Perspectives on Creative

Evaluating the creative journey of Pakistan’s adagencies needs to be seen from the vantage pointof what has been justifiably termed the ‘Golden Ageof agency creativity’ in the seventies.

This was the era that produced genuinely iconic advertising, includingState Life’s ‘Aye Khuda Mere Abu Salamat Rahain’, Binaca’s‘Subha Binaca, Shaam Binaca, Sehat Ka Paigam Binaca’,Peek Freans’ ‘Pied Piper’ and Lawrencepur’s ‘Lyla is a Lady’to name a few. Rhythm of Unity was indeed produced in 1993– but was essentially an extension of the advertising thatcame out of the seventies. What made the advertising of theseventies so exceptional was that it was a 100% Pakistanieffort. This was the era when there was only one televisionchannel in Pakistan – no satellite, no cable. There was nointernet and global ad affiliations were still in the future. So noreferences; just Pakistani imagination and creativity.

Come 1998, the year Aurora appeared on the scene,this era was already a bygone one. Traditional agencymodels were fragmenting and brands (and consequentlyclients) reigned supreme. The process of globalisation,which began in the eighties, brought with it an influx ofinternational brands to the market, now sustained bythe exposure afforded to audiences through cable andsatellite television. Consumers saw and wanted, and globalbrands were ready to oblige. To secure their share in anincreasingly competitive market, global brands soughtaffiliations with local agencies to maintain the consistency oftheir communication across markets. Somewhat parallel tothese developments, India emerged as a premier consumermarket and in the process developed its own particular typeof creative advertising communication.

In Pakistan, as agencies scrambled for global affiliations andnew learning, creativity found itself caught between adaptingregional communications developed by their global affiliateand pandering to the desire of local clients to create Indian‘inspired’ advertising. Pakistani creativity was being stifled.Despondency set in. Not only was Pakistan conspicuouslyabsent from international award shows, but by the turn of theMillennium, creativity was under severe critique by Pakistan’sown ad world for being mediocre, stereotypical and capable ofonly producing copycat (mainly Indian) inspired versions.

Then Covid struck. Budgets came under pressure anddigital and social media marketing began to be embeddedin the mix. Turnaround times became shorter, consumerexpectations changed and brands started to look beyond theirtraditional service partners for their marketing solutions. Andthe gap was quickly filled by smaller, more agile outfits, willingto produce big work on small budgets. The larger agencieshowled their indignation but clients were not listening. Itwas what Aurora termed the ‘big squeeze’ with agenciescaught between a rock and a hard place. Yet, as Aurorapredicted, the ‘squeeze’ became an opportunity, perhapseven a catalyst, in driving better creative output. Whatever thereasons, creativity rose to the challenge and the internationalawards started to come in.

Today, ‘creative’ is under transformation as the functionitself splits into differentiated specialisations, most notably onthe social media and marketing influencer fronts, and it nowmust gear itself up to meet the next big challenge, this oneposed by AI.

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