The Portfolio Night: Creative bites

A life changing event for the next generation of creative talent

Shubh Aarambhi! (have a great start!) greetings and a bar of chocolates welcomed the 81 budding creative designers at the world’s largest simultaneous advertising portfolio review event – Portfolio Night – on May 26 in a Mumbai five-star hotel.

Inside the hall, the youth in their early twenties were nervous but excited to meet the 27 renowned creative directors from leading advertising agencies who would review their works. The attempt by the organisers was to provide a sense of direction to youngsters stepping into the industry and possibly the lucky break they were seeking.

The ninth edition of the Portfolio Night in Mumbai was organised by ad agency Ogilvy. India, however, was hosting the event for the second time. Simultaneously, events were also organised in Chicago by Leo Burnett and in Singapore by JWT, Bates 141 and Y&R, among other prominent cities and towns globally.

What was the verdict?
While a section of the creative directors was happy with the work they reviewed, others felt most were amateurish. “I think there is a need for filtering the work that is shortlisted. I found it too basic,” said Santosh Padhi, co-founder and chief creative officer, Taproot India.

Echoing similar views, Manish Bhat, co-founder of Scarecrow Communications, said: “I found the spark missing in the work I reviewed. Today’s youth appear to be politically correct. There is no out-of-the-box thinking.”

But Sajan Raj Kurup, chief creative officer, Creativeland Asia, begged to differ: “I was pleasantly surprised with the initiative the participants took this year. I was also reviewing work last year at the Portfolio Night, so I could see the difference between this year and last year.”

“Last year, most participants didn’t know what to do. This year, many seemed clearly prepared, putting their best pieces of work in their folio. The overall quality of work was also better.”

In the last edition, 69 aspirants and 23 creative directors participated in the Portfolio Night. But, the list of ad-men had eminent personalities like R Balakrishnan, chairman & chief creative officer, Lowe Lintas; Prasoon Joshi, executive chairman, McCann Worldgroup India; Ravi Deshpande, chairman & chief creative officer, Contract Advertising; Josy Paul, chairman & national creative director, BBDO India; and Bobby Pawar, chief creative officer, Mudra Group, among others.

This year, while Piyush Pandey, executive chairman & creative director, Ogilvy & Mather, South Asia, was there to provide his expert views (he was there last year as well), almost nine senior creative directors from Ogilvy had to step in to fill up last-minute vacancies during the event. Ogilvy sources said there was no other option. “But the show did turn out well,” said a creative director at Ogilvy who was reviewing at this year’s Portfolio Night.

Kurup of Creativeland Asia said: “In my view it is the loss of the creative directors who opted out of the show. This is a great way to give back to the industry.”

The participants were predictably happy. “There’s no way that I could have got this kind of feedback from a senior creative director if it wasn’t for the Portfolio Night,” said 22-year-old Aditi Shah, a graduate from the Symbiosis Institute of Design, Pune. “I have been called by Kainaz maam (Kainaz Khamkar, senior creative director at Ogilvy) for a meeting. I am keeping my fingers crossed.”

Imran Khan, 23, a junior visualiser at Pune-based Seagull Advertising, was also happy that Ogilvy National Creative Director Rajiv Rao has asked him to meet him. “The creative directors I met were happy with the ideas I had, but their feedback was that I needed to improve on execution. This feedback is going to be very useful for me.”