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By Rayomand J Patell


Been a minute since my last article, got busy with a couple of pitches and you know how that goes. Well, I’m back and this time, in a departure from the usual, I’m here not on a Sunday morning but on a Thursday. It’s a holiday this time but going ahead, Thursday is the new Friday as they say. 


So let’s get down to it. I’ve been a Juror for a while and whether it’s one of the top shows in the country or some of the newer ones, I notice some anomalies when people enter. So if InspiRAYtion 23 talked about how to put a portfolio together, this one comes in at the other end of the spectrum - how to win an award by entering correctly. 


Here’s a tip - all Jurors are hoping to God, someone somewhere has done something cool AF to make judging worth the time and effort. We want to as Gustave says in Ratatouille, be a ‘friend of the new’. We want to say something is a breath of fresh air and mean it. We want to celebrate something that shouldn’t exist, we want to delight in something that was birthed against all the odds. We’re looking for magnificence so that we can reward it with as much gusto as we can. 


And along come the offenders. The piece entered in the wrong category. The piece that makes you wonder if the entrant understands what the category even is. The film case study sent in for… a normal print ad. The exact same case study entered in infinite categories. Because, why not? 


Please, I beg. When you’re entering a category, consider what the category even is and if your work does NOT fit, do NOT enter it in there. It’s soul destroying to have to slide it out at the short list stage for being incorrect. 


And if you’ve made a case study hurrah, but submitting the same case study in categories as diverse as Integrated to Print Craft… it’s enough to make the most optimistic of us want to head to the nearest bar. 


Read More: <a href="https://www.storyboard18.com/advertising/inspiraytion-advertising-is-a-discipline-that-uses-many-mediums-37570.htm">InspiRAYtion: Advertising is a discipline, that uses many mediums</a> 


When you’re entering a category, try to pretend you were paying for the entry yourself. And then ask yourself - should this really be here. If the answer is no - don’t waste money, your CFO is bound to thank you. I’m all for maximising a piece’s chances, but someone with experience and awareness of its real chances is a prerequisite. Youth and optimism are wonderful but they are always beaten hollow by age and treachery. The selection of award show categories is a sniper’s game, not that of Rambo armed with multiple machine guns scattering fire all over. 


When you do a case study, ask yourself if it just must begin with ‘In India…’. Be nice to Jurors everywhere and stop using that phrase. It really grates on our collective nerves. 


Some people say your award case study must have a large budget. I say so long as you very quickly establish what the problem was and then demonstrate your awesome solution for it, you’ve got a Juror’s eyebrow perking up. If the rest of your case study is cogent, coherent and gets to the point of what you did first and foremost - you have a chance of it being studied deeper. But if you’re going to waffle about it, you risk running up against the wrath of Jurors bored out of their minds. You don’t need to outspend you need to outsmart and that, my young friends, can be done on a shoestring budget too. 


Read More: <a href="https://www.storyboard18.com/advertising/inspiraytion-the-second-coming-of-suits-37970.htm">InspiRAYtion: The second coming of Suits</a> 


On another note, a lot of work at the shortlist stage is nothing to write home about. There’s a large body of stuff but even after the shortlist, the wide valley between a shortlist and a Merit, is Grand Canyonesque. If an idea could be done by any other brand in the category, it violates the first and foremost rule of differentiation. If in an integrated category you choose to show stuff that just ran in different mediums rather than integrating them meaningfully and driving traffic from one to the other beautifully (example The Bear and the Hare) there’s just no point. A piece of illustration may be killing it in a Craft category but have absolutely no merit in winning as an ad per se. 


If your agency has a series of Creative Reviews please attend them. You’ll understand how your ECD or NCD or CCO reacts to a room full of work. You’ll see what they pick up on and pick on. You’ll know when they lean in, that stuff is about to get real. Having the idea in the first place was about 1 percent of the work. The actual 99% of the work is in packaging it and giving it great context, so that it looks like the piece of genius a Juror is hellbent on finding. 


