In a chat with Manifest, Prateek Bharadwaj, chief creative officer, Lowe Lintas, explained that while humorous campaigns are being awarded again at advertising festivals, their appeal had never gone missing.

"Humour was never out. It may not have been winning at Cannes but on our television screens, humour continued. Especially in shorter durations, humour continues to be the currency of impact. If one looks at the campaigns that have dominated our screens over the last few years, whether it’s Cred or Dream11 - which are the big campaigns that everybody talks about, there’s humour. Within our agency too, work for Britannia 50-50, Dollar, Philips, HP and UpStox has seen humour. Our work for Pepsi in Pakistan with Naseem Shah also sees it," he explained.

On the topic, Bharadwaj added, "Humour is our bread and butter and it has always been. It’s just that award juries have been on this purpose diet, so they tended to skip over the humour as less important, thinking, ohh isne toh duniya nahi badli (this has changed the world). I am so glad there is a reawakening in the jury room and humour is being taken seriously again."

Bharadwaj also revealed that an ad can be judged on how pop culture received it.

"There was a time when work was on TV, everybody used to watch the same ad and everybody was singing the same jingle or everybody was laughing at the same joke. That pop culture currency is perhaps the ultimate reward. Even though media is so fragmented today, it’s something that we still chase. And I love the fact that Cred managed it with Rahul Dravid in ‘Indiranagar ka Gunda’. That’s pop culture currency and that language is used, articles are written where they use it. To get your work as part of pop culture currency is still the ultimate reward," he said.

Among other topics discussed (full article in the August issue of Manifest which can be bought here), Bharadwaj also spoke about the importance of awards for the agency, something that's much-debated.

"We are not sitting on any high horse, saying awards don’t matter. Awards matter. It allows us to judge ourselves. The young talent wants to win awards, clients want to win awards. And we can’t be an agency that’s detached from the reality. Plus, most importantly, we want to win awards because our work is worthy of it. And as an agency, we need to make sure that we tell our stories right to the juries. And that’s something we want to do very consciously this coming year."