MUMBAI: Indian advertising is going places with recent feathers in its cap like that of Ogilvy & Mather's Piyush Pandey being elected president of the jury at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival and then Leo Burnett India being awarded the 'Worldwide Agency of the Year.'

With something to celebrate about, Leo Burnett Worldwide chief creative officer Miguel Angel Furones Ferre is on an India visit thanks to the feat accomplished by the agency's Indian arm. Ferre made a presentation on 'Images That Talk' on 10 February at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai. The presentation was organised by the Advertising Club of Mumbai.

In his presentation, Ferre said that an image had the capacity of telling a story in a single and universal language. By showing different ads done by Leo Burnett offices in different countries all over the globe like Sydney, Sao Paulo, Madrid, Warsaw, Oslo, Amsterdam, Bogota, London, Manila and Bangkok, Ferre drove home the point that a single image was worth a thousand words.

Ferre went on to say that an image that talks is always a moving image as static images lack in grammar. Through various ads, Ferre showed how images can create complexity as well as simplicity in story telling.

Said Ferre, "There are some ads where copy is unnecessary or nonexistent but all the same, the ad conveys what it is supposed to convey." He went on to say that, "Being global does not mean to spread out in different countries, areas and languages but to cut across the cultural and language barriers without losing the meaning of the ad's emotional power."

"Text is solid. Image is liquid. Music is gaseous," is one of Ferre's theories. He explained his theory by saying that a word loses its meaning if a language barrier comes in between. But an image, on the other hand, can be deciphered by anyone and everyone regardless of the language they converse in.

In a chat with indiantelevision.com about the present Indian advertising scenario, Ferre said, "India is one of the fastest growing countries in the world and is probably the third most powerful country after US and China. It is not about advertising only, it is about the country as a whole. No wonder that the president of the Cannes jury is from India and Leo Burnett India was awarded the Global agency of the year. That is the sole reason why I am here."

All the ads shown by him whether it was for Vicks inhaler or Airtel or for that matter even a classified ad were no doubt creative to the core but were they successful in selling the product as well? To this Ferre said, "These ads are very creative and most of them do manage to influence market performance. Overall at least 80 per cent ads do well. At the end of the day creativity sells."

Talking about Leo Burnett India, Ferre said that it had been chosen the Global Agency of the year after a lot of assessments and evaluations. "The overall performances of all agencies were looked at Leo Burnett India was zeroed on, on account of the company's reputation, creative output, PR, financial services, business development etc," said Ferre.