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    Undeserving pieces don't win big awards, says SapientNitro India's KV Sridhar

    Synopsis

    SapientNitro India's KV Sridhar kicks off our series on Indian jury members at Cannes with some candid commentary on Indian judges, creatives & their chances at the world’s biggest ad award show.

    ET Bureau
    KV Sridhar, chief creative officer of SapientNitro India, who is on the Press jury at Cannes Lions 2015 kicks off our series on Indian jury members at Cannes with some candid commentary on Indian judges, creatives and their chances at the world’s biggest ad award show.

    On judging:

    Which is the one category you’d rather be judging instead of Press?


    Integrated and Mobile. Print is my old love, branded content is my new love.

    What’s your take on trying hard for India - the patriotic duty of every judge or an inherently absurd concept?

    We need not be over-patriotic and push a stupid idea. The only thing I urge people to do is not pull down work because it’s not from your own agency. Be neutral. Often, quite unfortunately, because of cultural nuances, judges look to that one jury member from India to give them a context and that’s when people become subjective and attack the work. "It’s irrelevant culture." "It’s western." "Not true to India." Second, when in doubt about entries, most other people will give their countryman’s work the benefit of doubt or defend it. Our people, at the first opportunity they get, will say "Oh, it’s a scam." "Been done." "In fact, our agency did something similar but we never entered." As a jury member your word weighs far more than the desk research they do in the back-office. The rules state that you have to tell the jury chairperson if you suspect anything, and then they run background checks. In spite of that, people prefer to have conversations during coffee breaks. These are the two things that kill Indian work.

    How and why do Cannes Lions matter? Some say it ought to be no more than a pat on the back for a campaign that first needs to deliver here. Others believe if your work doesn’t win abroad it simply wasn’t good enough to win. Which school of thought do you subscribe to?

    It’s not important to the people who cannot win. You win three golds at Cannes and suddenly it’s important. Competitiveness, need to win and public recognition are part of the creative ego. Most creative people are like children. If your child is not competitive and does not think that he can beat his father then he’s not a kid at all. If I don’t believe I can win a Grand Prix and dethrone the biggest agency or the best in the world, then I’m not a creative person at all. At award shows one gets instant gratification. But the corporatisation of awards and its use as a sales tool is what has made creative communities across the world a little uncomfortable. The motivation for winning has changed. Earlier if you won or not, you had a few extra drinks that night and the next day it’s forgotten. It didn’t affect you. Now, it’s a ranking game, linked to performance and bonuses, agency’s positioning and the kind of respect you get within your network. A lot of unsaid things pressurise people and make them desperate. Instead of it being a result of your work, you are working for the result. Large organisations setting an objective by saying "I’m hiring you because I expect you to win X number of awards," that’s unfair. And stupid.

    On the work:

    The least deserving piece of work that won the big awards in Lions past?

    Undeserving pieces of work don’t really win the big awards. When you talk about bronze and silver that’s where the subjectivity comes it.

    What's your check list for Grand Prix worthy work in your category?

    Originality of idea. Brilliance in execution. Simplicity and most importantly relevance. If the idea is fabulous but doesn't connect with the category or product... zero. It goes back like snakes and ladders. Four years ago, when I was judging print we had a campaign for Scrabble from Latin America. It was in Spanish, no one could read a word of the long copy ad. But two jury members from LatAm stood up and read the copy as if they were in a play reading session. It was done so beautifully that it convinced people to give it the Grand Prix. Of course it's another matter that later we got SMSes saying that the work had been entered before and didn't win more than a silver or something, so it had to be disqualified. The point is understanding cultural nuances, relevance and how the argument is crafted is critical. That's what differentiates the golds from Grand Prix. However, Grand Prix is the easiest choice. Because what happens with other metals is that you are going through hundreds of ideas, many of them bad ideas, so much shit that when you come across a relatively good idea it makes you feel good. Those things actually win metal.

    Should the work in your category reflect the larger direction that the world is moving in or is there still space for a pure play press ad?

    There is space for a pure play press ad. But today the context in which print advertising is consumed is quite different. So there's a lot more innovation in print today than before. However, to me the context is very important. Finding fresh and relevant insights into the things that haven't changed, like pure human emotions and how we interact with people and things around us; that to me is the real challenge. Gimmicks are easy. So you can find a lot of innovation, clever things on Twitter and selfies at the Oscars, etc. But is it truly insightful? No matter what technology does or how advertising changes, a great insight will make you connect with a brand. And that is missing in 90% of the work today, it's all very clever work.

    On the Lion hunt:

    Last year we got 27 lions, abki baar how many should we return with?


    In 2013 we got 33. I always believe you must aim for your best year. But that's as a optimist.

    Which Indian work do you think has the potential to bag a Grand Prix?

    I like the Nescafe campaign with the stammering comedian. That will have some chance. But media fragmentation is too high to know all the work. One needs to catch up. Maybe Brand Equity should do a showcase of the work. But I think people will be reserved because if somebody were to shout "that's a scam" the word will travel much faster than the work. But as long as it's a legal delivery it's fine. Only thing you need to judge is the quality of ideas.

    What's the one ingredient that if missing in the made in India work will hurt our chances of winning heavy metal this year?

    Global popularity. We've got enough global footprint, the Internet and clout. We're all sitting on global creative boards, nothing stops us from popularising our work and showcasing it to the world. Why is Indian work not popular across the world before it's entered into any award shows? Two reasons. One, we are not confident and the second is that we don't want the world to discover it's proactive work. Big campaigns come with big reputations. All our wins, barring the Times Of India campaign that had the bigness, don't have that popularity and global buzz around it before you go to the judging room. The other campaign that people discovered later because of the medium and nature of the idea is Kan Khajura Tesan from Unilever.
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