Bombay Ad Club's fifty and going strong

Rhythmic beats, enthusiastic claps, drums for support hitting just the right notes. Percussionist Trilok Gurtu's performance on the evening of August 21, 2004 set the mood for the golden jubilee celebrations of the Advertising Club of Bombay at the posh Hilton Hotel in the city.

Corporate honchos, industry executives and of course, creatives swayed to Gurtu's lai and taal in a jugalbandi of sorts. The crescendo literally bringing the ceiling down.

To mark the fiftieth anniversary of the "world busiest Ad Club" its incumbent president, M G Parmeshwaran announced that an active outreach programme for youngsters would be initiated by the body.

"Young talent is moving to other fields as more options are available to them today," he said. "Our endeavour is to arrest this trend and showcase the career opportunities that advertising presents."

Training and development, he said, would be a key area of focus for the Club, with the body looking to centralize operations at a new and bigger office of the Secretariat in the next six to nine months.

This office will be equipped with high-tech training facilities, video/conference rooms - in short, it will function as the "advertising hub of the city", said Parmeshwaran.

Besides, the Club would also actively support and promote social issues, with the appointment of a social services committee, informed Parmeshwaran. "We will be launching a campaign on voter awareness," he added.

Alongside, a book on '50 Careers in Advertising' by Anita Sharan was released on the occasion, and the first copy of the special issue of Solus, the Club's in-house magazine, was presented to Gerson da Cunha, its first editor.

Winners of the creative contest organized by the Club to mark its fiftieth anniversary were also felicitated on the occasion.

Participants were invited to do an ad on ‘An exciting profession called Advertising', and out of over 300 entries from various agencies it was FCB-Ulka and OgilvyOne Worldwide who emerged the final winners.

If toasts were raised and good wishes exchanged to the unending journey of the Club, it was Chief Guest Anil Ambani who had a befitting message to the high-powered gathering of industry professionals - "Set aside the safety-first instinct".

Ambani was delivering his keynote address and he minced no words in highlighting how Indian advertising agencies were caught in the maze of foreign tie-ups and associations.

"Our advertising world remains in bondage to foreign idioms, cultures, trends and of course, Martin Sorrell," he said. "The Indian ad industry accounts for less than a quarter of a per cent of world advertising. Agencies here are a mere rounding figure for many foreign companies."

His parting words, "Indian advertising can make it big provided it adopts a new mindset - one that regards the world as its oyster."

So are you listening Mr. Pandey and Mr. Joshi? © 2004 agencyfaqs!