The Hindu Business Line : Whose awards are they anyway?

Asking for these NDAs is itself shocking. One would imagine these leaders of the advertising industry would have the honesty and integrity to protect the sanctity of the most prestigious creative awards event in the country the industry has to offer.

And then, having signed these NDAs, a business daily flashes the names of some of the award-winners in a page one story days before the GoaFest has gotten under way.

The industry is aghast at this disclosure.

I am hardly surprised. We saw it coming, guys! Every inch of the sordid way. And we chose to trivialise it, wish it away, ignore it, even mildly justify it.

We saw it rear its ugly head when leading agencies chose to wage discount wars against one another, all the time piously protesting the practice of discounting commissions.

We saw it leer at us in the many minimalistic advertisements created not for clients, but only for awards.

We saw it sniggering at us as leading creative brains defended shameless scam advertisements and spineless agency heads held up technical shields before them.

We saw it baring its fangs every time agencies swore by rules that prevented senseless pitches to immature clients, and then ran to be the first to peddle their ideas, conveniently forgetting this was the only real asset they had to offer.

We saw it smile sanctimoniously each time when the chairman of a jury panel did not hesitate to submit the entries of his agencies two days before the judging, and several days after the official cut-off date to submit entries.

We saw it shrug its weak shoulders every time a management consultant was called in to ideate, and an agency was called in to implement.

Oh yes, we not just saw it, but allowed it to grow in strength not realising the harm we were doing to ourselves as an industry.

And what about publications which think it their “dharma” to publish scoops like this on their front page? First, it is their dharma to publish any information that is in the interest of the public.

They are then playing their rightful role as the Fourth Estate. It is most certainly not their dharma to try and make weak people cheat after signing NDAs.

And in whose interest is this news anyway? It only serves to position the advertising industry as a bunch of spoilsports you cannot trust.

Apart from taking the interest away from an industry event, featuring such stories is not going to sell a single extra copy or get a single additional column centimetre of space.

It’s not too late. The industry could still use this as a wake-up call set on ‘snooze’ and introspect.

Just think about what we have reduced ourselves to and what kind of a corner we have painted ourselves into.

And if anyone wonders why I am all hot under the collar, I might remind them I headed both the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and the Ad Club Bombay, and I think they are great institutions doing a fine job for their constituents, and it bothers me to see them getting a bad name because of a few bad apples.

If any of the younger agency types feels a little ashamed of their leaders who have been so patently dishonest, we may be looking at the light at the end of a tunnel.

(The writer is a communications consultant.)

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