Ad world needs to step out of the box and go back to being an industry

In the past few years, the only times the Indian advertising industry has come together as one large family is during the Cannes Lions festival, where all agencies celebrate all Indian wins, even if the winners are competitors in India. They do not do so at the Kyoorius Creative Awards and the Abbys, the two competing Indian award shows. Many agencies boycott one or the other, some boycott both. Similarly, agencies — and professionals from agencies — are reluctant to praise even brilliant work done by competitors, even as they are quick to unfairly criticise work done by others.  It’s the worst kind of dog-eat-dog behaviour. In this context, a Facebook update by Ajay Gahlaut, executive creative director of Ogilvy, came as a breath of fresh air. 

Here’s the post, edited for brevity. “We did this KFC film a couple of years ago. The insight we used is identical to the one used by the recent Make My Trip film with Alia Bhatt and Ranveer Singh. Let me hasten to add that I’m not pointing out an act of ‘plagiarism’ or ‘copying’. Only idiots do that. I’m well aware that similar ideas can occur to more than one creative person. And that if you put your mind to it, y film and if you dig around enough you can find films and campaigns with similar, same or identical ideas from all over the world...” “My attempt with this post was to point out how, even with a similar idea, the MMT film is superior to the one we executed. First the script.

Just by adding the angle of Alia telling the other girl, ‘let’s find out where he’s from’, and then using the clever technique of shocking Ranveer with MMT’s super-reasonable rates into dropping his fake British accent and revealing his Delhi origins, the writer has been able to add a completeness to the script which is missing from the KFC film. Second, the cast. Superb actors like Alia and Ranveer lift the film immeasurably.  And lastly, by giving full play to the characters with multiple camera angles, the director has been able to create much more engagement than the ‘camera only on one person’ technique used in the KFC film. An interesting example of how similar stories can be told in vastly different ways. Well done Make My Trip and Publicis.”

Log on to Facebook and read the comments to Ajay’s post, and you quickly realise what a breath of fresh air it is to see someone in this industry praising another agency. And that’s a shame — it’s a terrible shame. It is only by embracing the successes and achievements of individuals, including competition, that the industry itself gains stature. And advertising is an industry that desperately needs stature.

Over the past decade, the pressure on margins and bottom lines and the fierce and almost unhealthy attitude to win awards has led to agencies and the professionals who work in these agencies becoming inward-looking and isolationist. That leads to a myopic view of what is happening currently and what the future might hold. Views are formed by conversations with colleagues and exposure to what is happening in-house, almost like living in an echo chamber. It is when one gets out of the echo chamber that one sees the larger world, one exchanges ideas, and thoughts, and there is true positive osmosis. For an industry that had reduced the phrase ‘out-of-the-box’ to mere lip service, it is time they stepped out of the box themselves.

Gahlaut stepped out of the box. And instantly made for a happier world.

The author is Editor, Storyboard, on CNBC-TV18.