Roadblock, Schmodblock.

I begin Saturday morning with a healthy dose of advertisements; today started with Episode 58 of the Best Ads on TV podcast.

It was then that I saw the “Crowd Rider” commercial for Subaru by Leo Burnett, Sydney. It goes like this:

Now, the commercial is not what you would call exceptionally brilliant (we’ve all seen so many of these ads where million of people come together to form something of some sorts or just to add that larger-than-life feel to it (remember, “It’s a Big Ad” or “Man-made Machine“?)), but that’s just the advertiser talking – the “Been There, Seen That” jaded nonsense that doesn’t mean squat to the regular guy. So it may not be exceptionally brilliant, but it is exceptional in its own little way. Because Subaru went out there to say that when you or you or you or you go out for drive, there’s a whole company at work for you, and the “All for the Driver” pay-off ties in well with this, without trying too hard.

By contrast, I’d like to mention what India witnessed for another automotive brand on the fateful day of November 11, 2oo9. This was the day when Volkswagen was launched commercially in India. And it was no secret.

For starters, the first thing you saw when you woke up that Wednesday morning was the front page of the TOI screaming at you about how innovation at Volkswagen always makes the headlines. Nice thought, I’d say, if what were to follow were actually backed up by the statement.

But what followed instead was a roadblock, that did everything to tell India that Volkswagen had launched (including telling them how to pronounce it in so many languages)…  did everything, that is, except make it something truly memorable. Notice I stress on “truly” because, although it got everyone to sit up and notice, it did nothing to be remembered past 10:00 a.m. that day. Not for the regular Joe who probably wasn’t thinking of buying a car that morning at least.  Because this is what all the ads looked like.

Page 1

Page 2

Page 3

This goes on for another 10 pages. 13 ads in one newspaper on one day and not one that makes you even say “Ah”. If you missed them, let me know and I’ll mail across a folder of the ads to you. But I really don’t see the point in doing that either.

And that’s precisely the problem I have with these roadblocks. Because, as someone I know said to me at work the other day, “It’s a full page, front page ad in the Times of India. You could put anything there and people will notice it.” Yes, well… then why wouldn’t you put just anything over there?! There’ve been so many painful occasions when we’ve all had to hear “It’s too creative, no one will get it” or “We don’t have enough space to say what we want, so forget all the brilliance you had planned and just lay down the facts as is” or “We’re a small brand, no one know us… we don’t want to take these risks just yet” and here’s a brand that’s a force to reckon with, that’s laid out enough money on day one of its communication campaign to buy at least two of its cars and there wasn’t scope for one, tiny “Ah” moment? I’m not even asking for an “Ah-ha!” moment. I mean, you’ve got to give me something. Just not this.

Oh and the TVC, not very inspiring either. “German Engineering. Made for India.” they say. I’m sorry, but it said nothing about its either being German or being Indian.

Perhaps I’m asking for too much and perhaps the ads did what they had to. But I’m just not convinced.

Saintly Juice, Godly Copy

It’s not everyday that you get to see good advertising for juice. Nothing beyond the “100% natural. All fruit.” kind of messaging. Which is why when I saw the TVC for the new brand of Saint Juice, an uninterested “Ho-hum” was all I could manage. This, despite the fact that the execution was quite neat.

Directed by Prakash Varma, Nirvana Films, Bangalore

However, a chance discussion at work about the TVC got someone to share Saint’s print ads. I haven’t actually seen them in print, but I have to say it’s been long since I saw copy-based advertising that made me feel like there’s still hope for us copywriters.

I particularly like this last one. And just for that, Mr. Raj Kurup and team at Creativeland Asia, thank you.

Learning on the Job: 06-11-2009

But the truth is, we never really learn. We think we do, but we don’t.

Because we don’t really learn to know when to give up or learn to know when to fight. For that matter, we don’t even learn what it takes to say, “No” at the right time or say “This is not what I signed up for” when you know you’d signed up for more (or less, depending on what your day’s like).

We don’t learn to read people’s thoughts and figure out what they want, the way they want it, without a brief and we definitely don’t learn to take a brief on face value.

We don’t learn what makes us clingy, desperate people, who’ll claw on to whatever little we can to make sure we survive and we don’t learn what it is that makes us just as blasé at other times.

We don’t learn to just yell at someone who’s got their head up their ass and tell them they’ve got it all wrong or learn to put our foot in our mouth and say, “Yeah… okay… fine”.

We really don’t learn a lot except for when it comes to kidding ourselves.

