challenger brand. Making space for itself

On Monday this week, two advertising industry veterans from India, Srinivasan Swamy and Ramesh Narayan, were awarded the “Inspire” awards by the International Advertising Association (IAA) at a glittering ceremony in London. What would have otherwise been casually passed over as a news-brief makes it to being a full-fledged story, but not because of the two individuals in question.

As the India Chapter of the IAA celebrates its silver jubilee this year, it becomes a case study of an association that found its place under the sun despite all odds. As an association, IAA-India Chapter was not top-of-mind for years, even for many in the advertising business in India. “The recognition for the Indian Chapter reflects the coming of age for the IAA in India,” says veteran ad man Ramesh Narayan.

In the last four years, the IAA India Chapter has won the best IAA Chapter award twice among the 56 chapters across the world. In the last couple of years the IAA has been in overdrive in India. In the last financial year, the IAA organised 32 events in India. In comparison, the other industry bodies like The Advertising Club or The Advertising Agencies Association of India organised less than 10 events between themselves. This fiscal, IAA has already organised 20 events in six months, point out IAA members.

The IAA calendar included marquee events like the Olive Crown awards, Leadership awards, Debates, Conversations, Young Turks Forum and an array of knowledge seminars, webinars, workshops and so on. Many of these initiatives are less than a decade old. Membership to the organisation has grown five-fold in a little over a decade. “In the mid-to-late 1990s the IAA was like an exclusive gymkhana,” says Swamy, president of the IAA-India Chapter, whom Narayan jokingly refers to as “the president on steroids”.

Carving a niche When the IAA was looking for a role that it could play in the Indian advertising, marketing and media, it found that many roles had already been taken. The voice of the advertising agency was the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI), the broadcasters were represented by the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA) took up the cause of the people who footed the bills, namely the clients, while the newspapers had their champion in the form of the Indian Newspaper Society (INS). If it had to be marquee advertising events, The Advertising Club (earlier called The Advertising Club of Bombay) which has been around for more than 60 years had already established itself as the force behind the Abby awards, the Emvies and as the official partner for The Effies in India.

The IAA decided to stand out from the crowd by doing events that would encourage social good. Under the presidentship of Pradeep Guha of 9X Media, the IAA got involved with the ‘Light a Billion Lives’ initiative that would involve supplying solar lanterns to areas that did not have access to electricity. That initiative subsequently led to the birth of the Olive Crown awards, the only advertising awards in Asia that awards communication that promotes eco-friendliness.

Another do-good initiative was in the area of gender sensitivity. In a partnership with Laadli, an NGO dedicated to the welfare of the girl child, the IAA decided to push the agenda towards sensitive portrayal of women in advertising. It also pushed the agenda to bring younger talent into focus by hosting sessions like the IAA-Young Turks Forum that also became a platform to mentor young talent. It also ventured where the big associations had not yet ventured – into smaller towns. A seminar on real estate was held in Nashik.

Future-ready The IAA ventured into areas where the other associations had to yet create a property for themselves. One such example was being future-ready, in a profession where digital was soon going to be calling the shots. In 2007, when digital had still not started rankling many organisations in India, the IAA India Chapter led a delegation of 27 CEOs from India to the US on a study tour of new-age media. The second leg of the tour happened in 2011. That apart, the IAA launched a Future Ready workshop conducted by a media futurist from Switzerland on how the media and marketing landscape was changing and a series of mentorship webinars on World Goes Digital.

Riding piggyback The IAA could also attribute some of its success to riding piggyback on other well-established industry events. One such instance was the inaugural edition of The Olive Crown Awards. Six years ago, the IAA tied-up with the organisers of Goafest (The AAAI and the Ad Club) to host the Olive Crown awards on the same stage as the Abbys.

On the sidelines of Goafest, the IAA also hosted one of its most populated debates till date, that saw the best of advertising talent divided between those who were for and those who were against the motion of the day. The Olive Crown Awards into its sixth year has now become a stand alone award. Two years ago, the IAA partnered with the organisers of Kyoorius Designyatra to launch the IAA-Kyoorius Digiyatra (also coincidentally in Goa).

That raises the big question on what will be next? While the Effies globally has tied up with the IAA this year, the moot question is whether the India chapter take charge of the event in India.

A senior IAA member on condition of anonymity says that the IAA would not want to take the property away from The Advertising Club as it would unnecessarily result in turf wars. If the past is an indicator, this could well be another partnership in the making.

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