Mumbai has all along been synonymous with Indian advertising.
Considered the citadel of Indian advertising, Mumbai was the place where every ad agency worth its creativity had its India head office. The Advertising Club of Bombay was a natural corollary. As one of the oldest industry bodies, set up in 1954, Ad Club was the representative body of the industry where the who?s-who of Indian advertising rubbed shoulders, celebrated every small and big event, and set the course for the industry. Over a time, this became the meeting ground not just for advertising professionals, but also for marketers, media agencies, and anybody else who had anything to do with marketing communications. With over 1600 active members from the fields of advertising, marketing, public relations, media and research fields today, it is also one of the most respected industry associations. So when last month, the Advertising Club of Bombay decided to drop Bombay from its name and announced that it would now be known as the Advertising Club, it raised many an eyebrow.
To be sure, the decision wasn?t taken in a hurry. As Shashi Sinha, current president of the Advertising Club, says, the seeds of this ?revolutionary move? were sown way back in April 2010 in the run-up to Goafest, the annual advertising festival organised jointly by the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and the Advertising Club of Bombay. That year, as the entries for the Creative Abby Awards were rated, allegations against certain jurors voting for entries submitted by their own agencies embroiled the annual fest. Sinha, then chairman of the Media Abbys awarded at the fest, had to face a barrage of questions during a television interview with regards to the fact that in a scenario where the participants and the jurors were part of the same entities, all based out of Mumbai, what was the chance of smaller agencies from other parts of the country to compete in such industry events. The allegations to Mumbai-based agencies calling the shots riled Sinha for long: And that?s when the ground for converting the Advertising Club of Bombay into a pan-India body was laid.
Several rounds of brainstorming followed in which it was discussed how to make the Advertising Club of India more representative. The first step taken was knocking off ?Bombay? from the name of the body itself. Sinha?s goal is to rid the Club of all its past baggage. ?We have no agenda. We do not represent one particular section of the industry such as the AAAI (Advertising Agencies Association of India, which is a body of advertising agencies alone) or IBF (Indian Broadcasting Foundation, an association of broadcasters),? he says. ?The Advertising Club is a unique body where anyone can become a member. We are a pan-India organisation and do not have any industry-specific charters. We want to organise events and programmes such as creative workshops, art appreciation classes, among others. So we will start with Delhi and then go to towns such as Jaipur, Lucknow and Chandigarh,? he says.
As of now, while the Creative and Media Abbys take place in Goa, during Goafest, all other major events including Emvies, Effies and Young Achievers have been taking place in Mumbai. Again, Portfolio Night, a unique event, where aspiring creative minds get an opportunity to meet the top most best creative heads of various agencies and get feedback on their portfolios is also a Mumbai-based event.
The main agenda with this name change is to organise activities and events in small towns and also spot talent in these places. Also the decision to adopt a pan-India nomenclature comes at a time when Delhi is gaining ground on the creative circles. Some of the biggest businesses such as Airtel, Coca Cola (handled by the Delhi offices of McCann Erickson, W+K and Lowe), Nokia, Pepsi, Dabur, to name a few., are handled out of Delhi. ?Delhi is a big market. My perception is that after five years, Delhi will be a much bigger market with more number of ad professionals than Mumbai. In a lot of ways, it is already close to Mumbai,? says Sinha.
The growing clout of Delhi can no longer be ignored. Says Satbir Singh, managing partner and chief creative officer, Havas Worldwide, ?Barring perhaps Levers (Hindustan Unilever), most of India?s top advertising spenders today are based in Delhi and Gurgaon. As a result, there are agencies, mine included, whose biggest offices are here.: Arguing that single-city associations can no longer claim to represent nationwide industries, he adds that the move to make the Ad Club more inclusive was long overdue. ?Mumbai has a very rich culture of advertising industry get-togethers. In Delhi, the only time ad folk meet is in client reception areas during pitches. This will change for the better,? he says.
