Having won several awards during your career – which one gave you more joy - effectiveness or creative-based awards?

S Subramanyeswar (SS): It’s effectiveness awards, undoubtedly. They have always given me the greatest joy. Proving the impact of our strategic and creative ideas on business metrics like sales, profit, market share, behaviour breakthrough, or brand health is very rewarding as an advertising professional. And I also love the fact that it’s a team sport and not a solo sport. Though planners are the inspiration engines when it comes to effectiveness awards, creative, account management and the clients come into play too. Also, if you were effective, you were creative.

Iraj Fraz (IF): Literally speaking, the most joyous one was of course my first Goafest Gold as a 24-year-old copywriter. But the one I’m quite proud of is a WARC Gold for Meesho, because our work helped in building a hot brand within a year or so.

Do clients value the creative awards now as much as they used to earlier?

SS: They do, as long as the scale and stature are of repute. There are just too many award shows happening everywhere. Over the years, I have seen clients getting more interested in effectiveness awards. They acknowledge that effectiveness creates and delivers disproportionate value for brands. And specifically, all good marketers I work with aspire to work that builds the brand and sales over the long term. Effectively, create market-winning work that strengthens the immune system of brands. Remember! Emphatic sounds make enduring echoes.

IF:Creativity-awarded campaigns are 11 times more efficient at driving share of market growth. (For the curious ones, source: Les Binet and Peter Field, Link Between Creativity and Effectiveness). And clients are beginning to understand this. Reputed award shows put campaigns through a rigorous process of freshness as well as effectiveness, and all marketers are beginning to value that.

The Cannes Lions introduced the Creative Effectiveness category in 2011 and India has done relatively better here than the other categories. What can you attribute this to?

SS: I’m happy that we are doing better in the creative effectiveness category because it means as a market, we are producing more creative work that is having a measurable impact. Or an effective strategy that is rooted in creativity and driving sustainable business impact over time. We’ll any day back this trend rather than the practice of creating work just to win awards. It defeats the purpose, yet it happens all the time. Attaching such awards to proposals isn’t going to lead anywhere as all well-meaning clients want their agencies to create long-term value for their brands, not just win.

IF: The West doesn’t usually have their eyes on the advertising created in India. Consequently, the scale and the impact of our work get missed. However, since the effectiveness category is about the measurable impact of the work, our campaigns get a fair chance to shine on a global stage. 

When it comes to Indian agencies participating in global awards shows, which category do you think we can do better in?

SS: Let me stick to ‘effectiveness.’ Despite all the hype about quick results, fame, attention, attraction etc. every person in business, in a quiet moment of reflection, desires a long-term approach, long-term thinking, long-term brand building, and long-term effects. It’s guaranteed and you can ask anyone about it. There is a clear relationship between a brand’s or even a campaign’s long-term value and money in the bank. Long-term orientation to any aspect of life or work is a cultural dimension of India, and it comes naturally as a value to Indian marketing/business practitioners as opposed to short-term gains. We’ll always be good at creating long-term/effective work. Effectiveness is a mindset and hope we can inspire the rest of the world too, amid chaos, instability, and flux all around. 

IF: India is a fifth of the world, in terms of number of humans, even the ones in advertising. There is no category we shouldn’t be doing better in.

When you’re hiring new talent, are awards won something that you look at?

SS: We do, as long as they are awards won in the cause furthering the brand/business. Awards based on work created to win an award are not welcome, however big the brand or effort is. Of late, there is a disturbing trend of awarding short-term and one-off creatives showcasing limited period gains as the objective, even at the effectiveness awards shows. We consciously don’t encourage such applicants. Durable campaigns, to my mind, are the single most important driver of effectiveness, with enormous performance multipliers. Advertising delivers only a fraction of its true potential over short timeframes.

IF: Yes. Though the value of the show and the range of categories won in, matter. That demonstrates the versatility of the creative person. Awards in the portfolio are also a reliable sign of a candidate understanding industry standards.

(This article first appeared in the May print issue of Manifest, part of the monthly 'Perspectives' feature. Buy your copy here.)