With the flag of Bangladesh at Cannes Lions

Creativity sparks amid resource constraints, which means a poor country like Bangladesh also possesses the potential to craft great creative works, said the founder of Bangladesh Brand Forum (BBF).

In the field of creativity, people should be allowed to work with full freedom, said Shariful Islam, who recently took part in the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2012, along with the forum's adviser Nazia Andaleeb Preema.

The festival is a congregation of the world's brightest advertising professionals, designers, digital innovators and marketers to debate, learn and be inspired, he said. "This year's edition of the festival took place at Cannes in France from June 17-23."

About freedom, Islam said there was a booth of Brand Union at the festival premises where people were asked to play games. Because people enjoy games and love to think what new things could be made from it while playing, he said.

"This formula of creative thinking is very much needed for Bangladesh. It's important for the people of all the fields, not just for the creative directors, singer, writer or artists only."

Bangladesh faces many problems for climate change, poverty and poor infrastructure, he said, adding that people in Bangladesh should think how the best products can be produced with fewer resources.

"This view of thinking will force us to think things in a newer way."

He also gave an example of a session of the festival on three kids who bring out some amazing innovations while playing. When asked how they created this, they said they did not think about the result.

"They were experimenting with joy and finally the result came out. The moral is we forget to experiment as we grow old. We forget to enjoy."

Islam also stressed the need for understanding the concept of branding. Even five years ago, little focus was given on marketing, branding, innovation, new ideas in Bangladesh, he said.

"The concept was discussed only in multinational companies."

Around Tk 2,000 crore is invested in the field of communications a year in formal and informal ways in the country, he said.

"Majority of us do not know whether our communication is effective or not. So to build skilled workforce in the field of creativity and to fill up the gap, we contacted Cannes Lions four years back with an aim to bring the best of the knowledge on creativity to the country through partnership."

So BBF teamed up with Cannes Lions and organised the Bangladesh edition of Young Lions Competition.

This year, the winning team of the competition consisting Md Nuruzzaman Babu, art director of TBWA\Benchmark, and Farhan Aziz, disruption and media arts planner of TBWA\Benchmark, took part in the festival.

In the competition, advertising professionals of up to 28 years of age working in teams of two were given 24-48 hours time to come up with a winning campaign on either of: print, cyber, film or media.

The Bangladeshi team participated in the print category, where the team from Singapore bagged the gold medal.

BBF used to showcase the learning of Cannes Lions through one of its events, Commward, in Bangladesh, said Preema.

The organisation highlights selective seminars of the event and its award winning works through its magazine, Brand Forum, all the year round, she said. This year, the forum plans to organise a single showcasing on the festival, she said.

Companies in Bangladesh do not like to spend money for sending participants to events like Young Lions Competition that started two years back, Preema said.

"But the companies should know that doing something for gaining knowledge is not an expense, it's an investment."

A company will get 10 times more return from its investment it made to develop the skills of its workforce, she said.

Md Nuruzzaman Babu, one of the Bangladeshi participants of Young Lions competition, said the event is huge.

"All the seven days teach you something new."

"We get the feeling that we have to work a lot to catch the present standard of the world of advertising and marketing," said Farhan Aziz, another participant of the contest.

"Actually it is very tough for us to compare our works with the works presented in the event. We met many participants here from different agencies of the world. The freedom they enjoy is not comparable with us," Aziz said.

Babu said he dealt with some clients of soft drinks in Bangladesh who just wanted to see a person taking a sip of their drinks. They did not want to understand or see any new way of advertising of their products, he said.

Even they do not want to do a survey at least to understand on what kind of drink people want, he said.

"Even, our regular clients also do not like to inform us about what financial benefit the last ad brought to them which is very important to understand what kind of ad is necessary for a facelift of the product."

Cannes Lions presents so many works which open up new way of thinking, said Aziz.

"We have seen some works what we could not even think before. There should be more competitions like the one we won in Bangladesh to take part in Cannes Lions."

To promote Bangladesh, BBF last year sponsored a jute bag, which was a huge hit, Islam said. "For the next year, we are planning to sponsor a t-shirt, as we have a very good readymade garments sector."

He said the forum also plans to take up a booth in the next season to promote Bangladesh at Cannes Lions.

Islam said BBF is also trying to engage with Cannes Lions in every possible ways.

"We are trying to take Cannes Lions CEO to Bangladesh, so that the country gets more focus and comes to the centre stage."

Out of the 34,301 entries from 87 countries, there was no entry from Bangladesh at the festival, although there are many good works in the country, he said.

Sri Lanka won a gold award this year whereas the country has been sending their works to the event for the last four years.

"Bangladeshi firms also should start sending their works to Cannes Lions."

shoyeb@thedailystar.net