Abby Awards: Scam ads are OK, says French <b><font face="Verdana" size="1" color="#FF0033">Abby Awards!</font></b>

Neil French and David Innis are of the opinion that the so-called scam ads should not be treated as a separate category, but be judged along with the rest

After all that has been said and done about December advertising, the defendents of the 'creative cause' in India have reason to celebrate - Neil French, worldwide creative director, Ogilvy & Mather, feels scam ads do not deserve pariah treatment.

In the runup to the INS Clutter-Busting Contest (which is part of the India Advertising Festival), French and David Innis, vice-president and senior writer, Vickers and Benson Arnold, Toronto, shared their hard-earned wisdom on creative communication with a lot of upcoming local talent.

Innis - who, incidentally, began his advertising career in India - had only one thing to tell his Indian counterparts... "Have fun. Because, if you're not enjoying yourself, you just can't be creative enough to make great ads." French, on the other hand, dwelt more on how clutter-busting has to start at the layout level, inside the minds of creative people.

Given the high level of interactivity during the session, it was inevitable that questions on scam ads found voice. And French - and Innis, for that matter - were quite forceful in defending such ads.

"Who can define scam ads?" thundered French. "Scrap the rules. Every ad is judgable because it is an effort at creativity." French does not buy the argument that scam ads are those that are released just once, purely for the sake of record. "By that same logic, Apple's '1984' commercial is a scam, huh?" he asked. "Why do you dismiss creative pieces of work into a category called Unpublished as if they're lepers?" he continued, to the ecstacy of the creative minds assembled. "Let all creative work be judged on the same terms."

However, to be fair to the Bombay Ad Club, its stand on scam ads stems from the desire to prevent the constraints-free advantage that made-for-awards ads have over bona fide ones. But French isn't convinced.

"You are judging creativity here, not effectiveness," he said. "And like virtue is its own reward, so is the effectiveness of an ad in the market. But if you are judging creativity, all ads must be judged by the yardstick of creativity. We are judging creativity here, not effectiveness. Don't complicate things."

Here, Innis had an interesting observation to make. "Agencies do what you call 'scam ads' to showcase their creative talent," he said. "Even Fallon (of Minneapolis) got going on the back of all the so-called scam ads it did for the Episcopal Chruch. So what scam ads are we talking about? As long as there is a client to back the agency, it's fine."

French is also understandably piqued with some the backroom politics that have been enacted in the recent past. "You need to grow up. Stop all this backbiting and he-did-this-and-I-did-that sort of thing. Just get global juries here, and they'll pick the best work. Let's bring joy back into this business."

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