Learning on the Job: 25-10-2009

A general unhappiness prevails at work. It’s been this way for sometime now. This makes me sick… like physically sick. And I learn that I will continue to be unhappy unless I get what I want. I want to be things. I want to be:

1. Un-unhappy
2. Happy
3. Accomplished
4. Exceptional
5. Brilliant
6. Exceptionally brilliant
7. Satisfied
8. Dissatisfied
9. Inspired
10. Inspiring
11. Irreplaceable
12. Replaceable
13. Impassioned
14. Calm
15. Empowered
16. Fragile
17. Read
18. Written about
19. More
20. All of this, more often

The Voice of the Future

Before I say anything about this, please watch the four TVCs I’ve added here.

Creative Agency: Tribal DDB

Creative Agency: Contract

Creative Agency: Rediffusion – Y&R

Now, I have three questions. One: Why do all these commercials come with a VO that speaks as if it’s the voice of the future? I mean, we’re talking about broadband connections and laptops here; with the tone these ads adopt, you’d think we were talking about some super cool phenomenon which deserves to be part of some sci-fi film of sorts. Two: Is it my imagination or are these ads beginning to look extremely “templatised” in thought and execution? And three: Which agency handles the Dell account?

Vodafone Makes a Funny

I love dysfunctional families. Makes me feel like mine is one of the many. Which is why I like this ad for the Vodafone Diwali offer. I especially liked grandpa who sits in the corner and delivers his “Meri raye se”s with such panache (including saying “bleyu” with that typical North Indian twang). See:

And there’s this other one with Irfan Khan talking about the whole wedding situation.

They’re not ha-ha types but they are the “Bring a smile to your face” types. So I’m not complaining.

Learning on the Job: 11-10-2009

When I was in college, I once attended this seminar on advertising and marketing. I attended it really because Prasoon Joshi was supposed to be there and, at that point, I was in awe of him. Yes… it’s pathetic, but it’s true.

Anyway, as luck would have it, Prasoon Joshi couldn’t make it due to “unforeseen circumstances”. But we had Prahlad Kakkar there in all his glory and that wasn’t so bad either. So then we have this Q&A session where someone asks Kakkar what he looks for in someone when hiring them. I remember Kakkar’s specifically using these words: “I look for someone with a fire in their belly”, followed by other such stuff as they need to get up in the morning with a passion to conquer the world or something like that. All very pretty.

Almost a year and a half after taking up my first job, I revisit this episode in my mind and learn one of the most important lessons ever – NEVER TAKE ANYTHING FOR GRANTED.

And I say this now with a conviction you can’t dispute. And I have two good reasons that stem from the same episode, other than a whole lot of other reasons. But here’s what I’m talking about:

• If you believe whatever is printed on an invite, you’re in for a disappointment. The person who sold the show to you in all probability just lent his name. Don’t get me wrong. He will teach you something about advertising even in his absence; but most importantly he will teach you a little something about deceptive advertising.
• If you take for granted that you will be one of the many with the” fire in the belly”, you’ll go through many days feeling like absolute crap just because you cannot keep up the pretence of being passionate about your job all the time.  Again, I’d ask you to wait before you judge me. I’ll explain myself with a few situations:
  • A month or so back, my boss had signed us up for some classes on Entrepreneurship Development where a lot of this inspirational rubbish was being flung around for free. And someone said, “If your job or whatever it is that you’re doing doesn’t make you laugh any more, you need to quit.”
  • And then someone who used to be my client asked me whether my job makes me happy and it took me a while before I could answer this question honestly.

Statements and questions such as those above really make you think twice about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Now you’d think I’m someone who hates their job. But I don’t. In fact, I find it hard to imagine myself doing anything else, is how much I think my job and I meant to be together. But I just think being passionate about it every day is too much to ask for, realistically speaking. Because the things you’re really passionate about will come by just once in a while. For the most part, you’ll be stuck doing things you’d rather not do. For instance, as a copywriter you want to be creating ads – big, brilliant ads that people love and will discuss over coffee or beer in the same breath as Obama’s winning the Peace Nobel. Perhaps the day will come when you will create such ads, but before that there will be years of brochures, flyers, posters and whatnot that just won’t inspire a cell in your body even after you spend days and weeks trying to perfect it.

And then there will be days when something you really do care about will come along and you are really impassioned about it. But by the time you’re done creating your work, either your team doesn’t get it or the client doesn’t want it or the budgets suddenly get scrapped and you end up with something mediocre at the end of it all. Now if you’re telling me that you’ve been through this all and you still wake up feeling kicked about your job then, there’s got to be something wrong with you. Because when you are churning out something mediocre, you bloody well feel miserable about it. Of course you could say “Just stop creating mediocre stuff” but that will initiate a whole new debate.

