Why did Longhand, an award that celebrated copywriting, go the way of the long copy ad?

For those who mourned the death of well crafted copy in print, Longhand through its brief existence, was a glimmer of hope, a flicker of light in the dark and many other metaphors that the creatives who wrote for it, would probably be a lot more adept at coming up with.
Bodhisatwa Dasgupta, senior creative director at J Walter Thompson started the contest, motivated by an atavistic longing for days when verbose but well-crafted prose ruled the roost. Another motivation: his misgivings about the current lot of advertising creative talent. "Of late, when kids get into agencies, they are not taught the craft of writing and most of them don't really care. I've been looking for writers and they say 'I am ideator' which is a very cool thing to say and something you are supposed to do, but then so is the writing." The lack of concern for the written word was also apparent to Dasgupta in the current state of print advertising where "Most headlines - if you can call them that - are shitty and there's no love in the body copy; you just puke out whatever the client wants." Strong words that would have made for a fine rant on Facebook but Dasgupta decided to go a few steps further.

Longhand began as a contest on Facebook, open to all writers, initially judged by Indian ad folk. But one of the judges, Satbir Singh, then creative head at Havas, suggested a couple of other names: Neil French, the former chief of creative at WPP and copywriter turned novelist Indra Sinha. To Dasgupta's delight both these luminaries, celebrated for their contributions to the ad business, came on board as judges, driven purely by passion for writing.

Unlike most award shows that are currently locked in an arms race of glamorous venues and celebrity guest appearances, Longhand remained a purely online gig, evolving into a website, with Dasgupta doing everything from coordinating entries to roping in a mostly international panel of judges. In its first year, the contest was backed by WPP; the prize was The Copy Book (a collection of some of the world's best longform writing in advertising) autographed by Neil French. And though there have been golds awarded every year since, the trophies have been entirely honorary.

Longhand seemed to be gathering steam in its second year, when it drew in 832 entries. The judges weren't always in agreement resulting in long feuds in the comments section, all so beautifully crafted and well-articulated, their presence was a strange anomaly on a social media site choked to bursting with 'dank memes' and inarticulate rage.

However this is likely to be the last year of the contest. Entries have been dwindling year on year, below the 400 mark in 2016. Dasgupta feels it's because the charm of participating in a lo-fi contest is wearing thin: "People began missing the glitz and glamour. A lot of them started asking what do I get out of this? Can I check into a nice hotel and say 'checked into the Longhand award show?'" He tried getting support from the Advertising Club and the 3As of I but was rebuffed since they already had a best of copy trophy. Plus the logistics were overwhelming for someone working a fulltime job.

And so, save a miracle or two, it is pencils down for Longhand. People wanting a fix of long copy will just have to make do with it being narrated by pretentious sounding voices to a montage of millennial friendly visuals that are already outstaying their welcome as can be seen in ads for Facebook, Levi's etc.