As we run up to Cannes - in a year when the networks are having a hard time, with the Independents running rings around them, it will be interesting to see what wins. My vote is on a return to or an elevation of Jury choices for work that operates at the human level. Using AI to talk to multiple people is so tech bro. But harnessing all that AI out there into something that touches the soul, that’s going to win big. At least, that’s my fervent wish. It is up to Jurors to celebrate the iconic each year and define the path advertising takes in the twelve months ahead. Make sure your piece, is something they want to celebrate for all the right reasons. Till we meet again! Have an inspiring week.


Rayomand J Patell is an advertising veteran and InspiRAYtion is a weekend column on everything about advertising and marketing.

InspiRAYtion 24: How to enter at an award show

By Rayomand J Patell

This is going to date me, but I began with a portfolio that was actually a large physical black case that held Art Pulls. These were very, very valuable because they had been professionally printed on high grade paper and would have your work in all the analogue glory the Print era could muster. Much later high res (short for resolution, not raise as some say) printing changed all that but I’m beginning at the beginning. 


Along with Art Pulls, came VHS tapes for the few commercials you’d done and audio tapes for the few radio spots you’d done and that was the analogue era which then slowly shifted to DVDs for films and then suddenly we entered the Mac Book Pro era to show off our work on a clear screen as jpegs or pdfs and we all hoped to God PPT wouldn’t crash (it would always, because Microsoft on Apple was always dodgy till fairly recently). 


And from lugging our Mac Book Pros around, some embraced having a website of their own work carefully curated and then everyone moved on to Behance and ilk. And suddenly, everyone became formatted into boxes on Behance. 


So here’s the thing. It’s not about the form of your portfolio. It’s about what’s in there that you’re showing, that sells the ultimate product: you. 


And I see a lot of portfolios where that just doesn’t happen. 


Here’s how to play it. 


Take the top ten mediums. Do work (if you read my past week’s column, you know it’s about what you can create, rather than what your agency can sell) that displays your mastery over the medium singularly. 


A film spot. A radio spot. A print ad. An outdoor campaign. A website design. A mobile app. A banner ad. An Instagram reel / carousel / static post. An SEO idea. And so on. Do ideas for each medium that demonstrate you get the discipline of Advertising and understand how to mess about creatively and push the envelope in each medium. Really push it. Like in Outdoor you should be at the level of the ‘It Also Sticks Handles To Teapots’ Araldite static version or the British Airways boy waves at airplane overhead innovation. And so on. That way, the person on the other side of the table knows you know your advertising history and have tried your best at going up against the greats. 


Once you’ve done that and you’re happy, turn your mind towards integrated work. 


Take a brand, get a core idea like “you’re not you when you’re hungry.” Get your own idea like that. No pressure. 


Now, go to town with it. 


What’ the film that leads people to the website. What’s the social that kicks in. What are people seeing on digital out of home, at the mall, at the airport and on their mobile screens… how are you bringing it all to a crescendo at launch and then taking it into digital conversations that pan out for the rest of the quarter or year even. 


Really master the art of bringing the same core idea together in an integrated manner and you’ll learn what being a creative leader is all about faster than any school or course can teach you. 


You may botch up on some mediums. But you’ll learn an invaluable lesson. How to think across the board like a General of Creativity, marshalling his Army, Navy and Air Force to win in the marketplace battle. And if you can demonstrate that convincingly in your portfolio… of individual ideas that showcase the strength of your craft followed by the magnificence of your ability to think up core creative ideas and deploy them in an integrated manner, why then this world and all it holds, will be yours. Just because you’re young and doing only banners shouldn’t stop you from playing CCO. Because how else are you ever going to be one?


Till we meet again! Have an inspiring week ahead, plotting and planning the most banging version of your portfolio. 


Read More: <a href="https://www.storyboard18.com/advertising/inspiraytion-22-the-portfolio-show-me-what-you-can-create-not-what-your-agency-can-sell-58682.htm">InspiRAYtion 22: The Portfolio - show me what you can create, not what your agency can sell</a>


Rayomand J Patell is an advertising veteran and InspiRAYtion is a weekend column on everything about advertising and marketing.

InspiRAYtion 23: How to put together an inspiring portfolio

By Rayomand J Patell


So there I was, a five years in the biz Cub writer in front of Kersy Katrak himself. 


Since nobody will know who he was, let me say it was like being in front of an older Anselmo Ramos. 


