Advertising doyen Ramesh Narayan was conferred the IAA’s Honorary Lifetime Membership Compass Award at the IAA Leadership Awards held last week, in recognition of his stellar work with IAA over the years.
“This is but a small recognition for his huge contribution to IAA,” declared immediate Past Chairman and World President, IAA Global, Srinivasan K Swamy.
Megha Tata, President, IAA India Chapter, said, “It is a truly well-deserved recognition to someone who has selflessly given so much to our industry in India and internationally. His contributions to the India Chapter of IAA have been unparalleled.”
“I am grateful to the World Board of the IAA for having recognized whatever I have done in the area of meaningful initiatives in communication. I will keep identifying causes where communication can make a difference and try to involve all sections of the industry to amplify positive efforts to help these causes. In the past, we supported elder care, sustainability (Save Soil), fund-raising for national disasters, a campaign against domestic violence and so on,” said Narayan.
On key areas in which the IAA can help, contribute or collaborate with the Indian advertising industry in the current scenario, Narayan said, “Apart from its marquee events where sustainability is encouraged (Olive Crown Awards) leadership qualities are saluted (IAA Leadership Awards) and creative excellence is awarded (IndIAA Awards), we have begun recognizing the beauty and uniqueness of our regional languages with IndIAA awards in Tamil and Telegu.
This is an area that could be expanded. We are also the only association to have a senior membership base of advertisers, advertising agencies and the media. If we cannot leverage this base to do good, we would be doing a great injustice to ourselves and to society at large.”
Ramesh Narayan has earlier been inducted into the IAA India Chapter Hall of Fame, and was recognised as Global Champion at the inaugural IAA Inspire Awards in London. In December 2021, he was inducted into the Asian Federation of Advertising Associations (AFAA) Hall of Fame at the AdAsia festival. He is also the recipient of the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award by the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI).
THE GENDER WARRIOR
L-R: Pradeep Dwivedi, MP Poonam Mahajan, Dr Ranjana Kumari, Ramesh Narayan, Nina E Jaipuria and Arjan De Wagt | File
IAA also recognized Narayan as a Gender Warrior last week at an event called ‘Voice of Change: Gender Portrayal from 30 Seconds to 3 Hours’ organized with knowledge partners, ASCI, UNICEF etc. The award honoured his activities related to gender sensitivity, gender nuances in advertising (the Laadli Advertising awards), bringing the spotlight on domestic violence during the pandemic, campaign to help mitigate violence against women, etc.
“These are all efforts to show that communication is a force for good. We owe it to society to be the voice of change and alter stereotypic gender insensitivity and objectification of women. Our values demand it and today's consumer demands it as well,” Narayan said.
“We have partnered UNICEF and the Geena Davis Institute to do a great baseline study on gender representation in our advertising industry. We need to make this effort into a movement. The Voice of Change initiative is a great step in that direction. We have also supported wonderful NGOs like Laadli and tried to reduce gender insensitivity in our industry. We should try and build on these successes.”
Ramesh Narayan has been closely associated with activities and initiatives related to gender sensitivity and gender nuances in advertising, the Laadli Advertising awards, campaigns that highlighted domestic violence during the pandemic, a communications campaign to help mitigate violence against women when he was Chairman, Awards Governing Council, Abby Awards at Goafest and more. Just before the pandemic, he single-handedly organized a seminar aimed at mitigating violence against women as Chairman, Brand Committee of the Indian Merchants Chamber (IMC).
