The Hindu Business Line : AAAI & young creatives

The Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) seems to be taking its job of encouraging creativity amongst its younger elements rather seriously. One recalls the two or three consecutive years where it held a contest, and sent the young winners on an all-expenses paid trip to the Cannes Advertising Festival.

It is now doing an encore with the Asia Pacific Advertising Festival (AdFest). A contest has been announced and the winners will be winging it to Pattaya Thailand to rub shoulders with the who's who in the creative field and absorb some of the best work created in the region. A wonderful effort indeed.

For those who came in late, the AdFest is an annual creative bash held at Pattaya where creative excellence in the region is recognized and honoured.

Fortunately, the killer waves spared this "fun-town". One is told that everything in this tourist hot spot, whether it is eateries, hotels or even the main road, nestles just yards away from the azure ocean. A tsunami here would have had horrendous results.

Victoria will keep you posted with the results of the contest.

Incidentally, an insider tells us that the AAAI had grandiose plans to host a regional creative contest of its own. Nothing much seems to have happened, though newspaper reports mentioned that Mr Piyush Pandey had been appointed as Chairman of this committee. Well, a Chairman does not make a festival, as the President of the AAAI must be learning.

Au Revoir Andre

Andre Nair appeared on the Indian scene two to three years ago.

This was the time when the WPP companies (JWT, O&M, Contract, to name a few) were centralizing their media business through Mindshare. Heading Mindshare was an enviable job. One media heavyweight remarked that controlling so many hundreds of crores of media business would make Nair one of the most feared men in the industry. He couldn't have been further from the truth. The pony-tailed Indo-French expat endeared himself to everyone with his infectious laughter and his willingness to help.

Whether it was the AdAsia or the AdClub events or even the NRS, on which Andre spent many hours of his time, one marvelled at his cheerful countenance and his enormous patience.

Andre has moved out of India. He will be based at Singapore, but promises to visit India often. A round of farewell parties bore testimony to his popularity. Au Revoir mon ami.

ABBY days again

The ABBY awards from the Advertising Club Bombay are the mother of all creative awards in India.

And the process to present them has begun. The call for entries have gone out in the Club's magazine Solus. One can almost visualize the excitement as every agency starts preparing its portfolio of entries. Every year the Club witnesses a veritable downpour of entries. And with good reason. The Abbies, over the years, have been acknowledged as the most prestigious creative award one can aspire for.

O&M and Pandey's men in black must be preparing to launch one more attempt to retain the Creative Agency of the Year title they have been taking home for the last several years.

One is waiting with bated breath to see if Balki and his merry men at Lowe will pick up the gauntlet this time or just remain satisfied with the laurels they won at the Triple A awards. Lowe has stayed away from the Abby awards for some time now. And O&M has kept out of the Triple A awards. If they were both WPP agencies one would have thought they were conveniently carving out the turf between them.

Tsunami relief

Mumbai is known to have a lot of money. It also has a heart.

Every third person one meets these days seems to have shot off to Chennai and the flood-ravaged coastline below it and has heart-rending first-person accounts of the damage.

Almost every person one meets seems to have dipped into their pockets and shelled out something for the affected people.

One is pretty sure that every single person in Mumbai's advertising industry has done his or her bit to help out in this massive tragedy.

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