The quest for creative awards

Several senior creative executives recently were given the boot from one of India’s largest advertising agencies. Their crime? They produced some ‘inappropriate’ advertisements for a leading global brand of cars, just to win awards. The brouhaha was less because of the ads but more because the guys got caught as this was a common practice in the advertising field.

The quest to win awards for creativity starts from one’s childhood. For instance, the school fancy dress competition. The complacent (or lazy?) mother enters her offspring as Gandhi, pirate or Mother Teresa. Easy ones with raw material readily available at home. Unfortunately for the child, the competition comes up with a toothpaste tube, or caterpillar or even a tree with a sign proclaiming “Save the environment. Join the chipko movement.”

The other platform for a creative prize is the school exhibition where samples of children’s SUPW projects are displayed. This actually reflects the mother’s inventive talent and not the child’s. For his project my younger son had to make a model of a house. My wife, in turn commissioned her architect cousin to design something exotic. The result was a Spanish hacienda which my son submitted as his handiwork without an iota of guilt.

This competitive spirit continues in adulthood and manifests itself rather strongly in people in artistic fields like advertising and films. For a creative person awards help in career advancement and also in fattening one’s wallet.

A person aspiring to become a hotshot copywriter is brought down to earth within a few months of joining an advertising agency. What he or she thought of as a great idea is dissected and filtered, first by the client servicing executive and then the client. The first signs of frustration start here. It is particularly more so while handling international FMCG brands because the creative work ends up going through a committee. The end product has a nil chance of getting any prize for creativity.

By the seventh year or so the copywriter just goes through the motions of writing. That is the time when every copywriter through generations writes inane headlines like, “The soap with a difference.” Or “The better noodle.”You can substitute any product in these headlines.

I once made the mistake of taking my creative director to a presentation. He took it personally when the campaign was rejected and got into an argument with the client. He later blamed me for not ‘selling’ the campaign strongly enough.

My time in the sun (or almost) came several years back. I had won an award at the Advertising Club, Mumbai. Luckily I was in that city on the day of the function. When my category was announced I got up from my seat. To my surprise I found that my colleague from the local office had made his way to the stage and collected the award and got photographed with the chief guest. Later I found that he was not aware of my presence. At least he had the grace to hand me the trophy.

The advertising awards season will start soon and you can be sure that murmurs of a ‘fixed’ match will manifest itself from the losers.