Kersy’s agency had dominated the desi scene in the Seventies. He’d won everything there was to win at all the award shows of the time. When MCM, his uber hot agency came to an end, at least 10 new agencies that became mainstream giants were born out of his agency folk. So yeah… no pressure on yours truly! 


He had almost entirely retired by the time I met him at the Worli office of Rediff where he sat then, a legend enjoying the autumn of his life but yet very interested, very keen, very sharp. 


I’d gone to him to show him my work as a way of figuring if I had long term potential or whether I should just pack it in and be the lawyer my parents always thought I should have been. 


And so on the phone he’d told me to come by with some of my work. 


This drove me into a complete tizzy. 


All of it, was suddenly not worth showing. I had a complete panic attack and called him up to tell him so. 


And then he completely disarmed me by saying, “show me what you can create, rather than what your agency can sell, Rayo!”


OH man. That one line changed my life and in turn I’ve used it in every interview ever since when on the other side of the table. 


I walked into Kersy’s cabin a complete bag of nerves and was trembling more than a jelly bowl does. He put me at ease and from four p.m., we spoke till about nine or maybe ten p.m. 


It was the single most inspiring meeting I’ve ever had in my life. 


We talked abut life, the universe and everything. We talked of cabbages and kings. We talked about lyrics of songs. Beatles. Dylan. Hendrix. Jazz musicians. History. Art. Culture. Science. Innovation. Cars. Jack Kerouac. Beat poetry. Politics. Countries. Cities. His fondness for food. My fondness for food. (Put two Parsis together and this is bound to show up.) Who he admired. What they were currently doing. Everything under the sun. But, advertising. And that was the greatest lesson of them all. That it was life and all of it, that drove the best advertising. 


Somewhere at the fag end of it he asked me to show him my stuff. I could scarcely breathe as I showed him all my stuff that hadn’t gone through but which I was very proud of all the same. My little Rotomac campaign. Some bits on Parle. Some scripts on Tortoise mosquito coils. And when he nodded enthusiastically my heart thumped and when he pointed out a fly in the ointment which I hadn’t seen, it was SO gently done, I felt I was in the presence of a great Master, so evolved, that I couldn’t at all feel any ego. I was learning at the speed of empathy if that’s possible. 


At the end he said, “you have a gift with words.” Please use it all your life. It will always make you happy. Don’t worry about selling just now, keep writing. Hone your craft. 


I had walked into his room an advertising novice of five years roughly. I left his room with a feeling that I belonged. That one meeting changed my life, it made me never doubt ever again that advertising was going to be my lifelong career - and it changed my job because it gave me the courage to eventually move on to SSC&B Lintas, the hottest shop of that era. 


In the next episode, I’m going to write about what a modern portfolio should contain, but this one was abut remembering and cherishing that one meeting, that showed me what inspiration really means in this business. I hope that you find a similar Kersy who builds you up in your life. 


Rayomand J Patell is an advertising veteran and InspiRAYtion is a weekend column on everything about advertising and marketing.

InspiRAYtion 22: The Portfolio - show me what you can create, not what your agency can sell

By Rayomand J Patell


We recently picked up a large business for which I had to hire about three teams of Senior Copy and Art.


I was in a tearing hurry to fill the positions, so did what came naturally to me as in the past - fire up the ol’ LinkedIn account and put a post out. Here’s what it said: 


“Looking for six baby sharks. That's three Sr. Writers and three Sr. Art Directors who know, love and are obsessed by their craft. I have 6L CTC for each. 


We're at Parel East where McCann and Famous are at and we work out of our office most days of the week. 


Mainline experience preferred but so long as the writers know how to write - and the art directors have actually been to Art Schools like Ecole or JJ, I'm happy to meet you and hire you asap. 


This is for building out an A Team who will need to bring their A game to the table daily, for a client who's one of the largest in India. 


No pun-filled level of juvenile writing or non Art School candidates please. If you don't have released work, that's fine, show me what you can do. Show me what you wanted to do. Baby sharks just need an opportunity, I'm here to do that for you. 


Mail me directly on (my office email id) because I will not let AI get in the way of hiring no matter what.”


