Advertising doyenne Nargis Wadia wants "every Indian creative woman to believe in her power and step into it because the world needs it now more than ever before.” The founder of the first woman-established advertising agency in India commented on her most recent accolade, the naming of an award after her by Indian Creative Women (ICW). "I am truly happy to be honored to have the award in my name, by the young team of professional women, dedicated and conscious of the positive role they perform — creating meaningful and persuasive communication for even the most difficult of issues like promoting a vaccine for cervical cancer,” she told Parsiana on June 11, 2024.
Wadia founded Inter Publicity in 1964 and in 1976 became the first woman and youngest professional to be elected president of the Advertising Agencies Association of India.
Top l (and inset): Nargis Wadia with Tanima Kohli;
above: Wadia’s iconic posters from the time she "flirted with a Maharaja”
An independent platform working towards promoting diversity in creative teams across the Indian advertising and design industry, ICW, with a network of over 3,000 women creative professionals runs events, portfolio evenings, trainings and mentorships. This year’s winner of the award is Tanima Kohli, group head (copy), Enormous (consumer services company). Her name was announced at an event at the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre on May 24.
This year the Nargis Wadia award was issued by ICW in partnership with the advertising company Kyoorius. Kohli stated, "It’s an honor to win the Nargis Wadia award. Women like her paved the way in the Mad Men era, making our journeys easier today. I hope to carry her legacy forward by creating impactful work that defines our industry as a force for good.” Mad Men was a Netflix show featuring the lives of advertising men in the 1950s and 1960s, a take on Madison Avenue in New York, the mecca of the advertising world. Kohli has won a fully sponsored trip to this year’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity at Cannes, France. She was selected from amongst "hundreds of creative women across the country who participated in a competition; the brief was to create an awareness campaign to get vaccinated against cervical cancer,” stated their press note.
The ICW’s jury included leading female creative professionals — Anusheela Saha of advertising company FCB, Tista Sen, creative brand consultant, Shormistha Mukherjee, co-founder and director, brand consulting company Flying Cursor, Estella Xian of Ogilvy Chicago and Prerna Mehra, head of art and design, Mullen Lowe, Dubai.
ICW founder Sakshi Choudhary said, "ICW is committed to making the Indian advertising and design industry more diverse through actionable solutions… This award not only allows a young creative woman to experience a life-altering trip to Cannes but also gives visibility to women creative legends who did not get their due in time. It’s a statement to show that we young women are determined about changing this industry… but only because we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us.”
Named after a different female advertising industry icon each year, this was ICW’s second award. A note on the event received from ICW described Wadia as "a creative legend” of the 1960s and appreciated the "over 70 awards” won by Inter Publicity. "Under her leadership, Inter Publicity launched the careers of several advertising stalwarts.” When ICW introduced the award in 2023 it was dedicated to advertising stalwart Usha Bhandarkar.
An alumna of Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy School of Applied Art and the Central School of Arts and Crafts, London with a specialization in communication and designing, Wadia worked in various advertising agencies. Between 1955-57 she worked as a designer in Air India’s in-house studio and won the prestigious Communication Arts Guild award for her work on the airline’s poster on Paris, which the powers-that-be in the government found offensive because of its depiction of can-can dancers kicking up their legs. The final image had to be modified. Two of her posters, including the one on Paris, were part of the 60 lots of art auctioned by Sotheby’s at its inaugural event in India at Bombay’s Taj Ballroom in November 2018 (see "Parsis at Sotheby’s,” Events and Personalities, Parsiana, December 7, 2018). Reminiscing with Conde Nast magazine about her stint with Air India, she told them she had once flirted with a Maharaja!