I left advertising two years ago, but even today, I receive calls from HR consultants brandishing A-class agency names and the plum jobs they have on offer just for me. Sadly, this has less to do with a brilliant portfolio than with an all-time high rate of attrition in the industry. Despite the big pay packages, people just don’t want to stick to their jobs. And the reason is this: more and more creative departments across agencies are being ruled by a special breed of professionals who got there by taking shortcuts or as we call it in Hindi – patli gali!
The phrase patli gali for an industry insider has come to mean a lot more than just the Hindi equivalent of a by lane or its colloquial usage to connote an easy way out. Patli gali in advertising speak means scam advertising or advertising generated with the sole purpose of showcasing one’s zenith of creativity in order to win awards.
Today’s special breed professional divides advertising in two distinct compartments – 1) “A for Apple” advertising that is dished out for the clients’ “plebeian tastes” and is meant for the consumption of the lowest denominator of the public and 2) “Out-of-the-box” advertising which is, as a piece of art, an end product in itself and belongs right next to Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. And here’s the tragic part.
The day-to-day workings of an agency are being governed by individuals who have little or no enthusiasm for the real work of advertising, which is to serve as an ancillary function of marketing in order to sell a product or service in an aesthetically pleasing manner; to rouse the spoilt-for-choice consumer with a reason enough to buy your wares. Oh no! That, my dear, is everyday stuff not even worth considering on your portfolio, so if you have any “proactive” (read scam) piece of work to show, do so now or else walk out the door never to come for another job interview at this very creative agency, thank you very much!
Identifying Garden Variety Scam
Now that I have introduced you to this special branch of advertising, let me show you how it works. Around December and January every year, the Creative Director will start hovering above the hapless shoulders of copywriters and art directors who spent their entire year designing unimaginative bottle labels and vendor-side standees to extricate scam ideas from them. Long tales of self-glory will be narrated during smoke breaks combined with insinuating looks that basically mean to tell the subordinate in an adequate smattering of slang which passes off as boss-slave bonhomie that “You are the lowest level of life-form if you can’t conjure up ‘award-winning’ ideas for tomorrow’s meeting.” Once the year’s scam bank is full, existing clients will be beseeched and given moral lectures on how it is their duty to encourage art and at least sign for the ad’s scam release if not pay for it as well. But please note, the approval of the client and his logo on the scam ad are about as necessary to the process as a female lead to a Hindi film plot. If the approval isn’t received, a fake logo and company will simply be created! It’s that simple! And voila! You have your “Van Gogh” ready to meet the press! But where are the funds, you say? Well, the richer agencies have money put aside and creative professionals from the smaller ones simply save their salaries in hope for career progression.
So there you are. Meet your garden variety scam. And here are some tell-tale signs to spot one:
1) If you suddenly find a big name like Lux soap glossily shining through the much neglected pages of some random trade magazine say the Journal for Manure Sciences, it’s a scam! Remember, the foremost criteria for eligibility at most awards today is that the ad should have been released. Somewhere. Anywhere.
2) If your daily newspaper suddenly replaces its regular cheesy “build muscles and vitality” ads with well-produced ads for some company you’ve never heard of before and the ads themselves are an enigma of either a picture with a tiny logo or long copy and tiny logo, it’s a scam! No self-respecting marketing person in India will let the agency get away with a logo that’s one-hundredth the size of the ad!
3) If despite the logo and everything, you have a tough time figuring out what the ad is trying to sell, it’s a scam! The ever-growing belief in creative people is that an ad’s potential for winning an award is directly proportionate to how much time the jury spent understanding it, hemming and hawing self-importantly like art critics viewing a Van Gogh.
Now that you have spotted the scam, it means that the ad has been released well in time to meet the “should have been released before March 31st” deadline of most award functions of the year. Let’s see what happens next.
The Blaze of Glory
At an extravagant award function our young advertising executives will drink their evening away while industry bigwigs including a token foreigner from a fancy agency abroad will wax eloquent on latest media trends and hard-working advertising to a sparsely populated hall of disinterested front-benchers who are sitting there only to save place or are indulging in some last minute prayers for that elusive award. Willy-nilly, the award-giving will commence. Soon a young copywriter-and-art-director team will shoot to fame in yet another brilliant instance of an industry patting its own back in complete denial of its apparent mediocrity. Creative work which never had to go through the rigors of client approvals or media-house mandates; ads which never stood the ultimate test of consumer connect; indeed, advertising that never sold a dime’s worth will be lauded and raised to the acme of creativity.
Shortly afterwards, the awardees will either be prematurely promoted or move on to a better agency for twice the undeserved money. And thus the cycle will begin again. All year our young guns will grant the agency the great favor of some half-hearted work for harrowed client servicing executives who have the insurmountable task of satisfying demanding clients with whatever mediocrity the award-winner churned out in the coffee break between flaunting past laurels and discussing work for future awards.
The Beginning of the End
More and more advertising agencies today have, what they call, an Awards Cell. The best candidates in an agency get the plum position of doing nothing but thinking up creative ads that may add to the agency’s award kitty and hence enhance its industry standing. To the rest of the lowly creative mortals in the field, this is a clear announcement of favor for made-up stuff over everyday hard work. Why bother meeting client deadlines on Chyawanprash brochures through the year when you can get ahead with one little scam in January? It is in light of this learning that most creative professionals in advertising lose the charm for and will to rise up to the challenge of quotidian tasks. Soon enough, their hitherto built-up creative energies begin wilting in the period from March to December and they decide to find satisfaction elsewhere, most popularly in entertainment media and new business ventures such as creative hot shops or even restaurants. The client service executives in the meanwhile, tired of being pulled up by dissatisfied clients (and who can blame them?) and uncooperative creative teams find greener pastures as marketing executives on the client side where they seek to avenge themselves. And there you have it – ATTRITION!
The fact of the matter is that advertising today is run by people who were not absorbed by any other industry – the dregs of the working world. Another fact also is that each time you talk to an adman he will, in his swaggering manner, paint a grand picture of the industry as one that only tolerates those who can “sell ice to an Eskimo” when in fact, our adman in question most likely cancelled his ticket to Alaska, took the ice to his little spot in Hawaii, drank it with his cocktail and came back with a painting of sunflowers.
Chillibreeze's disclaimer: This is a contributed article and was published on Chillibreeze in February, 2010. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the views of Chillibreeze as a company. Chillibreeze has a strict anti-plagiarism policy. Please contact us to report any copyright issues related to this article. The relevance of the facts and figures cited (if any) could change after a period of time.
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—About our writer:
Megha is a media professional with experience in journalism, advertising and radio. While her exposure to different media has lent her a 360-degree perspective of communication it has also widened her scope of writing. Her repertoire includes print ads, journalistic articles, radio-show scripts, website content, fiction work and more. She enjoys working on feature-based articles the most and aspires for a life lived typing away by the sea.
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