UAE | Heritage and Culture

Dream team

This is the duo who clinched the Gold in the 2007 Young Creatives Competition, which pitches young advertising teams in the UAE against one another.

  • By Shiva Kumar Thekkepat, Staff Writer
  • Published: 00:00 May 24, 2007
  • Friday

  • It all ads up ... Sheetal Rajan and Bilal Kerbaj of Arabian Gulf Advertising Dubai scooped gold in this competition for copywriters and designers under 28.
  • Image Credit: Rangarajan/Gulf News
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This is the duo who clinched the Gold in the 2007 Young Creatives Competition, which pitches young advertising teams in the UAE against one another. Does this mean the country's advertising industry is keeping pace with global trends? Shiva Kumar Thekkepat investigates.

Corks pop, smoke spirals and decibel levels rivals the sound of vehicles zipping along Shaikh Zayed Road less than a kilometre away. No, it was not a party of the smart set, though it could well have been. As it turned out, it was the largest gathering of young creative advertising professionals working in the UAE.

A couple of them even flew in from Kuwait. The lobby of the IAA offices at Media City in Dubai was clogged with the groovy set. After all, May 8 - the announcement of the winners of the Young Creatives Competition - was a red-letter day for them.

By the end of the night two of them would be set for Cannes to participate in the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, the largest gathering of worldwide advertising and marketing professionals, as well as advertising's most prestigious awards, in June.

Twenty-one teams from all over the UAE and one team from Kuwait were present, each comprising a copywriter and art director. The cheering, bonhomie and back-patting aside, what did it all mean for the creative professionals involved? What does it really translate to?

Let's hear it from them: "The world is just beginning to identify the UAE as a melting pot of global ideas and creativity," say Bilal Kerbaj and Sheetal Rajan from Arabian Gulf Advertising (AGA) Dubai, who got the Gold and will represent the UAE at the Cannes competition.

"With the opening of the Media City and Studio City, launch of ad-world related publications and advertising events like the Dubai Lynx being held in the city, this is the ideal time for competitions of this sort, as they reward creativity and encourage people to recognise advertising as a career option."

"On a professional level, winning a competition like this means a huge plus point in our portfolios, because agencies are always on the lookout for young blood who can work under pressure on shotgun briefs," says Kerbaj, a designer with AGA since 2005.

Co-winner of the silver award, Keshav Naidu of Team Young and Rubicam, Dubai, feels the competition is good.

"No matter what the field," he is emphatic on that. "Advertising is no different. Since we're designing by committee most of the time, such competitions offer young creatives a platform to fully prove themselves."

Naidu is particularly approving of this particular competition because "the benefits are two-fold. One, the ads created usually generate some interest so they get some circulation.

"This helps more than just the vested interests of the creatives and actually goes on to offer the cause some visibility. Second, the non-profit organisation (The World Food Programme, in this case) gets access to the best creative work from several agencies without having to be tied down to one.

"The winning teams almost always walk home with better deals at the workplace. For the simple fact that the employers don't want to risk losing hot, in-the-news kind of talent. It helps to attract better talent to the region. And even getting young undergraduates into considering advertising as a career option."

His teammate, Umran Shaikh, who has participated twice before, says, "it's always a great learning experience being with like-minded youngsters who are completely charged and are hungry for good work.

"It wasn't like working real-time on an account, because of the sharp deadline. Here, the trick is to be fleet-footed. It gave me a hands-on experience on a real issue."

"On a personal level, there is no better motivating factor than to feel appreciated by over 30 professionals from the ad industry," says Rajan. "Even if we didn't win, the very idea of participating in an event like this shows us that our bosses have confidence in our capabilities."

Benchmarking creativity
"A competition or contest which brings together young creatives from different agencies in one hall, at one time, working on one common client brief is an excellent way of seeing where one stands: as a creative person as well as an agency - all other things being equal," says Farrukh Naeem, a copywriter who has worked in Asia and the Middle East for almost 10 years.

"Young people are the future of the ad business in my opinion, and contests give them the kind of exposure that might sometimes be difficult to get in agency hierarchies.

"In the early days, I was refused a job in one of the agencies as a young creative here because they were only willing to consider 'minimum 10 years of experience' for a copywriting position," he says.

"At that time, creativity was linked to years of experience rather than aptitude. Competitions like Young Cannes Lions kill such myths with their upper age limit, and by proving that even the youngest member of the agency can have great ideas when given a chance.

"As someone who has participated in the Young Cannes Lions competition and not won, I can say with confidence that the competition works for both the winners as well as those who tried.

"The young winners get to represent not just their agency but their country on a global level, with their creative counterparts from around the world. The majority of others who participate but don't win are encouraged to push harder, knowing that this is just a simulation of real life business pitches."

Not surprisingly, participation in the competition has grown over the years. And this bodes well for the profession.

"The very fact that the number of participants in the competition has increased and that there was actually a team from Kuwait participating is evidence that the awareness of advertising as a career choice is getting stronger," says Kerbaj.

"In fact, schools around the region have begun calling advertisers to conduct guidance sessions with high school students, just as they used to call doctors and lawyers back in the past."

