It is good work which finally speaks: R Balki

In times when winning metals at prestigious awards functions is in vogue there exists in our midst an agency which shuns the very thought of attending such functions. They have come up with their own innovative ideas and methods of rewarding team mates for their efforts and creativity. Here we are talking about Lowe Lintas & Partners India the ad agency with a difference. It has been over a decade since Lowe Lintas has participated in a creative awards event. The invite sent for the function held on 4th June 2013 at Shangri-La Hotel , Mumbai said it all. The unusual invite from Lowe  Lintas + Partners invited guests to   attend a ‘ True Show.’  Without beating around the bush it also stressed on ‘celebrating ten years of not giving a damn about awards.’

In this competitive scenario where agencies depend on the jury’s verdict for their annual performances at awards functions Lowe Lintas & Partners consider it a waste of time and prefer to stay away from them.

Their fourth edition of ‘True Show’ showcased  Lowe's own internal awards show,  where the agency  appreciated its own work and  rewarded what it believed to be the best of the industry. This event which was hosted after a gap of five long years  more than made up for lost time as their team won accolades and were facilitated for their great work that has come  from within the agency . Friends and folks from the ad  industry gathered at the function to cheer on the winners of the evening.
R. Balki , Chairman and Chief Creative Officer  , Lowe Lintas & Partners India believes that we are the harshest critics of ourselves, need no third party to judge our best works and do not require the acknowledgement of 20 members of the jury to decide the worth of our creativity. He considers the entire process of chasing metals a booming business. 

Balki disputes the fact that juries have credibility and with the positioning they have for their agency brand viz . 'We don't give a damn about awards' proves their stance and determination to stay away from awards events that according to him lack credibility.

According to him awards functions are an outdated phenomena and nowadays clients too are less enthusiastic about the entire concept given the fact that that it has nothing to do with the brand performance or how good the piece of work is.

True Awards List of Winners

At the True Show this is what R Balki had to say while giving away the internal awards to his teammates, “We genuinely believe as an agency that the awards of today are rigged and therefore don’t make any difference to anybody’s life. Therefore all we want to do with True Show is say that industry awards don’t mean a thing to us. Having said that, True Show is an endeavour by us to recognize inspiring work that has come out of our agency in the last year. True Show is not just about awarding ourselves but about awarding people who helped us achieve our dreams. These include our clients, lyricists, cinematographers, design team etc.”

In a humorous vein he added , “We genuinely believe as an agency that awards are just an excuse to drink. Therefore these (the awards) are not something that will make or break anyone’s life. We only choose to have the True Show in years that we do some great work. This year, it was extremely difficult to create the shortlist of some very good work.”

Later he went on to  showcase over a dozen shortlists of the best works of the agency in the past year.  Some of them included Idea, Tanishq, Havells, Lifebuoy among others who were awarded top honours at the event. Their ‘Telephone exchange’ campaign for Idea was judged the best and went on to bag a Gold while while the ‘Bande acche lagte hain’ (for ICICI Prudential) and ‘Hawa badlegi’ (for Havell) campaigns shared the Silver and  ‘Against half knowledge’ campaign for Economic Times bagged a Bronze. The other awards were presented to  winners for ‘Cricket ki khushi’ (Coca Cola) for voiceover, Idea’s theme track ‘Honey Bunny’ for lyrics and music, ‘Badhti ka naam zindagi’ (Axis Bank) for editing and ‘Help a child reach the age of 5’ (Lifebuoy) for direction and cinematography.

In an effort to remain connected with their contemporaries Lowe Lintas also gave away awards for works done by outside agencies. The True Envy award was bagged by Ogilvy & Mather for their campaign for client Hindu while DDB Mudra too bagged one for their work for client Big Bazaar .  Abhijit Avasthi from O&M and Sonal Dabral from DDB Mudra personally collected their respective awards.
The event was attended by the advertising honchos from the industry. Adgully spoke to R. Balki with regard to his thoughts on the role of award functions today and also elicited reactions and comments on the unique event from the various bigwigs present at the function. Some excerpts:

It is the fourth time that they have organized their  internal awards show. Balki explained why Lowe Lintas has shied away from awards functions since the past ten years. He attributes it to the fact that it did not make any sense to them since they realized the truth and inside story of such functions at a very early stage. ‘We will always stay away from such awards in the future and no change will be seen on that front,” he stated vehemently.

He continued to say, “I will not support any show that is only a money making business. It is not for a charitable cause and in future if they get their act right I may reconsider my opinion on the same. Till such time that there is a credible awards show we will stay away from such shows. ”

With regard to the way forward at Lowe Lintas R. Balki assertively said “It is work which finally speaks for us at the awards,” thus making his stance very clear.

Balki’s talented wife and Director, Gauri Shinde too made an appearance at the function.
Abhijeet Awasthy, Executive Creative Director, Ogilvy said , “It was a great show. I think it is a great gesture towards your employees who have worked for your company hard.” 
Agnello Dias, Taproot sharing his views on the evening said , “I think it is a great way to celebrate the kind of work the agency does. This entire thing should be taken as motivation. Yes of course it will encourage the talent within the organization.”

Manish Dubey, Senior VP and Head marketing, ICICI prudential Life Insurance says, “we do support such event and more than this being a show it encourages good quality work and appreciation for all concepts. As an insurance brand we are focused about a family insurance and support and we realized that an Indian family man does a lot for its family but what about his security so that is the concern factor and keeping this insight in mind we created this campaign.” 
Sameer Singh, Global Brand VP, Lifeboy, HUL opined, “It’s wonderful, Lowe has done great work, not just for creativity sake but even about solving the business problems across the categories.”

Sashi Shankar, CMO, India Cellular sharing his viewpoint on such functions said, “More like this should be done. Lowe is doing wonderful work by celebrating their own work and not depending upon awards.”

Sonal Dabral, DDB Mudra appreciating the novel idea avers, “I like the idea of thanking all the partners and people with whom you work. A great idea.”
“It’s a company celebrating their best work while also inviting competition. It’s been a happy and great evening,” said Theron Caramine, FWC Design
Giving a client’s perspective CKV Venkat, Titan said, “It is really great for an agency to do something in such a way that will help the employees work more passionately. As a client I feel it is great to be present here.”

As one would expect the event being a class apart from the regular awards function it was only but natural that winners were not awarded metals or  trophies but in a unique endeavour on part of Lowe Lintas  winners were awarded bottles of Champagne with their names and achievements inscribed on them. Their efforts were duly acknowledged  by heavy weights from the creative fraternity such as Prasoon Joshi- McCann Erickson, Shashi Sinha-  Lodestar, KV Sridhar from Leo Burnett , Madhukar Sabnavis & Abhijit Avasthi - O & M, BBDO India’s  Josy Paul, Draft FCBUlka’s KC Chakravarthy popularly known as Chax, Taproot’s Agnello Dias and

Shikha Sharma from Axis Bank along with clients like Rajiv Bajaj of Bajaj Auto, HUL's Nitin Paranjpe, among others who were present making the agency’s innovative efforts to showcase creativity worth the while .