My inbox got hit almost constantly for the next couple of days from over a hundred aspirants. A few observations:


1. Nearly all mentioned they were so happy to be dealing directly with me rather than an AI empowered HR. I made it my business to respond to each and every email that came in and even when I was saying I’m sorry this skillset isn’t what I need at this time, they were so pleased to hear back and though it was a rejection, even then, they were happy about it being a clear no. 


Some took it very well and asked for specific feedback on their books, which though I didn’t have the time, I made the time to reply and that in turn won me some new friends. So I have to wonder - in all this keyword blah blah and all this AI blah blah, have we completely thrown the baby out with the bathwater? Hiring is one of the most delicate things you can do for your company. To leave it to tech to sort out and leave people guessing, seems to have become conventional practise. AI is categorically NOT to be used where the human touch matters most. 


Read More: <a href="https://www.storyboard18.com/advertising/inspiraytion-twenty-pearls-before-swine-56064.htm">InspiRAYtion Twenty - pearls before swine</a> 


2. Many seemed to think I would now want them to do some assignment. Which really threw me. Your portfolio and interview are really enough to get you hired. When did we start adding this extra leg to things? I can understand a Copy Test for absolute cubs, but they all seemed to look at me expectantly about some real world project to be flung at them. So for the ones I did hire, the lack of an assignment seemed to almost be a disruption in the process. 


3. Despite the requirements being very clear, a fair amount of people wrote in who were just not what I needed. Shooting their shot as it were. Which is also fine at some level, but it wasn’t even the sort of person who might be an unconventional choice; it was maybe someone who was far more expensive or far more senior in terms of position. That bit made me worry about what’s going on in our economy for this cohort to write in. Finally, I had to edit my original ad with this:


“EDIT: Appreciate all the people writing in. But if you're a) not able to be in the office five days a week b) above 6L c) not a writer or art director first and foremost, please don't write in. This is a hardcore writing gig for digital, website, etc with the occasional film needed.”


4. The completely out of left field comment that came in from more than one person was a query - is this a real job posting or are you just doing it for the engagement? So after a little probing I got told that some agencies post fake postings for jobs, just to create an aura around them that they’re always hiring. You could have knocked me down with a feather. It was sad and funny at the same time. Who even does this? No wonder candidates are so sceptical. I asked them to scroll through my LinkedIn for a previous hiring post many moons ago to assure them this was the real McCoy. 


Read More: <a href="https://www.storyboard18.com/advertising/ghost-job-listings-in-advertising-a-fad-or-phenomenon-50331.htm">Ghost job listings in advertising: A fad or phenomenon?</a> 


5. For all of the vastly off the mark candidates, there were those few diamonds in the rough who wrote in and got hired pronto. They made the entire process worth it. I haven’t filled out the entire team yet but it’s a matter of time. Which made me feel happy that even in 2025, your vibe still attracts your tribe. But what if tech had gotten in the way of these people and their very charming emails to me? I’d have completely missed out on some of the finest options. Do yourself a favour. 

Try hiring people yourself the next time you do a round of creative hiring. It’s one of the most inspiring things I could have done, meeting so many interesting minds out there in a fortnight. Somewhere as creative leaders, we need to institute guardrails around tech getting in the way of the perfect candidate getting hired. Intuition, is everything. More so now than ever. 


Rayomand J Patell is an advertising veteran and InspiRAYtion is a weekend column on everything about advertising and marketing.

InspiRAYtion 21: Is hiring broken?

Sometimes I get feedback that I write of an idealistic world, either one whose time has gone or one whose time should be there, but just isn’t, in 2025. 


And so the question arises. When you’re in a place that doesn’t value what you bring to the table, what should one do? 


Advertising is a meeting of minds. That creates a culture of optimism and out of that is born brave work clients want. They pay well for said brave work that really moves the needle and thus to quote the first Everest Creds Slide, “in our clients’ success, lies our own.”


So what do you do when your environment changes? 


Either there’s a new CEO who doesn’t care about making great Advertising; it’s just about taking on any client at any price to make the books look good rather than the work of the agency. 


Or the great agency of yesterday gets a super massive account and suddenly bloats three times its original size. Suddenly there’s fear and insecurity in the corridors. Politics rears its ugly head. What if we lose all this overnight? And from being an agency focused on great work, it descends into an agency focused on processes that allegedly minimise risk rather than getting the best ideas out there as before. 


