Financial Times

SLIM vs. 4As – is the tail trying to wag the dog?
By Jayantha Sittampalam Managing Director, Cameron Pale & Medina (Pvt) Ltd
The business pages have been boiling over with news of the raging battle between the Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing (SLIM) and the joint forces of the Accredited Advertising Agencies Association (4As), and International Advertising Association.

It’s that time of the year. The advertising agencies and the Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing (SLIM) are fighting over the SLIM Awards. Again. And this time, it looks serious.

The unheard of has happened. The 4As and IAA have joined forces. Can you imagine that! We thought it couldn’t be done. Finally there’s unity in the ad industry. SLIM has a fight on its hands.

The ad agencies are miffed that their suggestions weren’t actioned promptly, and only about 70% included this year. SLIM, in a letter to all 4As agencies, indicated that they accepted a good part of the balance 30% and are likely to incorporate a good part of them in next year’s awards.

Now that they have a cause a goal, and a bigger battalion of ad agencies, the agencies aren’t willing to settle for that. They want more and they want it now!

Typically, ad agencies had always wanted more. They quarrelled early on having more say on the selection of judges, the judging and the judged. They requested and obtained more categories. An MOU signed a couple of years ago, gave 4As more money from SLIM Awards proceeds.

Over 17 years of records show the advent of accommodation SLIM practiced. Each year changes demanded by ad agencies altered the format, style criteria and category of SLIM awards. SLIM complied. Hilmy Cader, the Bahrain based CEO of MTI Consulting conducted an open strategy formulation workshop to help the ad agencies come to a consensus regarding the SLIM awards format. Even after such accommodation, like the soldier who saw everything twice the winning agency and the losing agency both cried foul.

The pet gripe, usually, is that the judging is biased. Generally this kind of disgruntled grumbling lasts all week. The supplement celebrating the SLIM awards appears showing smiling rivals collecting their awards for `creative excellence’. And promptly puts a stop to that.

This year it’s nothing as frivolous. Dead Serious. And the bone of contention is big enough to belong to a T-Rex and runs down the middle like a spinal cord.
It’s about how unfair SLIM really is to judge effectiveness of advertising.
Effectiveness may have its own rhyme and reason in the market place, but not at ad agencies, the agencies insist on revealing.

The agencies only worry about creativity and awards, is the non-verbal communication. In order to reveal this, the agencies have publicly declared a boycott of the SLIM Awards this year. A press conference called by the ad agencies last week brought the ugly indiscretion into the public glare. How could any self respecting ad agency ever insist that SLIM judge creativity and still expect to handle any client’s account?

Contrary to popular belief, ad agencies don’t create ads, marketers do. It’s the marketers who carry the risk, take the chance. Agencies just take the money and worry about winning awards for creativity. Marketers commission ads. They pay professionals, and often bully them into producing the ads they need. Then comes the toughest part. Marketers stuff money down the media pipeline, carrying the risk of success and failure on themselves. At such times, do marketers seek creativity? Highly unlikely.

In fact, the aim and purpose of any ad is to communicate, persuade, activate- in short, to be effective. If it’s pretty and unique, good for you. But more than anything, an ad must work – meaning bring in customers, ring in sales.
Yeah, yeah, we’ve heard all about no direct correlation between advertising and sales.

There probably isn’t. The correlation between successful advertising and creative awards is even more remote. When ad agencies march in a clump insisting that ads be judged on their creativity, by the premier marketing body in the country, they draw attention to the fact that they give not a tuppence for effectiveness and the success of the product.

This kind of revelation is enough to put the entire advertising industry under a suspicious cloud and in serious jeopardy getting wiped out. For survivals sake, it must be stopped.

Let’s face it. Ad agencies have no business except at the hand and behest of the marketer. The marketer is the hand that feeds the agencies. It is very foolish to bite it. It’s a case of tail wagging (or attempting) to wag the dog.
I wish the ad industry would heed my advice, and save itself from further embarrassment and loss of livelihood. More importantly, I wish the ad industry would see me for the hero I am. Until they do, I won’t be holding my breath.

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