What I’m trying to say is, don’t take for granted that your job will kick ass or that you’ll always do what you set out to do. The good days will come… but not without a slew of horrible ones. And it’s being able to work through the sludge early mornings, late nights and pretty much every weekend in anticipation of the good days that’s more important than walking around wearing a “I *Heart* My Job” t-shirt all the time.

Reality Advertising

For quite sometime now, everyone’s been talking about reality television and how it’s taken over our lives. But the new set of campaigns for Dove got me thinking about reality advertising and how it’s so much more effective at getting people to listen and, well, be a part of it.

I suppose if we are speaking of Dove, the whole aspect of “reality advertising” is not exactly new. Dove has, for almost always now, harped on its “real beauty, real women” aspect in all of its communication. Its “Campaign for Beauty” has known its share of success by just making women feel good about themselves.

So sometime early in 2009, Dove in India brought in its classic “Half Face” challenge, asking women to share their experience in switching from soap to “one-quarter cleansing cream”.

A billboard asking women for half their face

Of course “real” women participated and got to feature on the TVCs, with a few teasers prior to the actual revelation showing the women fumbling as they delivered their shots. I don’t have the set of these commercials, so you’ll just have to make do with these:

Then there’s the Damage Care Expert set of commercials, also adapted from the US. Although the TVCs don’t offer much to write home about, I did like the copy on the print and outdoor advertising. Here’s one of them:

A Dove print ad

Following suit in the same category, Pears is asking for mom’s to send in photos of themselves with their kids to indicate the innocence & purity of the soap is like the mother-child relationship. Not half as effective in my opinion, at least from where I’m standing.

A Pears print ad

And I just haven’t been able to make any sense of the TVC that talks about Humayan and Babar and whatnot. Please let me know if you can:

At the other end of the spectrum is reality advertising that has tried to become a movement of sorts, while pushing the actual product somewhere in the background. After the whole noise Jaago Re raked up around the elections, it’s now back with the”Khilana bandh, pilana shuru” campaign. Even thought I really like the commercial, I don’t see it creating as much of a stir. Perhaps it’s because there’s only so much of it that people can take, these causes, or perhaps it hasn’t gone as all out as the previous campaign. Whatever the reason, I do hope it evolves further. ‘Cause I just don’t think taking a pledge online is going to be enough to do this.

But I suppose looking at the certain campaigns that have done well while adopting this “real” approach, you can only wait for more advertising that will do the same. Because it’s really just a win-win situation for everyone. The people forget that advertising is advertising as they finally want to believe what they hear, and for the advertiser, it quells the existential brouhaha that arises ever so often about why we do what we do and what good will come off of it.

It Is Time

This post is long over-due but theses TVCs were made available on YouTube only recently.

This is with reference to the new television campaign for Hindustan Times, which I found quite refreshing. Perhaps few campaigns for a media house managed to be as much an advertising landmark as the “Lead India ” campaign in recent years. This campaign, however,  is not on par with the “Lead India” campaign. You won’t find it all over the front page, third page, seventh page and back page of your newspaper, positioning itself as more important than the news itself (even though it probably was). And no… it won’t tug at your heart-strings 0r send you on a guilt-trip either. But what calls for a little humble appreciation is how it is quite simply to-the-point. Not surprising considering each spot is barely 20 seconds long.

Here are two of the TVCs:

There are a bunch of others, including one swine flu and one on cynicism. I have often been accused of being a little cynical myself but the ad still made perfect sense to me, without pissing me off. Which is quite honestly very difficult to do when you do venture into the space of public interest advertising with socio-political messaging.

But I guess Lowe Lintas has had enough practice in this sphere with its more-than-successful run with “Jaago Re” for Tata Tea and and also successful (though, not as much) “What an idea, Sir ji” campaign for Idea Cellular. Which is why I wasn’t surprised to know that they were the agency behind this campaign. Also appreciated its attempt at being “young” without stereotyping our kind with arbit, “cool” sounding messaging like, “It’s in my DNA” or whatever.

If there was something I had to change about the campaign, though, it would be the pay-off. Perhaps it’s just the cynic in me who’s talking, but somehow saying “It is time” in my mind always conjures the image of Rajnikanth saying it after blowing the smoke off his revolver. Or worse still, being said by one of those horrid rip-offs of him, as in “Quick Gun Murugun”.

But all in all, a very likeable campaign. I just hope it doesn’t go unnoticed.

Just for a Few “Ha-Ha”s