AD WISE

Recessions are good for creativity

This article should have been tweeted. It would have been the appropriate way to talk about an advertising year that was dominated by digital… but more on that in a moment.

Looking back at the year that was, one thing becomes very clear -- it's not just human beings that grow fat and slow… industries do as well. While humans go on crash diets to shed excess fat, advertising was hit periodically by a recession forcing it to take a long hard look at itself, and start shaping up.

That's exactly what happened in 2009. Depending on the kind of creative person you were, it was either the worst of times or the best of times.

The air was filled with talk of budget cuts, clients moving their businesses to small shops and lay-offs. There was fear. And if you were a creative person in a large agency working on a brief for a big client, you were faced with this dilemma - to do an ad that was safe or create a piece of work that would make the brand, and the agency, famous. Looking at most of the work produced in Asia last year, it's clear that creativity wasn't uppermost on the agenda with most creative people -- it was survival.

But that was just one part of the story. The other part has to do with a handful of agencies and clients who saw the downturn as not an obstacle but as an opportunity. They proved something that's been known for a long time - good creative people need to have big hearts. They don't need big budgets.

While the uninspired sat and waited for the clouds to lift, the inspired dug in deep and took up the challenge. They explored their ideas in ways rarely seen before. Through a medium that until the beginning of the year was the domain of only a few - digital.

That's not to say that there was no great, print, TV or outdoor done last year. There was. But the truth is that even these traditional mediums used digital to get their messages home.

A great example of that was The Times of India campaign. It started as a print ad that provoked people into action on the internet. Blogs and social networking sites fanned the flames. Soon the message of a new India turned into a national cry.

What started as a website called 'Gang of girls' for Sunsilk to talk about hair issues turned into a social space for twenty-year olds to talk about a wide range of issues from sex to gay rights. The brand connected with the consumer in ways unseen before. India had discovered digital and was hooked. It didn't matter that the penetration of internet was low. Everyone from a politician to an auto driver to a farmer had a mobile phone and was getting digitally savvy very fast.

Did the recession hold back creativity? Not in the least. One can say that arguably the best work out of India was produced last year. A bunch of Effies and Cannes Lions bear testimony to that.

While there was a dark side to the economic crisis, like in everything in life, there was also a bright side. It forced creative people and clients to look at new ways of doing things.

As we step into a new decade, on thing is for sure. The way we communicate will change more in the next ten years than it has in the last hundred. Brands and agencies that embrace this change will benefit hugely. It's truly a very exciting time to be in the business.

(Ali Shabaz is the Chief Creative Officer at Grey Group, Singapore.)