Pitch Top 50 Brands Awards: An evening with corporate top shots

Yesterday I got a chance to witness a live award show, the Pitch Top 50 Brands awards is an annual property of Pitch, from the exchange4media group which rewards Top 5 brands across 10 categories. The awards acknowledge the impactful, efficient and commendable marketing practices pursued  by the brands over a year of time. The winners are shortlisted from a variety of brands from big corporate like Tata, Hero MotoCorp, Mahindra & Mahindra to relatively small startups such as Practo, OYO rooms etc.

Initially 300 brands were selected across categories in Tier 1 process which was further halved to 150 brands in Tier 2 process after that Top contenders were finalized to further reach at the final Top 50 brands for the year 2016. After you scroll down a bit and see the list of Top 50 brands you will realize how tough a job it was for the Jury which included brand heads and cheif Marketing officers from organizations like Godrej Consumer, PolicyBazaar, Micromax, Renault, Hero MotoCorp etc, to reach to a consensus over the final 5 names in each category.

The host for the evening was energetic beauty Suparnaa Chadda who kept the audience engaged through out the process. I was fully impressed when amidst the corporate English environment she started with Saraswati Vandana in Sanskrit (या कुन्देन्दु तुषार हार धवला, या वीणा वर दण्ड मण्डित करा  ). 

@simplysup is hosting #top50brands and with drum rolls we start the event. Watch it #live https://t.co/7HnL09O7Xs pic.twitter.com/AC5mAuAtf8

— e4m (Events) (@e4mevents) July 22, 2016

After that Mr. Naval Ahuja from Exchange4Media group addressed the audience and wished all finalists. The event couldn't have been such successful without the partners and they were duly thanked on the stage before anything else occupied the stage. The partners for the event were Sakshi Media Group as Gold Partner and Associate partners were 9XJalwa,blogmint, FirstPost, IndiaToday, Laqshya.

The theme of the event was "The Power of Content Marketing" and the same was discussed in a panel of speakers like Avik Chattopadhyay, co-founder Expreal (moderator for the discussion), Anand Ramakrishnan, Head -Content & Digital Marketing, HCL Technologies, Satinder Juneja, VP- Sales & Marketing, NIIT Technologies, Radhika Binani CPO, PolicyBazaar.com. Mr, Satinder Juneja, recited a Hindi poem during the discussion which perfectly defines the power of content marketing.

"राह पे उनको लगा लाये हैं बातों में , कुछ और खुल जायेंगे दो चार मुलाक़ातों में । "

The Panel Discussing - "The Power of Content Marketing"

Word 'control' is irrelevant for today's consumers, they are self aware AND you simply can't control em- Ashwin #top50brands @theblogmint

— Rahul Kasana (@RahulKasanaTech) July 22, 2016

The discussion concluded with emphasis on need to co-create the content with individual content creators as each one of us have the power to create and can be a broadcaster.

The chief guest for the evening Mr. Mahesh Giri, National Secretary BJP and MP from East Delhi arrived shortly after, he addressed the audience in Hindi and emphasized on the work done behind a product by the brand awareness team which includes content creators, PRs, marketeers etc. Mr. Giri, presented awards for five of ten categories before he left for the day.

Top 50 Awards - Chief Guest, Mr. Mahesh Giri Addressing the audience

Below are the list of award winners across the categories. Please note that there is no rank here as all the winners are judged as equal in each category.

Bottom of the Pyramid	Master Connectors	Digital Strategists	Disruptors	Affluent
AAJ TAK	BROOKE BOND RED LABEL	AMAZON INDIA	AMAGI	ARMANI
BIG BAZAAR	CADBURY	FACEBOOK	AMAZON KINDLE	AUDI
COLGATE	COLORS	HOTSTAR	OLA	JAGUAR LAND ROVER
HERO MOTOCORP	HONDA MOTORCYCLE & SCOOTER INDIA (HMSI)	OLX	PATANJALI	MERCEDES-BENZ
PARACHUTE	RADIO MIRCHI	PAYTM	POLICYBAZAAR	PORSCHE
		YOUTUBE	PRACTO

Social Contributors	Impactful Debuts	Evergreens	Globetrotters	Resurgents
HINDUSTAN UNILEVER	ABOF	AMUL	BAJAJ AUTO	BRITANNIA GOOD DAY
MAHINDRA & MAHINDRA	BALENO	FAIR AND LOVELY	GOA TOURISM	HAVELLS
MARUTI SUZUKI	HYUNDAI CRETA	RAYMOND	HERO MOTOCORP	MAGGI
MAX BUPA HEALTH INSURANCE	RENAULT KWID	SAFFOLA	MICROMAX
RELIANCE INDUSTRIES	ROYAL ENFIELD – HIMALAYAN	STATE BANK OF INDIA	TATA GROUP

After all the awards were announced we had dinner waiting outside for us with Cocktail and all, without wasting any time we had our dinner and headed back to home with a new experience and memories to keep. Thanks blogmint for providing me with this opportunity.

Why and How I was there?

As mentioned earlier, Blogmint was one of the associate partners for this event. Blogmint is a influencer marketing program connecting brands with Influencers. I am registered with them as an influencer  and have participated in few of their campaigns. This time I got a request to cover the event , the task was exciting for me and I happily obliged to do that.