Ad Club Madras rebrands awards; Lowe and O&M to give it a miss

Advertising Club Madras has gone in for a face-lift. The awards, previously called CAT, has been renamed SPARK and the trophy too will have a new look. Instead of a cat-like figure, it will sport the look of a matchstick with a spark.

But for all the changes, the local function will definitely lack the sparkle with two big agencies - Lowe and O&M - opting out. In fact, this follows their earlier decision to steer clear of all local awards in the country. This has forced Lowe's client St Gobain to enter the contest on its own. "We are very proud of our work for St Gobain, but we wish to stay away from all awards in future and will concentrate only on international awards," says Renu Prasad, vice-president, Lowe, Chennai.

Says G Ajayan, general manager, O&M, who is also the vice-president, Ad Club Madras, "O&M has been involved to the extent that we have redesigned the trophy and the entire awards function. We feel the spark represents creativity best. We have also helped them with the entire stage set up and organisation."

ER Sreevatsa, president, Ad Club Madras, says every year a few clients enter the awards on their own. This year, apart from St Gobain, Citibank and Polaris have entered all by themselves. The awards have a total of 533 entries this year - which is more or less the same as last year. Besides Bangalore, there have been a few entries from Coimbatore, Cochin and Hyderabad as well. Sreevatsa says, "Some of the best brains in the creative and marketing fields were involved in the judging process. Chakravarthy (Chax) from Mumbai (who was earlier creative director of Leo Burnett) was the chief of jury."

Will Lowe and O&M's decision to abstain affect the awards in any way? "With two major agencies choosing to stay out, the benchmark level could be affected. Ad Club Madras takes into account work done by southern agencies only, unlike the Bangalore Ad Club. So it will certainly feel the pinch," GS Shridhar, senior creative director, Mudra, told agencyfaqs!.

Suguna Swamy, creative director, O&M, Chennai, says O&M's decision has partly to do with the costs involved. "These awards are becoming a hugely expensive proposition. And we found that they were proliferating for all kinds of categories. So we have decided at a national level that we will take part only in the Abbys and in major international awards. After all, we have national clients who deserve to have their work acclaimed worldwide. Besides we feel that our resources are put to better use in providing our people with training and outings rather than running after all awards."

The entry is indeed expensive. For instance, the Ad Club Madras entry cost can go up to Rs 1.5 lakh (if one participates in all the 37 categories), while the cost of entries for international ad awards are upwards of $150 to even $250. That is, Rs 7,500-plus per entry.

Some ad folk in the city have decided to take this in their stride. "If there is good work, then it should find its place under the sun. Maybe these agencies feel they have nothing to talk about on behalf of their Chennai branch," opines U Jayraj Rau, vice-president & client services director, HTA, Chennai. "Why should some agency's non-participation affect anyone else? After all, a piece of work speaks for itself and one does not necessarily have to benchmark against someone else to know what is good or bad," says a confident Alexander Zachariah, director, rubecon Communications.

But obviously, it is going to be a subdued event this year. © 2002 agencyfaqs!