The Hindu Business Line : Ad Club Bombay turns golden

THE Advertising Club Bombay is literally the mother of all Ad Clubs in India. With over 2,000 loyal members representing advertising, marketing and the media, it sometimes lays claim to be the biggest Ad Club of its kind in the world. Since I do not know how many clubs "of its kind" there are all over the world, I will not dispute the claim.

The golden jubilee of an association like the Ad Club is really something to make a song and dance about. After all, it has been at the heart of the advertising world in Mumbai and, with its Abby awards, is a truly national entity.

My association with the Ad Club begins with memories and then morphs into a hectic phase when I was a committee member for a year, Hon. Secretary for a year, Vice President for a year, President for two years, Past President for two years and Chairman of the Abby Award function for two years. That's almost a decade of active service.

But the memories first. I recall Bobby Sista telling me that he was the first member of the Ad Club Bombay. That was a long time ago, and it was in an era when members of the advertising community openly stated that media persons should be kept out of the Club. Well, with media driving change in the industry it was impossible to keep them out. In fact, Parameswaran (Reader's Digest, not FCB) was one of the first persons acknowledged with pushing the affairs of the Club into the mainstream of the industry and establishing its credentials as a force to reckon with. Just two years ago, Bobby Sista was honoured by the Ad Club at a glittering awards function when the president was yet another illustrious media person.

Digging deep into the recesses of my memory, I recall the pugnacious Amol Bose saying that he actually got a client of his to organise "bridge finance" for the Club to buy its own premises for the first time. The first committee meeting I attended was in that little office in a dingy bylane of Flora Fountain, and sitting on a little wooden chair I was reminded of my school days. Listening to Arvind Sharma lecturing me about how Solus magazine should be edited (I was about to take on the editorship) only confirmed the illusion. Anyway, the same Amol Bose had the pleasure of inaugurating the second new premises of the AdClub, at Opera House. By this time, the Club had a big conference room with comfortable executive chairs.

There was also a phase where getting an executive secretary for the Club was difficult. Retaining them was even more difficult. I was told that successive Presidents got so comfortable with their executive secretaries, they took them along with them when their term ended. This was finally settled when the incumbent was recruited, the secretariat was beefed up and the nomenclature was changed to General Manager.

On a serious note, the Ad Club was known for its "tea meetings," its annual awards function, a workshop called `Advertising Works" and its magazine Solus.

It has a come long way since those days. The annual awards were branded Abby awards (the brainchild of Shanta Kumar of Saatchi & Saatchi), the tea meetings are nowadays held only at five star venues (a trend begun by Pradeep Guha), the Advertising Works seminar has evolved into an award (in my term) and then evolved into the Effie awards, and the magazine is now a flourishing publication that comes out regularly (thanks to Bhaskar Das) and actually earns the Club considerable revenue. I recall editing the Solus magazine for five years. A mercurial young lady called Mahrukh was a great help for a couple of years, but the real credit should go to a one-man editorial team called Homi Rogers. With art works and production being provided pro bono by my agency, paper and printing free, courtesy the efforts of Karl Mehta, it was hardly surprising that I managed to make it a profitable enterprise.

Not many people know that the Abby awards were born amid quite a storm. The managing committee loved the name, and the design for the award (created by Gopi Kukde). However, several veterans felt that the Abby was actually "shabby" (a word used in public) and I recall sitting through a stormy meeting in Vivek Goenka's office where senior members of the fraternity (I was still junior) aired their views frankly on whether the award should be called Abby or not. The point to note is that anything concerning the Club was a matter that transcended the confines of an Association. It was something the entire industry was interested in. Things were amicably settled and today the Abby is really the biggest creative award in the country.

Talking about the Abby, this is one award function that would warm the cockles of the heart of any advertising person. Where else would you find more that 2,500 advertising lovers assembled at one place, irrespective of level and affiliation cheering excellence in creativity?

The Club seems to have cracked the formula of the event comprehensively. Celebrities add glamour, entertainment is a must, and the awards are the hero. Speeches have to be kept to the bare minimum. Even chief guests are not allowed the luxury of long speeches. I once had the uncomfortable task of escorting Arun Shourie, who was the chief guest, and having to tell him that we loved his lengthy writing, but the audience preferred five-minute-speeches. The gracious Shourie accepted what I said, kept to his time slot but embarrassed the life out of me by narrating the whole incident in his column soon after.

Amitabh Bachchan, Kamal Hassan, Kapil Dev, Aishwarya Rai, Shahrukh Khan and Aamir Khan have all graced the Abby stage. Kapil with a speech straight from the heart and Shahrukh with his impromptu humour were my favourite speakers. Which other event can boast of Miss World's like Lara Dutta and Diana Hayden as comperes? Education, public service, creative Ad Reviews, and awards like the Effies and Emvies. The AdClub Bombay packages it all together with panache. And, of course, in a way that keeps its membership rising. The worlds biggest club of its kind, remember?

(The author heads

Canco Advertising.)

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