Either way, when the vibe changes, what should you do?


Read More: <a href="https://www.storyboard18.com/advertising/inspiraytion-19-work-from-how-about-we-all-just-work-53858.htm">InspiRAYtion 19: Work from? How about we all just… work?</a>


Umesh Shrikhande, my much beloved ex CEO always said, 'All of life’s problems have only two responses. One can get up. Or, one can shut up.'


Getting up is easier when you’re younger. Your CTC isn’t a problem. You have no responsibilities besides your own bills in that sense. And yet, some of Advertising’s most enduring successes are people who have gotten up when the occasion demanded that a line be drawn in the sand; a rubicon of thus far and no farther. 


You can also choose to shut up. Buckling down and focusing upon the work is always going to earn you the respect of the client, if nobody else within your system. Eventually, good things happen to good people and the clients follow them wherever they may go. 


Life is short. Be in a place where what you bring to the table is much respected. Money comes and goes, but your integrity can’t be bought. Should porcine laughter be filing your ears, comfort yourself with two thoughts; it’s not for much longer and once you’ve moved on, the place tends to crumble under the weight of its own hubris. Till next Sunday!


Rayomand J Patell is an advertising veteran and InspiRAYtion is a weekend column on everything about advertising and marketing.

InspiRAYtion Twenty - pearls before swine

By Rayomand J Patell


WPP has been in the news lately with their return to office mandate. Right on cue, employees protested hard. Wasn’t this the same WPP that had braved the pandemic and smugly said productivity was actually up despite not being able to get out of our homes?


What gives? The conspiracy buffs on LinkedIn promptly got into overdrive claiming WPP wasn’t interested in keeping employees on and wanted to sack er right size. Whatever be the truth, time will tell as this is an evolving news story. 


Buttttt… almost simultaneously came the news that WPP having spent three months pitching for Starbucks also (and this is actually rather tragic) lost it in under a month. The wags have been having a field day about Mark Read switching to chai and so on. But, who did they lose it to? Anomaly, that’s who. 


I’m not doing the David vs Goliath thing because that’s not my point. 


But, there is one, the one I’m leading up to. 


2025 is the year of agile “creative first” nimble agencies. This term is fraught with stress for the average Suit and Planner, so let me call it the “work first” nimble agency. You heard it here first. 


Great teams are focused on the work. They get it done. Regardless of whether they’re in bed, or at work, in a plane, at a shoot, or on occasion, even in a client’s office. 


This whole fracas about returning to office is extremely myopic to my mind. 


How about the industry focuses on returning to do great work in the first place? 


Instead of asking for schedules, ask for how much the work rates on a Good Work Scale. The venerable JWT 10 Point Scale instituted by Craig Davis is a great place to start.


Support people and put processes in place to bring the A Game of your A Team to the table. If your star hitter is in traffic more than in presentations, a nimble agency is sure to poach her. 


Presenteeism in the office doesn’t really give birth to killer work. What does, is a meeting of minds. And that, can happen online, in a coffee shop, in the Metaverse (hello 2022s wet dream) and yes, in the office too. It’s for your team to decide. Why hire talented adults and treat them like Industrial Age factory workers? 


Size doesn’t matter. If everyone puts the work first, be they 10 member teams or numbering in the gazillions, you’ll hit many birds with one stone. Delivering Client winning work. Award winning work. Happiest Places To Work. And, that’s no er, Anomaly.


Rayomand J Patell is an advertising veteran and InspiRAYtion is a weekend column on everything about advertising and marketing.


Read More: <a href="https://www.storyboard18.com/advertising/inspiraytion-ten-whats-the-value-of-what-inspires-you-44792.htm">InspiRAYtion Ten: What’s the value of what inspires you?</a>

InspiRAYtion 19: Work from? How about we all just… work?

By Rayomand J Patell


What’s 2025 going to be like? Since everyone and his uncle have put out their wraps for 2024, here’s my entirely subjective bunch of opinions about the year to come. No bottles of vodka were opened during the writing of this article, I promise. 


