Portfolio Night 11 Mumbai: ‘Mentoring is not deliberate; it's a part of life’: Piyush Pandey

JWT India hosted the Mumbai edition of Portfolio Night on 22 May. The event saw the coming together of 31 creative heads and 90 aspiring creatives. Each creative head met with three aspiring creatives to assess each of their portfolios and share feedback.

On the event, Colvyn Harris, CEO, JWT South Asia, said, “It was wonderful to see 90 bright, young minds unleashing their creativity with the legends of Indian advertising. A spectacular evening well-conceived.  JWT India hosted Portfolio Night with a view to give back to the industry and to recognise and guide aspiring young creatives carve a career for themselves."

On the sidelines of the event, Campaign India caught up with a few of the creative heads to discuss talent issues.

On whether youngsters are still as attracted to advertising with a plethora of other creative options available, Piyush Pandey, executive chairman and creative director, South Asia, Ogilvy & Mather India, said, "I think creativity in all forms, whether it is in film production or being in advertising or anything else, youngsters are interested in it. We have to provide forums like this (Portfolio Night). These are attempts to try and show our response to the interest of youngsters. And then let's see what comes up.”

Asked about the kind of mentoring required to groom talent, Pandey added, “I'm sure the creative directors mentor the youngsters. It's not like a class every morning. You work with interesting creative people who are younger and they work with you. Mentoring is not deliberate; it's a part of life."

There are others who concede that advertising is no as attractive as it used to be. Manish Bhatt, founder director, Scarecrow Communications, said, "The glamour of advertising has gone long ago. The moment other options in media came up that pay good salaries, people are materialistic enough to move to those fields. But there are still people who are desperate to get into advertising. I hope they sustain that and stay in the field longer.”

Deepa Geethakrishnan, president - creative, Lowe Lintas and Partners, said, "From my experience I don't think the catchment area for creative people to join advertising is decreasing. I think there are more people interested in advertising now because they know what their options are and I am very heartened to know that their enthusiasm hasn't dimmed. If anything, they come in work for a couple of years and then think of moving to other fields like TV, radio."

On the quality of work witnessed at Portfolio Night Mumbai, Bhatt said, “I saw some really bright work here. Initial folios I saw made me really disappointed and gave me a feeling that I wasted my time out here, but the following folios reversed that trend."

Creative directors who reviewed work at Portfolio Night 2013 in Mumbai included Abhijit Avasthi, Ogilvy & Mather; Amit Akali, Grey; Arun Iyer, Lowe & Partners; Ashish Khazanchi, Publicis; Bobby Pawar, Independent; Carlton D’Silva, Hungama Digital Services; Debu Purkayastha, JWT; Deepa Geethakrishnan, Lowe & Partners; Josy Paul, BBDO; Karl Gomes, Fanatics; Komal Bedi, Rediffusion Y&R, Malvika Mehra, Grey; Nandita Chalam, JWT; Prasanna Sankhe, Hyphen; Prasoon Joshi, McCann Worldgroup; Priya Pardiwalla, JWT; Sajan Raj Kurup, Creativeland Asia; Raj Nair, BMB India; Ramanuj Shastry, Infectious Advertising; Sagar Mahabaleshwarkar, Bates; Sam Ahmed, Rediffusion Y&R; Santosh Padhi, Taproot; Satbir Singh, Havas; Senthil Kumar, JWT; Sonal Dabral, DDB Mudra; Swati Bhattacharya, JWT; Tista Sen, JWT; Vikram Gaikwad, Creativeland Asia; and KB Vinod, Company.

(Read more from Portfolio Nights in the issue of Campaign India dated 31 May 2013)