Improving Crity Awards
‘We are neither poets nor playwrights,’ said the Executive Director of an advertising agency to this writer some years back. By saying so he was clearly hinting at the absence of any reward for creativity.
An advertisement is purely a creative work created by the agency for the advertiser. But in Nepal it hardly gets recognition as a creation.
The standard practice that has been followed in Nepal while developing an advertisement does not encourage creativity. According to the standard practice in Nepal, the advertisers give just a verbal assurance to the agencies that they will give the agency the job of preparing creative planning for the advertiser’s products when needed. Practice of having a long-term contract between the advertiser and the agency does not exist in Nepal. Therefore, only after receiving a proposal to prepare ads from the advertisers. The agency starts to think about the creative planning. When the agency prepares a creative matter, it submits it to the advertiser for the comments. Most of the advertisers suggest for redoing the creative matter. Finally, the advertiser starts preparing the creative planning in association with the advertiser. For such a planning, the agency needs data, but most of the advertisers hesitate to share important research findings that they already have. They never take the Ad agencies as their strategic partners.
The next crucial step is fixing the rates with media. In principle, the Ad agencies are supposed to be business partners of the advertisers and the media. As such, the agencies promote the business of both the advertisers and the media by filling the gap between the media and advertisers. Thus, the contribution of ad agencies in media development is very important. But in Nepal, advertising is still considered a business of less priority.
Lately, several media houses have emerged in Nepal and a number of sectors have been realizing the importance of advertising. For instance, banks which rarely advertised in the past, are now advertising aggressively. Assessing the growing importance of advertising, AAN organised professional advertising training and job placement programme 2007 successfully. The number of applications received for 50 seats in the training stood at 1,250. This shows that advertising has been an attractive field for the young and highly skilled persons.
In 2005, AAN initiated Crity Awards with the objectives of rewarding and encouraging good pieces of indigenously produced advertisements, highlighting the importance of advertising among the corporate community and creating awareness among the general public about advertising. The concept of Crity Awards has gained momentum with an escalating speed within a very short period. The Award has been only of its kind in Nepal.
In the first Crity Award 2005, there were altogether 118 entries from 17 agencies with 5 categories like the best agency, the best print ad, the best TVC, the best campaign and the best jingle. In 2007, these numbers increased substantially to 206 entries from 24 agencies for 19 categories of awards. The grandeur of the previous year’s event helped recognize the advertising sector. Since its inception, the idea of Crity has undeniably heightened the sensitivity of advertising agencies towards creativity and stimulated them to synchronize with professional norms, values and attitudes.
Crity Awards are not as big as Abby of India or EFFIE of the New York. Abby is attended by more than 2500 professionals from the marketing, advertising, media, research and PR (public relation) fraternity. Every creative person involved in advertising in India aspires to win Abby. For the past 40 years the Abby has been gathering the ‘stars’ of the Indian advertising world on 3rd March every year. Excitement, anticipation, suspense, curiosity… the Abby has it all! As Kalpana Rao, President, Ad Club Bombay says, ‘The Abby is a festival for all Indian advertising people’. Some Nepali agencies too bagged silver and bronze from the previous episodes of Abby. This shows that some of the Nepali agencies have already proved their calibre in the international competition.
EFFIE programmes are held in more than 30 countries and represent the pinnacle in advertising effectiveness.
Though it will be too early to compare Crity with ABBY and EFFIE, we can learn a lot from them. When we look at entry methods of ABBY and EFFIE, we find that both are open for non-members too, though the entry fees are different for the non-members. For instance, EFFIE charges each member $ 450 + GST per campaign and non-member $1450 + GST per campaign. It has two benefits. First, it can generate extra resources to the organizer. Second, it opens competition for all (even non members) giving every advertising creator the chance to compete at such a mega event. In Nepal, some reputed advertising agencies are not members of AAN but are still creating good ads. So, AAN, the organizer of Crity Awards, has to be prepared for opening the competition for all. Once they participate in the competition, the non-members may develop the psychological urge for membership in AAN.
Another step for standardizing the mega event could be fixing the event’s date for every year like ABBY.
The next area for improvement is in the entry guidelines. It includes 13 points such the brand name of product or service advertised, product type or description, category (indicate the category within which the campaign should be judged), campaign title, marketing challenge, campaign objectives, target audience, overall campaign strategy, creative strategy, other communication programmes, media strategy, media (list of all media used in the campaign) and evidence of results. Yes, it is too early for Crity to set up in it all the procedures that other internationally recognised Awards do. However, a system of online entry can be easily incorporated.
Also the eligibility requirements may be revised for the better. Campaigns that may have been introduced earlier but have been running currently should also be made eligible for competition. Advertising campaigns created and produced in Nepal to promote Nepali goods and services should be given higher priority in the marking as they symbolize true Nepali creativity.
Now the time has come to recognize the agency’s effectiveness. Similarly, there can be another category called The Advertiser of the Year. The winner of the best agency award should be honoured by the Government of Nepal by providing CIP facilities.
(Dr. Aryal teaches in the Department of Business Management in TU and holds PhD for his thesis in advertising)
