Live Issue: Do marketers find relevance in ad awards?

As advertising agencies celebrate their wins at Goa and at One Show and look forward to Cannes, not many clients drop by at these advertising award ceremonies and be part of the festivities.

Campaign India asked a few marketers and agency heads about their views on these annual advertising awards.

Vivek Sharma, chief marketing officer, Philips India, pointed out that the real award for the company is in the business success of the creative output. He said, “The creative excellence, and thus awards, is the means towards achieving market success and not an end by itself. For us, a creative that delivers on marketing objective and still wins awards is desirable. The feel good factor which comes from winning awards raises the confidence level of the team – both creative as well as marketing – in trying harder to come up with more lateral ideas.”

Making a similar point, Manish Vyas, vice president marketing, VIP Industries, said, “According to me, creative communication that helps us achieve a marketing objective, would be the most relevant and effective advertising. However, we do believe in working as a team with our creative partners and each one of us needs encouragement in whatever we do. We, at VIP, believe that awards work to motivate our creative team members and to that extent we see the relevance.”

Vijay Sinha, senior vice president, Tata AIG Life Insurance Company sees these awards as an important and necessary industry acknowledgment of high creative standards and achievement.

“Another reason why we believe in these awards is because it sends out very loud signals of acknowledgement, which in turn helps drive the motivation levels of the creative team of our agency. It is very important that the creative team of our advertising partners is a charged and motivated lot as they are the ones who create the cutting edge ideas that can take our brand story that extra mile,” he added.

Citing from his personal experiences, Josy Paul, chairman and national creative director, BBDO India, said, “With work that works or work that makes a difference in the marketplace, clients are more ecstatic than the agencies. In my limited experience, with P&G and PepsiCo, I have seen them celebrate because it’s not just that a work won an award, but also because it is work that really worked for them.”

Abhijit Avasthi, national creative director, Ogilvy & Mather, is of the opinion that the really intelligent and smart marketers value advertising awards as well because awards are recognition from the industry which applauds brave new work.

“All these marketers understand the business of creativity as a business tool and therefore while not getting over enthusiastic about it, they do see a value in it,” he added.

Avasthi pointed out that some of their clients are keen about sending their work for advertising awards. “However, some people underestimate the value of fame as a business tool and they have to realise that awards do bring a different kind of fame at the marketplace,” he said.

Marketer

Vivek Sharma, chief marketing officer, Philips India

“The feel good factor which comes from winning awards raises the confidence level of the team – both creative as well as marketing – in trying harder to come up with more lateral ideas. As an advertiser, our endeavour is always to push the creative boundaries to make a positive impact in the marketplace. In this process we encourage our partner agencies to come up with work that is constantly challenging the status quo. We do not encourage agencies to do work just for the sake of winning awards. For us, any new creative idea presented to us must be first relevant to the business than just pushing creative boundaries for its own sake.”

Marketer 

Manish Vyas, vice president marketing, VIP Industries

“We at VIP, believe that awards work to motivate our creative team members and to that extent,we see the relevance. When we (along with our agency) start working on any creative communication, we start with the brand objectives and advertising objectives. Awards are not a part of our thought process then. Once the advertising meets those needs – we leave it to our creative partners to decide if they want to enter the campaign for awards. We would surely provide all the assistance needed for doing that. And surely would be delighted if our creative work is awarded.”

Marketer

Vijay Sinha, senior vice president, Tata AIG Life Insurance Company

“One of the reasons why we believe in these awards is because it sends out very loud signals of acknowledgement, which in turn helps drive the motivation levels of the creative team of our agency. It is very important that the creative team of our advertising partners is a charged and motivated lot, as they are the ones who create the cutting edge ideas that can take our brand story that extra mile.”

Creative

Josy Paul, chairman and national creative director, BBDO India

“My experience is that with work that works or work that makes a difference in the marketplace, clients are more ecstatic than the agencies. There is a time when the relationship is so fluid that it is not a transactional discussion anymore and so it’s not a one-way or two-way communication but something more like in a relationship where it is seamless.Anything that has won an award and was probably not seen by the client, is going to backfire and not give the right impression about the agency. I think it makes sense to win on real work, and if you win on real work, then there will be no greater promoter of the work than your client.”

Creative

Abhijit Avasthi, national creative director, Ogilvy & Mather

“All these marketers understand the business of creativity as a business tool and therefore while not getting over enthusiastic about it, they do see a value in it. I think what gives them maximum joy, and this is what we also always endeavour, is the work that wins an award is also the one that wins the hearts of people on the street and works in the marketplace. We all strive for pieces of work that can achieve all these three every time. Many people underestimate the value of fame as a business tool and awards do bring a different kind of fame at the marketplace.”