Perhaps the single most debated and written about topic in the Indian advertising industry this year has been around the advertising awards. The year 2013 has given us all the ingredients of an exciting tamasha .

Some really outstanding work winning awards in India and internationally, some attempted scams that failed, many scams that unfortunately succeeded, resignations, dismissals, clients supporting and back-tracking later and worst of all, the so-called torch bearers of ethical behaviour in the industry being themselves a part of scams through acts of commission or omission.

Having completed 25 years in the advertising industry and having chaired and participated in innumerable domestic award juries, having been a jury member globally at the Dubai Lynx, Festival of Media Global, Cannes and others, I am still perplexed as to how and why our industry has reached the pathetic state it is in at the moment.

Equally, how do we overcome these challenges?

My analysis shows that we, as an industry, are suffering from an overdose of awards. Awards have become a big business and the large egos of our industry are feeding millions of hard-earned rupees that should be going into developing talent, into this commercial machine. There is now a plethora of multiple awards for every sub-section of our industry. Several OOH awards, PR awards, events awards, digital awards, retail awards, promotions awards, DM awards, radio awards … the list is endless.

It is common knowledge that many of them are directly or indirectly linked to the sponsorship money a potential winner is willing to pay. In some of them, like an OOH awards show, as an example, you can almost track it. Agencies have started sponsoring the awards show itself. How much more blatant can it get?

Fortunately, over the years, we do have some awards that have established themselves as having some standard. The Abbys, given at the Goafest, was one such award show in my mind.

Having chaired the Media Abbys and having been involved with these awards in several ways, I naively believed that while nothing is perfect, this one was good. This year proved me wrong.

That there are scam ads prevalent is no revelation. That agencies, in their desperation to win, tacitly encourage it, is no new news. What came as a shock to me was how much of a “you scratch my back and I scratch yours” industry we have become.

Even in instances where an agency has been exposed in writing by a client withdrawing the approvals, people tried to brazen their way through. It’s common knowledge that the creative fraternity is often involved in this scamming. So to prevent bias, we have industry leaders, often chairmen of agencies, overseeing the process.

These are the people who occupy senior industry body offices. They are tasked with the responsibility of upholding the ethics and values of our industry. And they turned out to be, at best, mute spectators and at worst, active conspirators in these malpractices.

Much has been written about these episodes, the super-juries and so on but cleverly, since it suits all of us, including me, no one has asked the question as to what’s the punishment for the thieves?

Asking a creative director to return an award he was blatantly caught out on is like asking a bank robber to return the money he stole and then letting him go. In many instances, the bank managers were in cahoots with them and they have not even been questioned.

This is wrong and needs to be corrected. I will try my best to raise these issues at the appropriate fora, though my frustration is that no one wants to discuss the inconvenient truth.

I believe in awards. They recognise excellence and encourage young talent, not just in creative but also in all other aspects of our industry. By definition, the awards need to be at an industry level. I have never been able to empathise with someone holding a competition for himself, where only he can enter and so only he will win. So I do believe that industry awards play an important role. But only if they are valued. Only if the right spirit is maintained.

There are agencies who almost have an award entering department. Nothing wrong with it, except that their energies must be channelised in the right direction. Agencies are spending crores of rupees on awards. Some entering indiscriminately, thereby, inadvertently fanning an industry that is growing by fanning their ego, thereby making them enter more and more. This is a global phenomenon, not just in India.

So what can we do to correct the situation? I share below a few ideas, none of which may be earth-shattering, but all of which together may improve the scenario and make the awards what they should be. A source of pride, not the joke that they currently are.

Punish the offenders: When it is proven beyond doubt that someone has attempted to cheat the system, have the guts to punish them. Suspend them for three years from all awards. It may mean that some big names will have to be shamed. So be it. This should include not just the creative people but senior agency leaders if they are caught misusing their industry positions or turning a blind eye, knowingly. Some prima donnas will sulk for a year or two but in the long run, real work will win. Organising bodies will develop a spine, which they currently lack, and in the process habitual offenders, who are actually known to everyone, will be kept out.

Don’t rely on award entry fees: The habitual offenders blackmail the industry by threatening to not enter. Sometimes the reasons are genuine, though often they are a negotiating tactic. Suddenly the organisers fear a few lakhs going away. We are a $5-billion industry. Surely, we can find an alternative way to fund these functions, such that the reliance on award entry fees is finished.

Accredit awards: Industry bodies such as AAAI and Ad Club could study the hundreds of commercial award shows being spawned every day, sometimes run by dubious organisations, and give them a rating. Agencies should be advised to only enter ‘A’-rated awards. They could charge an accreditation fee for the service which could also take care of the entry fee issue. The rating system can be extended, over time, to global awards as well, where Indian agencies spend significant foreign exchange.

Educate and communicate: Attaching undue importance to awards and scam ads is counter- productive. This and several other aspects need to be communicated. Both clients and agencies need to be educated in the dos and don’ts, the good practices and malpractices. Industry bodies such as the Ad Club, ISA and AAAI can devise a code of best practices and share it universally. The foreign masters of Indian agency leaders can also be educated, because often the cheating happens because the Indian creative director or agency head wants to impress their foreign bosses.I’ve tried to restrict the recommendations to ideas that have not been implemented before, because we are in a state where we need to do something quite different, otherwise advertising awards will become a joke forever.The good thing about our industry is that finally wiser counsel prevails. We do manage to get a consensus on what is right and converge on a common goal. I have no doubt we will do so in the area of awards as well.What we have to resist is the tendency to sweep issues under the carpet. This year the issue is hot. It’s top of mind. If we don’t do it now, we may never get to it. Now is the time to show our resolve.

(Ashish Bhasin is Chairman, India & CEO, South-East Asia, Aegis Media.)

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