We’re going to see WPP fold into itself. The venerable network will take good ol’ Ogilvy among others behind the barn and pull the trigger as they did with JWT, giving us a world in which OmniPublic (or whatever they choose to call the freshly merged Omnicom and IPG entity), WPP, Havas, Publicis and Dentsu are the only players left. From the Big Six to the Big Five. Will the Euro based Havas and Publicis start courting each other? Or will the very French Havas find love with the demure Asian beauty that is Dentsu? Time will tell. You read about it here first though. I see a future in which there are only the Big Four left a la the accounting world. 


AI is going to be simultaneously the next big thing, the next small thing, and even the completely forgotten about thing. Hold that thought, let me explain. It’s going to be the forgotten thing because it’ll be like electricity, which lets fridges cool Coke allowing a billion dollar business to flourish. What we do with AI (my favourite example so far has been the work on missing children and what they might look like when grown up after all these years have passed). Interesting things that far outshine the genie in the bottle that’s making it happen. 


As for the next big thing, I believe we’re still at iPhone One of equivalence. When we reach iPhone 4, that’s when we’ll be able to interconnect things in much more powerful workflows to create micro organisations and AI agents that will make billion dollar companies with under five employees possible. 


Read More: <a href="https://www.storyboard18.com/advertising/inspiraytion-17-will-the-biggest-agency-network-be-the-best-50471.htm">InspiRAYtion 17 - Will the biggest agency network be the best?</a>


And finally, as with apps, AI will also be the next very tiny thing but one which adds an incredible amount of value to your life. It is my belief that the Internet Of Things once AI enabled will finally give birth to products we haven’t seen yet. Digital Cuckoo Clocks that change the way the cuckoo animates basis the weather. Schtoopid but fun all the same. I’d love one. 


From the high falutin’ to the low brow of crass commerce, what course AI takes when the Copyright Lawyers get in on the action in the largest class action suits seen since the days of Big Tobacco, is moot. While it is tempting to be a complete Luddite and say AI shouldn’t be trained upon the creative efforts of others, we’ve seen this picture before, of Limewire versus the Music Industry. Money always makes everything work, and so artists who get paid a la musicians on Spotify or Apple Music may well agree to have their work in public domain. Alternatively, should they choose to opt out, their exposure might be curtailed. We live in interesting times for sure, on this score. My bet? That money and a lot of it will change hands and creators will be given their fair due to let LLMs learn upon their output. 


Moving on, I believe Meta and Google as the world’s display networks will face a significant disruption. Aside from oceans of ad fraud. Yes they can serve the right message to the right person at the right time. But advertising is about generalisation of awareness to large oceans worth of audiences, rather than micro targeting at this ‘bottom of funnel’ nerd holy grail. If you were going to buy something you’d buy it anyway. Personally, if Microsoft suddenly finds a new leader to rally around, owned digital assets in the form of websites really can make both social networks and display ads sweat for ad dollars in 2025. Make websites great again in 2025 is what I feel someone will work hard towards. It still gets my goat, that Meta is essentially charging you to talk to your own hard won followers. 


It is my belief that DOOH and Mobile in particular, will hook up and find everlasting passion. Outdoor has been enjoying a quiet resurgence over the last 12 months and with DOOH and the possibilities it offers, when given an overlay of things you can do that complement the brand message, through your phone, with a little bit of generative AI in real time even… we’re going to see some mad magic happen. The future is here and at the Laqshya Group yours truly is working hard to harness it for clients. If you’d like to know more on the power of merging large spectacle with tech personalisation for your brand, hit me up. 


And last but not the least, agencies are going to reorder themselves in terms of quality. At the very top end, will be the hand made Swiss watch equivalents. Humans making ads for humans will be a luxury only the top end of the market can buy. Then, there’ll be a vast ocean of the middle, all the way from the Omegas to the Timexes. And right at the bottom, will be novelty timepieces. Rubber alarm clocks you can fling about the room in frustration for example. Time, (no pun intended), will tell. 


Have a lovely Christmas and see you in 2025!


Rayomand J Patell is an advertising veteran and InspiRAYtion is a weekend column on everything about advertising and marketing.

InspiRAYtion 18 - Crystal Gazing

Now that Jaguar has gotten a get out of jail pass with the news of two networks merging, all of ad land is now discussing the Omnicom and Interpublic enshittification. 