The news has evoked varied reactions from the Delhi advertising and media marketing fraternity. Prathap Suthan, a veteran from Delhi, for instance, is not impressed. ?Why do they want to be seen here all of a sudden? Because Delhi threatens to get bigger than Mumbai? Why meddle around in a city that does not really look up to them or ache for them? All of us who have worked in agencies that fed Mumbai based headquarters would know what I mean,? he says. Suthan , also the managing partner of Bang In the Middle, has been quite vocal about the way ?Mumbai-based agencies treated their Delhi counterparts?. He started a group exclusively for Delhi professionals, Delhi Alternative (now called Alt Del) a few years back. Suthan feels initiatives such as his may also have inspired the Ad Club to be seen as more inclusive. ?I think Delhi is quite capable of taking care of itself. And if they (the Ad Club) were truly bothered about the state of Delhi, at least one of the Ad Club Bombay representative could have called or reached out in some way to say we are on the right side of life with Alt Del,? he says. Despite his angst, Suthan feels the step taken by the Ad Club is in the right direction.
Sinha, meanwhile, offers an olive branch. He says that he has attended one of the Alt Del meetings and he appreciates what they are doing. And people at that meeting had told him that Advertising Club being Bombay?s advertising club is the bottleneck and that is what eventually led to dropping ?Bombay? from its name.
Amongst all this hullabaloo, another body that is not happy about the move is the Delhi Ad Club. RC Tanwar, president of Ad Club Delhi is adamant about not partnering with Advertising Club for anything. When contacted, RC Tanwar, president of Delhi Ad Club said that it is true that Delhi Ad Club has not had any meetings since the last few months due to some ?problems? but it does not give the Advertising Club a right to take Delhi in its fold.
?Nobody is interested to come under Bombay?s umbrella. How can they take a decision like this without even consulting anyone in the Delhi Ad Club? Bombay Ad Club represents just 33% business that happens in India and they cannot just try to become national.? Sinha, however, maintains that the Advertising Club is not going after any other club. ?We are not a profit making body. The purpose is to be more inclusive. I know that the Delhi Ad Club thinks that we are infringing on their turf but that is not the intention. Frankly, according to me, there is no ad club in Delhi. No agency heads are members of the Delhi Ad Club,? he says.
The Ad Club, meanwhile, has begun taking steps to build its presence in the National Capital. The first step was to form a shadow committee in Delhi led by Sanjeev Bhargava, managing partner, JWT Delhi and N Rajaram, marketing chief of Airtel?s consumer business. Says Bhargava, ?Shadow committees are yet to be formed but the broad idea is that instead of committee members constantly ferrying back and forth to Mumbai, a lot of the local issues and affairs can be handled on a regular basis locally and the strong links are maintained with the larger body by the same committee. The immediate steps would be to form the committee and to prepare the agenda for this committee to follow.?
The Club is taking few more steps to show that the Advertising Club is serious about going national. For instance, the first round of the judging process for the Effies which is scheduled for December, will be held in Delhi this time. Says Sinha, ?We also hope to conduct creative reviews and media reviews in Delhi next year, may be January.? Apart from this, the Advertising Club wants to initiate some programmes in Lucknow, Jaipur and Chandigarh to identify talent in these places.
While the Ad Club?s new agenda is ready to unfold, it has one more front to manage ? its relationship with the AAAI. The 2010 award controversy had ruptured the bond between the two bodies. ?The relationship was stormy in 2010. The creative awards at that time were very badly managed. It all boiled down to the Advertising Club being blamed for everything,? says Sinha, who at that managed the Media Abbys alone but since the controversy has been managing both the awards.
After the controversy, the industry got polarised along the association lines. It became an AAAI vs Ad Club issue. ?The perception in the market was that the Advertising Club took a soft stance on the issue. That wasn?t true as we were all together in it. Then, next year at the 2011 Goafest, everyone wanted to have a clean awards ceremony. However, the perception was that we were just trying to cover up for each other and then it came to a point of break. Then finally, the situation was salvaged by some sensible people and we formed the awards governing council,? recalls Sinha.
The 2011 and 2012 editions of Goafest were indeed controversy-free. Today there is no tension between the two bodies, assures Sinha. ?The relationship had almost broken because of egos but now we have realised that it is not just about doing a good job, it is about communication too. However, the whole discord between the AAAI and the Advertising Club is a dead story now,? he says. Industry sources say that the next five Goafests will be held by both the bodies jointly and they will sign the formal documents in this regard.
Sinha, whose Advertising Club presidency term ends next year, is now gearing up to walk the talk. ?My challenge will be if I can pull off even 8-10 various events in 2013 to include Delhi and other markets in the Advertising Club?s fold. That will be great. We have already started the process and are working on the back-end,? he says.
