<div>India is largely disappointed with its performance at the largest festival of creativity - Cannes Lions 2015. But advertising honcho, <strong>KV Sridhar a.k.a Pops</strong>, Chief Creative Officer (India) of Sapient Nitro shares his insights into India being self critical and how we need to catch with the new media. Here is Pops giving you the Cannes flavour, as told to <strong>Hita Gupta</strong></div><div> </div><div>India has always done well in the traditional categories of the advertising which is Print, Outdoor, Film Craft and Media. In Print, India is only the second nation to have three Silvers in Print category. We had good contenders in the Outdoor category too. India also has one shortlist in design also.</div><div> </div><div>There are two advertising worlds which exist now - traditional media and new media. But we are missing out on the new media which is Cyber, Media, Mobile, Promo & Activation, Product Design, Titanium and Creative Effectiveness etc. So, these are things which we are missing out on because the entire category is also expanding at Cannes, year after year. </div><div> </div><div>India might be lagging behind by three years. If you were to see it in comparison, we are at the same stage we were at 10 years back in Print. People say that India has very good ideas but is not able to execute it very well. For the last seven-eight years India has dominated in Print, but to dominate in new media we are still lagging behind in terms of use of new technology and the new mediums. It will work the way the Indian market does. The Indian market is not mature enough currently and that is the reason for the small number and the scale of entries. </div><div> </div><p><img alt="" src="http://bw-image.s3.amazonaws.com/bw-in-cannes2.jpg" style="width: 200px; height: 200px; margin: 1px; float: right;"></p><div>Digital in India means that people just do longer commercials and put them on YouTube which is not digital at all. You cannot use YouTube as a television channel. Outside India, all work that is done on mobile is very interactive and internet allows you to make things interactive and India hasn’t done much about using that medium in a different way. Both the market and the advertising agencies have to catch with the people and create better campaigns.</div><div> </div><div>But I think that nobody doubts the capability of India, it is held at high levels in terms of our creativity and craftsmanship. Brazil and Argentina are two nations which have braced the new technology and communication and they have been doing fabulous in new media and as well as print. India’s print and television craft have also been universally acknowledged. </div><div> </div><div>The results are not as disappointing as it seems, it is just that we are very self critical in nature as we always want to overdo what we did last year. There will be some years which were good and there will be some years where we don’t perform that well but we just need to move on. This might be a wake-up call to think of new ways. </div><div> </div><div>The festival is becoming bigger and bigger every year. There were close to 40,000 entries and 15,000 delegates over seven days. The categories are also increasing year after year. It celebrates creativity to enhance business. Gone are the days when people could work in a silo, this is an integrated world. The blurring of one discipline to another is also very high as one campaign can go into seven or eight different categories. </div><div> </div><div>This year, the mindless party is giving way to a lot of big agencies which have come here to have small groups for workshops and seminars, this is a big change compared to the last year’s festival. This time there are several private seminars and workshops which are happening at other conference rooms of the hotel. So depending on the niche there are events at Cannes and that is the major change this year.</div><div> </div>
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