The schism in the ad industry has come to the fore with the controversy over the Goafest awards.
Advertising awards in India have never been free of controversies. Allegations of ‘scam ads’ winning awards or of a particular agency winning most of the trophies – thereby hinting at a possible rigging of the awards – have surfaced off and on.
But self-voting – the issue currently raging like a ball of fire in the Rs 32,000-crore Indian advertising industry – is unprecedented.
Self-voting means that a juror is voting for a piece of work produced by his or her agency. The Creative Abbys, which was held during the annual Goafest in April, was marred this year by episodes of self-voting by certain jurors. Almost 29 such instances were found by the Advertising Club of Bombay during investigations last week following a controversy over the judging of the creative awards at the Goafest this year.
If the shock of this wasn’t enough, a rather aghast industry is now having to deal with finger-pointing and the high drama that goes with it.
“You will hear from us,” says Arvind Sharma, chairman, Leo Burnett, South Asia, in response to his agency and National Creative Director K V Sridhar having reportedly been served a legal notice by the Mudra group following comments made by Sridhar in the wake of the self-voting controversy. “I cannot speak on the matter,”’ he says. But Sridhar does confirm that the legal notice to him and his agency has been received. “Our legal department is looking into the matter,” he says. “But we have asked the organisers of Goafest to give us access to the video-recording of the judging that happened, so that everybody is clear who did what. It sets the record straight,” he says.
Clearly, the last hasn’t been said on this, with more skeletons likely to tumble out of the cupboard in the forthcoming weeks.
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Madhukar Kamath, managing director and chief executive officer, Mudra group, could not be immediately reached for his comments.
The Ad Club, on its part is taking no chances, writing to agencies and its members involved in self-voting, politely requesting them to return their trophies to the body. “We are hopeful they will accede to our request and return their trophies,” says Ajay Chandwani, chairperson of the Creative Abbys this year.
Industry sources say that agencies involved in self-voting will have no choice but to return their metals in order to avoid being discredited by the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI), which is one of the main organisers of the Goafest. “I don’t think the agencies involved would want to risk being discredited by the AAAI,” says Rohit Ohri, managing partner, JWT Delhi. “Their reputation is at stake here. Besides, it makes sense for them to take moral responsibility and own up. The industry has to be rid of this mess. You have to make a start somewhere,” he says.
But the creative head of a reputed ad agency, which has opted to stay out of Goafest this year, says he doesn’t see the agencies under the scanner returning their metals at any cost. “Why would they want to own up?,” he says. “I don’t think they would do it. That will be a bigger credibility issue for them because clients then will cease to respect them. No agency would want that.”
If the Ad Club does manage to get the agencies to toe its line, it will be another unprecedented step in the history of Indian advertising. Though controversies have plagued the industry for long, there has never been an instance when agencies were asked to return their trophies. Says the creative head, “The fact that the Ad Club is writing to agencies today indicates just how deep the malaise is.”
His reference here is to the hunger for awards, which most in the industry say, is at the heart of the matter. “The fact that your next increment depends on it and that it will get you peer approval is what is driving this phenomenon,” says Kiran Khalap, co-founder of brand consultancy chlorophyll. Agrees Elsie Nanji, who started ad agency Ambience (now Publicis Ambience) alongwith advertising veteran Ashok Kurien in 1987, and who is now managing partner of Publicis’s design shop Red Lion. “I feel sorry for the youngsters today who are in the grip of this. There seems to be no escaping this with certain agencies setting aside time and money for this,” she says.
A call to clean up the system rages furiously as the mess gets deeper by the day.
Adman David Ogilvy, who founded advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather, once famously said, “Never write an advertisement which you wouldn’t want your family to read. You wouldn’t tell lies to your own wife. Don’t tell them to mine.” What Ogilvy was basically advocating was the need to have some ethics in advertising. But ad men and women over the years seem to have opted to give this message a clear pass.