This year, two agencies, Ogilvy and group agency rmg david struck metal at the One Show, considered the Oscars of advertising. Ogilvy and rmg david belong to the WPP group, reportedly the largest in the world, with many leading agencies intricately linked in its holding.
The winning creatives were in the outdoor and film categories, where Ogilvy won a silver in public service, with an ad for “second-hand smoking kills,” while rmg david took the second Indian silver with a film for its client Essar.
Good pickings indeed, considering that Indian creative in mainline categories rarely fetched big awards. It also does a lot of good to the morale amongst creative, whose constant gripe has been that international judging panels could never understand Indian creative. A jubilant Piyush Pandey who, until recently, was the national creative director of Ogilvy and is now the president, calls this win a reaffirmation of the quality of Indian creative.
But have the gags gone away? “Look at what has happened to the brand Fevicol,” retorts Pandey. With a client who backed them to the hilt, Ogilvy has managed to create some great work for a mundane product like Fevicol, a glue. Indian advertising, says Pandey, has to work in a variety of markets at the same time: from the man in Nariman Point to the man in remote Naraingaon. This tough task has led agencies and clients to choose the lowest common denominator. “Breakthrough creative gives way to safe creative...always,” rues Pandey. Countries like Singapore or Brazil, who have managed to gather in quite a few pencils in the past, have to speak only one language and to a fairly unified audience.
Has Indian advertising then managed to speak to the rural audience, which still contributes a massive 70% to the GDP? Or is it still egging on the spending urban customer to spend some more? “The urban markets are slowly getting saturated, and clients are now seriously looking at the rural markets,” says Pandey, whose agency was among the first to establish a rural marketing wing. “These markets are media-dark, where conventional media fails, and we need to invent new ones.” With the mobile phone companies strongly investing in the rural markets, other industries are bound to follow.
While these awards have managed to bring Indian creative to international arenas, the industry itself has yet to foster a structured design education within the country. Mudra, the Reliance-supported agency, has a school of communications in Ahmedabad, while Lowes (erstwhile Lintas) has set up a school in Lonavla. Apart from these, only the few old schools like the National Institute of Design and the JJ School of Arts continue to bring fresh design talent to the market. This is bound to change, says Pandey. With clients now looking at advertising from a fresh perspective, and the markets making new demands, there will be a constant need for fresh talent.
Other agencies who managed to win a Merit award at the One were Leo Burnett, Ambience D’Arcy and Quadrant. Will this streak continue even into next year?