Sure, you’ll get the biggest network, but will it be the best?


Will they remember they’re in the business of Advertising?


Or will it be a fine attempt at yet another bunch of acronyms, another veil of data and tech and AI blah blah word salad?


I read somewhere on LinkedIn that business transformation figured high up on the list. Among some other absolutely Tech Bro, Consulting Bro and anything but Advertising or Creative Bro stuff. 


Very weird isn’t it?


Big and good used to be a thing. Ogilvy under Neil French. JWT under Craig Davis. DDB under Amir Kassaei. Powerful networks that each had a maestro at the helm, making some of the most iconic work ever. (While French and Davis are amazing ad men, check out Amir’s life story it is straight out of a film. I admire the man to have achieved so much despite what he endured.)


And now, rather like WPPs collapse into itself, like a tired Parisienne accordion player at day’s end, the new merged network is going to be a complete bloodbath of layoffs and cost cuts. There’ll be a soulless CEO at the end when the dust settles and the CCO will be some anodyne sort who spouts all the cliches necessary to be appointed to the post, rather than having any passion at all for real work on real clients and the biggest ideas on the biggest brands. 


We’ve seen this movie before in short. The Empire Strikes Back. 


But this Empire doesn’t even have the vitality, the purpose or the philosophy of the Sith. The only purpose is to make money on the stock market by providing investors the latest buzz words du jour. 


In short, this Empire is equivalent to the fag end of the Roman Empire. And we all know how that went down. Or for that matter, how the Sith got blindsided by the Jedi. 


Sometimes in life, you have to choose, whether you want to work upon a Death Star or if you’d rather be a Rebel Jedi doing the things that actually matter. Like Steve Jobs said, always a pirate, never the merchant navy. 


So, who are the pirates in the biz? The ones for whom Advertising still matters. Brand building still matters. Sales and results and effective creative that persuades matters. I think some good desi examples would be the home grown Famous Innovations next door to us, Talented and TGTHR. Further afield, I’m a huge fan of Anselmos Ramos of Gut. Then there’s Orchard, Layfayette American, Good Conduct, Sukle, Cactus, Humanist, Art & Letters, 72 & Sunny, Quality Meats, Bandolier Media, Mojo and others Stateside, with Mother UK being my favourite Indie agency in Ol’ Blighty. 


Young talent used to aspire to get into the big network agency as a form of badge value upon their CVs. Make no mistake, in 2025 it’s increasingly going to be the little piranhas that make the biggest creative impact. And that, is what Advertising does best, to drive sales. RIP Interpublic. It was a good long run, with truth well told. And for young creative, I urge you to watch Return Of The Jedi. Think Small, as Bernbach put it. 


Read More: <a href="https://www.storyboard18.com/advertising/inspiraytion-ten-whats-the-value-of-what-inspires-you-44792.htm">InspiRAYtion Ten: What’s the value of what inspires you?</a>

InspiRAYtion 17 - Will the biggest agency network be the best?

By Rayomand J Patell

Having made agencies subservient for the last 11 months, clients try to assuage their guilt by being indulgent about ‘award winning ideas’ presented this month. 


It’s like those people who on a daily basis, bludgeon fur seals to death by creeping up upon them with a baseball bat to bash their skulls into pulp so as to get a fur coat without shrapnel involved, now donating to Animal Welfare. 


See! We’re not terrible clients after all, sure we’ll back your little banner idea (or one off outdoor that three people will see on a week night in Vasai off the side road). 


As with Diversity Equity and Inclusion initiatives, no idea is off the table this month. Either do it with zero budget, or make a case study that claims you did it and we’ll sign off on the release letter very enthusiastically and even thump you on the back should you win at the Upper Provence Festival of Creativity.


Poverty porn in an ad film a la ‘All We Imagine As Light’? Awesome. 


Token ideas around female empowerment? Fantastic! 


Entirely banal stunts around toilets for the Transgender community? Hurrah! 


See bruh, we said you were the best creative team out there. It’s just that the market you know has certain desi realities… but your creativity bruv, it’s 'internashunal'. 


If you’re a creative person getting suckered into this blood money awards ritual know you’re getting suckered. 


The network agencies make winning awards a noble pursuit. 


