'Show that communication can be a force for good': AAAI Lifetime Awardee Ramesh Narayan

Addressing the audience after receiving the AAAI Lifetime Achievement Award for 2014, ad veteran and Canco Advertising founder Ramesh Narayan urged the industry body honouring him to prove to the world that communication could be a force for good.

Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) president Arvind Sharma bestowed the honour on Narayan, a past president of the body, at a ceremony in Mumbai on 24 July.

Narayan pointed to the past, when pass outs from institutes such as the IIMs joined the advertising industry.

"Now, we have discussions on whether our inability to pay high salaries is why people are not keen to join advertising. I don't think so. I think even then, we were not the best of paymasters. But there was something about advertising that drew them in, that made them want to be part of this industry. We need to bring that back into advertising," he explained.

He even offered a way forward for AAAI, and suggested that the body take up one social cause per year, and marshall the creative fraternity, media and advertisers to demonstrate through action that communication could be a force for good.

"Take up social causes - it could be women's issues, anything. If you can prove that we can make a difference, you would have made the advertising industry not just aspirational, but also inspirational. And that would be the best award I could ever receive," he surmised, before thanking the AAAI for the honour.

(More in the issue of Campaign India dated 8 August 2014.)

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