"I have been participating in this contest for four years now," says Naidu. "Having won a bronze, gold and a silver in consecutive years, if there's one thing (I have noticed) it's the steady rise in the quality of talent and as a factor the quality of work."

But just how creative is advertising in this region? Critics point out that advertising agencies in these parts are also-rans.

"The region has started creating a presence at the Cannes Festivals, that should tell you something," says Naidu.

"A few agencies here have already won awards that would've been unthinkable just a few years ago. Our agency won the first ever finalist for a TV commercial in the region. And TV sees the toughest of juries at Cannes."

"The quality of advertising in Dubai is definitely getting better," says Karbaj.

"Dubai is getting more and more global in its approach to the commercial world every day. And the city and its people ... want smarter advertising. (Not just the traditional housewife holding the product.) Which is actually great, because now creative people can finally get creative!"

Encouraging trends
According to Naeem, creativity is not a constant. "If one were to look at the effect our ads are making on a global level, we are making rapid progress on the creative front.

"Recent years have put us on the global creative radar with UAE agencies bringing home some of the most coveted global awards for creativity - like the Cannes Gold Lion.

"Dubai, in particular, is becoming a hotspot for creative people from around the world and I receive a constant inflow of comments on my ad blog (http://farrrukh.wordpress.com) from creatives around the world asking me how they can join an ad agency here.

"The Cannes Advertising Festival committee chose the UAE to host the first ever Cannes-style awards for awarding excellence in creativity in the Middle East, called Dubai Lynx," he says.

"And we will be having an annual advertising festival also in the UAE. So, yes, creativity is getting a lot of encouragement in the region.

"When I talked to the global jury at the Dubai Lynx, they said they were amazed by the creative standards and the production values of advertising in the region. This is how international exposure also showcases regional creativity to a worldwide audience of consumers, marketers and the creative community."

In fact, Naeem feels that creative professionals here have to work harder and be more ingenious because "in addition to meeting a client's communication objective, we try and ensure that we honour the cultural and religious norms of the region.

"Imagine being asked to promote skincare but without showing skin or promoting lingerie without showing it - now that's what requires true creativity. The good creatives in the region take it in their stride and manage to produce great work."

Competitions versus market forces

How relevant are the awards?
There is the contention that the best ads are not always the most effective in conveying the message. That the success in terms of effectiveness and penetration of the target audience is not taken into account while deciding the best ads.

"This is the oldest debate," says Naidu. "While highly creative ideas might not always push the goods, they definitely help brands be recognised the way they should be, provided the strategic planning isn't off.

"Besides, ads tend to be so interruptive to regular life. The least they could do is be interesting. Almost like a little Thank You for taking the consumer's time."

Naeem says the debate over whether creative ads meet marketing objectives effectively is never-ending.

"Leading agencies have published research that proves their point that creativity gets results. In most cases, the results being talked about usually means brand 'recall' or 'top of the mind awareness'. Just because someone knows your brand name does not prove that they would buy it.

"What's interesting is that according to agency and client surveys in the region, some ad agencies assume that the awards they win are an important criterion for clients, but this is not really the case.

"Awards won by an agency don't figure even in the top five criterion for agency selection, say clients who prefer to choose agencies that understand their business best."

Shaikh, however, feels that "awards bolster your confidence and work in any arena regardless of advertising. If you have to define the best ads, they are the ones that touch a chord with an audience. So it is effective in conveying the message. Yes, effectiveness and penetration are considered."

"The awards are given after being reviewed and scrutinised by professionals in the field," says Kerbaj.

"These people know what works and what won't ... so definitely, the awards are relevant. When the brief was given for the competition, we were amazed at its detail.

"From detailed demographics to mindset of the market ... it was made very clear that judgment would be based on who would be able to meet al the criteria and yet grab the readr's attention. The winning ads made it because the audience could relate to them."

Does the creative potential in this region measure up to international standards? Naidu is undecided. "Yes and no," he says.

"Yes, when it comes to the potential of the creatives. No, because of the inability of most brand managers to buy into progressive work. A market can only be as forward as its marketers.

"Not the other way around. It's our responsibility (as an industry) to bring the region up to speed with the rest of the world. And not hide behind the excuse of it being a nascent market. The rewards in doing so are plentiful."

But he does a flip. "Besides, doesn't a huge chunk of the market come from already evolved markets? So why suddenly dumb it down the minute we hit the GCC.

"On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd say we're a 3 staring a 7 right in the face. We might come back with a black eye, but yes the creatives here can definitely compete with the best in the world."

"Slowly but surely, we're getting there," says Kerbaj and Rajan agrees.

"Especially with the ad gurus from other parts of the world beginning to make their way to Dubai and with advertising in Dubai beginning to sit up and take notice of their relevance in the world market ... very soon, we will be one of the benchmarks for international advertising."

n Winners will be flown to the south of France as guests of the Motivate Group. In addition, the Motivate Group will sponsor a UAE national who is a final year graphics/ communications student to attend the one-week Cannes Master Class.

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