The Big Debate: The good, bad and ugly of Indian Advertising: Raj Kurup

 It makes me happy to see: 

More and more creative people leading the business.
Multinational Clients looking for communication solutions outside of their international affiliations and the network. 
More and more brands getting digital and social media savvy, and open to investing in new media.
Lots of international agencies trying to set up an office in India
More successful creative entrepreneurs from our country.
That the top management is getting younger. 
Courageous clients.

It makes me sad to see:

Advertising agencies losing relevance and stature.
The senior most people in the industry get into petty fights.Media wasting precious space sensationalizing these petty fights
This new trend of suing one another.
That an award is no longer an accolade. It is a game show run by suits where creative people are pawns. 
Most clients don’t take their agencies seriously. Worse still, most agencies don’t take themselves seriously. 
Most agencies are too traditional to accept the rising importance of the digital media. They forget that just a decade ago the ‘Spray Paint’ artist lost his job to a tool on Photoshop. 
The Indian advertising association is a comedy of errors. Its frivolity is only matched by the mediocrity of the ads on television. 
An uncontrollable pandemic called crab mentality. 
That Networks have become too large to move. 
That Knowledge has been replaced by the ego. 
That Unnecessary hierarchy has brought about anarchy. 
That the buck stops at nobody. 
That the industry is so self-engrossed that they don’t see others laughing at them.