in Tokyo last week, was Mumbai-based Contract Advertising India, for its ‘Donkey Thrashes Tiger’ campaign for Sanctuary Asia magazine.

The satirical, integrated campaign encouraged the youth of India to vote online at www.newnationalanimal.com for a rat, goat, monkey or donkey to replace the tiger as the country’s national symbol. It was part of a drive to show how tiger numbers are dwindling and to push the government to help tiger conservation.

The initiative harnessed TV commercials and virals, print ads, posters, emails and sms, networking groups, radio and fun events around the country and used celebrities including the Indian cricket team to push the message. There was also a signature campaign in schools, colleges, shopping centres, theatres and railway stations.

The campaign became a talking point across social media, television and radio and millions of people voted for their choice of animal to ‘replace’ the tiger. There were almost 1.3 million votes on the web and more than 6.2 million ‘on-ground’ signatures. 

The petition has been delivered to the prime minister’s office, proposing that the donkey be made India’s new national animal. ‘We are awaiting his response,’ organisers say.

The Asia Pacific’s 2010 awards event in Tokyo saw seven jury panels scrutinising almost 3,000 entries. It was the first time AdFest had moved its jury session outside Thailand in the festival’s 13-year history. Political unrest and demonstrations there had pushed the decision to shift the awards event to Japan this year.

Ted Lim, executive creative director and deputy chairman at Naga DDB Malaysia, was among the judges. He said: "In Asia, there are a large number of quite small agencies comprising ten to 50 people – agencies that do not have the funds to enter their work in big award shows like Cannes and D&AD. AdFest plays an important role here, because it is comparatively affordable. These smaller agencies could be producing Cannes material, so ADFEST is a good place for their work to be spotted."

All Lotus winners and finalists can be viewed online: www.adfest.com