It is. For their holding companies. 


Their share prices rise on their pecking order, once the report is in on which agencies won the most in the shows that matter. Your salary on the other hand, is still in the gutter. And you can’t pay your bhajiwalla with your Cannes Gold lion. And that, is where the cookie crumbles really quick. 


Read More: <a href="https://www.storyboard18.com/advertising/inspiraytion-ten-whats-the-value-of-what-inspires-you-44792.htm">InspiRAYtion Ten: What’s the value of what inspires you?</a>


The only reflection of your success at work, are the medical bills you can pay for your parents, the house you can buy for yourself, the school or University you can send your kids to. And even for creative people, there’s a hard conversation to be had about money. 


Winning awards is an excellent diversion from that conversation. It works for the hungry starving creative seeking validation, the client who wishes to curry favour at the end of the year, and the Network at large. But, regardless of whether you’re winning Lions, Elephants, Gongs or Pencils, your kids aren’t going to be able to attend Harvard, or for that matter the average Nursery at Gurgaon on an advertising salary. No kids? Even pet food is expensive. Would you give your dog or cat anything less? Side note and shameless plug: I highly recommend Boggos for your pooch. Check them out on the gram. 


The next time you join an alphabet soup network or one with the name of a long gone founder on the board, ask yourself if the gold on the awards shelves, has translated into gold in the bank for the winners. And I don’t mean the 4% increments the Asia Pac hubs decree are fair compensation for winners. Or, the phokat jamboree to the South of France they send you on to keep you back within the agency for another year. When you could be earning far more, elsewhere. Or, opening your own shop as P.G. at Talented, Aalap at TGTHR and so on have. 


I’m not anti awards. I like winning them, I’ve won my fair share and I’ve been a Juror at the nicer shows for ages as my way of giving back to the Industry. But there’s the awards as a recognition at the end of the year for the great work you did through the year way of doing it - and then there’s the December season of award work that suckers our youngest, best and brightest minds. 


Money is one of the most inspiring ideas there is. Have a lot of it in your life. Don’t let your growth be derailed by the toxic march towards industrialised award-ising. Be a round the year practitioner of great Advertising, you owe your talent and yourself that much. 


Rayomand J Patell is an advertising veteran and InspiRAYtion is a weekend column on everything about advertising and marketing.

InspiRAYtion 16 - The Blood Money Of Award Season

There is this conceit that those who critique the Jaguar rebrand cannot afford it. 


I’m reserving my comment upon the issue at hand till I see the first new Jag that’s being unveiled. 


But to say you can’t criticise something because you will never be an owner is a canard that needs a wee bit of interrogation. 


Millions of people watch F1, yet sadly do not have a single car parked in their driveway. Oh dear, how irrelevant they must be. 


Porsche a brand that excels at making essentially the same car for the last half century has 99 brand addicts to every 1 owner who may never actually know each model of the 911 released year wise. 


For every Ferrari tee wearing 17 year old, chalk up 0.000001 Ferrari owner. 


I’m a car guy so these examples flow easier to me. But, let’s look at the world of Art. 


I might have something to say about every painting of Monet in the @museeorangerie and yet be only able to afford the tiny set of postcards from the souvenir shop. 


I could waffle on about this for a fair amount of time. Bose 901s are the speakers I cherish despite not having a set. I’d love to some day be able to bring home a set of Technics SL 1200s now in their 7th ‘wheels of steel’ iteration. A Lamborghini Countach has been in the garage of my soul since I gained consciousness. Do I have a point of view on the original 1974 edition versus the 25th Anniv Speciale? Of course I do. Do I have a Countach? No. 


Brands are our collective aspirations; our hopes and dreams, our line in the sand about quality and choice meaning something to us at a deep level. To attempt to negate that, is to reveal a shocking lack of understanding on what brands mean to people. 


Time will tell if Jag will go the Bud Light / Gillette complete annihilation of brand value way. Or, not. 


But to negate the feelings of gazillions of fans; that, is a grave travesty.


Read More: <a href="https://www.storyboard18.com/advertising/inspiraytion-ten-whats-the-value-of-what-inspires-you-44792.htm">InspiRAYtion Ten: What’s the value of what inspires you?</a>

INSPIRAYTION