Meet merit, the 'scary bitch' in Kyoorius Advertising Awards' new campaign

If you are the kind of person who adores cats, little girls, dancing women, stationery or all of the above, then you might want to think twice before checking out Kyoorius’ campaign for its advertising awards. Created by Bangalore-based creative agency Happy, the campaign launches the advertising industry’s newest awards show, in the most unlikely way possible.

The organizers of the D&AD-partnered Kyoorius Advertising Awards have been very vocal about awarding work that is scam-free, real and stems from true merit. In sync with this philosophy, the campaign introduces its ‘Meet Merit’ proposition.

Firstbiz spoke to Kartik Iyer, CEO of Happy to understand the nuances of the campaign and how it all started.

He said, “When we were approached by Kyoorius, we brainstormed about the need space in which a new advertising award show was being launched in India. It was very clear from the beginning that the association with D&AD brought a lot of credibility to the process. So the opportunity was to launch a new award show unlike any other in the country. Its uniqueness, quality and credibility were the key points to be brought alive.”

The ads are unique, surely. Mostly black-and-white and extremely sinister, Iyer admits that the campaign was inspired by Korean horror films.

Watch the films here:

Merit ‘Dance’

Merit ‘Pencil’

Merit ‘Cat’

Merit ‘Good v/s Evil’

Each film explores a new aspect of ‘merit’; she is unforgiving, she is scary, she can be good or evil, depending on what she sees in the work. But why did Happy decide to personify merit?

Said Iyer, “While awards are definitely important to push the envelope within the industry and lead people to newer and better things, the effort to win these awards sadly take a different perspective. Award shows across the world (save a few) are plagued with scams, back-patting creative directors in the jury room.”

“We were clear that the Kyoorius Advertising awards was more about recognition of real great work than just about glory. It is all about winning on merit. And not scam, production budgets or friends in the jury room. Since its going to be a first time in India such a rigorous process is going to be applied in selecting the winners, we said it was almost like meeting someone called ‘Merit’ for the first time; someone who is unforgiving and recognises only the best. Hence #meetmerit was born!” he added.

The films’ horror tone makes them stand apart in an industry where funny ads or those that tug at the proverbial heartstrings rule the roost.

To this, Iyer insists that the communication had to be fresh, unlike ads for other shows that typically revolves around humor or captures real-like emotions and insecurities of creative people. “The sinister approach just drives home the fact that this is not about fun and games. And mediocrity shall die in the hands of merit,” justifies Iyer.

He further said, “We saw the idea come to life in the print rendition first. And since we are in freshness business we said, if we can’t do it for our own community, who else can we do this kind of work for? In terms of the process we worked with three directors and shared our vision around #meetmerit. We let them come back to us with their interpretations and that’s how the scripts evolved. We didn’t want the expression to be linear in that sense.”

Credits****:

MeetMerit(Entire campaign)

CreativePartner:Happy

Creativeteam:KartikIyer,PraveenDas,GeorgeAbraham,AthulCT

AccountManagement:AjayKumar

Films

Merit ‘Dance’ and ‘Pencil’

Director:RajaramRajendran

ProductionHouse:ElevenElements

Cat

Director:Ayappa

ProductionHouse:EarlyManFilms

Goodv/sEvil

Director:RaznishGhai

ProductionHouseAsylumFilms

Printcampaign

Photographer:MiroMinarovich

ExecutiveProducer:JosefPavleye

ProductionHouse:PavleyeArtistManagement,Prague