Akheel Hassan Bilgrami, Executive Creative Director, CIQIt’s a question I’ve often asked my creative teams: Would you rather see campaign results or win an award? Would you rather your ad is praised by the people in the comments section or win another trophy? Would you rather earn a promotion for yourself or win accolades?
Should the two be going hand in hand? Yes.
But are they? Often only when it comes to the last one. And that’s the wrong way to look at things.
Somewhere along the way awards became inseparable from career growth. We stopped looking at the campaign numbers and started chasing media coverage. We gave up the hunger to find cultural truths and started focusing on jury trends.
The way the system has now been geared is only driving us further away from the person on the street. Case studies have become more important than work. Headlines on award show boards are often more thought through than campaign copy.
This needs to change. What’s most important is that leaders take the pressure of winning off the creative’s back and bring back the pressure of creating something enduring and impactful.
It’s equally important for clients to recognise that a well-written, well-crafted, hardworking piece will naturally be talked about by their audiences and peers even if it is not entered anywhere.
This is not a blame game. But a real need of the hour.
Today’s creative challenges and opportunities
Our industry is fighting hard to stay relevant. Creativity is under a cloud. Creatives are struggling to stay relevant and up to date with the fastest pace of change in history.
AI and tech are changing the game as we speak. The way work is created and crafted has started looking very different. What used to take months now takes weeks, days or even hours. What needed a roomful of talent now just needs a handful.
Innovation is knocking on our heels. There already is a manifold increase in the amount of content created. The quantity of AI-generated articles has surpassed the quantity of human-written articles being published on the web. Our feeds are being reshaped. In this scenario, it is becoming harder for good work to get noticed in the real world just because the sheer number of stuff going out there every minute and fighting for attention is gargantuan. Generative AI content is getting more eyeballs and, in many cases, delivering more entertainment for everyday people than pure human crafted ones.
As creatives this is both a thrilling and challenging time. On one hand, it is easier to get our ideas visualised and showcased in front of clients. But on the other, it is getting harder to put a number that not just justifies the effort, but the experience and the eye for craft. Clients too are under immense pressure to keep pace with the change and ensure that their agencies are on the same page.
It’s why we need to relook and rethink our approach to suit these times, for our sake. And award shows will only serve as a distraction. Make no mistake, if we do not keep up with the pace of change, automation will become the default setting, which is already being offered by holding agencies and platforms.
Championing human creativity
There has been a pivot towards incorporating tech at every level of the creative process, but the human element will endure. And this is our biggest opportunity. If we learn how to use it to our benefit and not just as another tool to beef up the case studies (as we have recently seen at award shows), we will be creating a much more rewarding space for ourselves and the brands we are meant to nourish.
There is no denying that humans have the edge. We need to go out there, perceive what people are thinking, understand how people are living and recognise what challenges the common man on the street is facing. And then bring that back into our work. We need to relearn some things and unlearn the old habits. We need to avoid falling into the trap of thinking from the jury’s point of view every time that juicy brief lands on our table.
Rather, we need to figure out how to get the best possible work out there, faster, more efficiently to deliver effectiveness at scale. Craft it with tools that are changing by the day while not losing sight of what makes creativity tick: the human experience.
We need to bring back the love of advertising into the game and lose the love of shiny trophies that are proudly displayed at the entrance. It’s why at our agency and studio, you will see the latest numbers on live campaigns showcased on a screen as you enter. Because when you walk into the workplace that’s the one and only thing that should matter. When that happens, accolades will follow, and sometimes it will be in the form of an award.
It’s time our top industry voices took a stand. For the good of advertising. And there’s no category for that.
By S. Akheel Hassan Bilgrami, Co-Founder of CIQ Agency and Xawiya Studios
