ADDUCE

Moving On...

2009-07-06T08:24:00.000-07:00

126 posts between 27 April, 2006 and 06 July, 2009 (this one included) and it's time to move on. 126 posts in over three years doesn't seem like a lot. But going over older posts today makes it seem like the blog almost has a life of its own. From hastily scribbled posts from a naive college kid with a strange fetish for advertising, to jaded posts from a jaded college kid dealing with post-internship grappling-with-reality issues, to a bit-of-everything from a sometimes-naive-sometimes-jaded copy kid, this blog has seen it all. That said, sometimes things just don't work out. For instance:

Just the thought of another advertising blog that starts with "Ad" is so bleh now. And like a lot of posts on this blog, it embarrasses me almost as much my childhood. This, as we know, is not a nice thing.

Blogger's functionality was beginning to piss me off. I needed my space around my images, the obsessive-compulsive in me needed perfect alignment and I wasn't getting any of this.

The maximum number of hits on my blog were via Google on the "Campaign for Beauty" post. This would've been fine if it was a really insightful post but it's actually just some depraved men who inadvertently land here after keying in "curvy women" in their serach bar. And as much as we've grown up to believing sex sells in advertising, I really didn't need that to apply to my blog.

So if you are part of the statistic that was directed here in your quest for voluptuous women, you're probably not interested in my new blog. For the other four, I'm now on Wordpress with Between the Briefs. The name actually came up (after much deliberation) as the tagline of the newsletter of the agency that I work for. But when the CD decided to go another way, I kept it for myself. Not as the tagline, but as the name.

On Between the Biefs I plan to be less lazy, more honest and slightly more useful. That's until I can think of something better to offer.

P.S.: All good goodbye posts should come with a post script. Here I would like to add that Leaving it Be will remain on Blogger for the time being. After toying with the idea of deleting it at least twice in the past week, I have decided to leave it be for now. It's fate remains undecided.

Virgin Mobile: Powerful Stuff

2009-06-27T00:37:00.000-07:00

Brand: Virgin Mobile

Agency: RKCR/Y&R

Agency Producer: Danielle Sandler

Creative Director: Mark Roalfe

Creative: Paul Angus; Ted Heath

Director: Sam Brown

Production: Rogue

Producer: Kate Hitchings

Post Production: MPC

Via Creative AdRants

In Tribute

2009-06-26T20:49:00.000-07:00

Log in to mail at work early Friday morning and everyone's GTalk status messages are mourning Michael Jackson's death. A few hours in, and people at work are discussing it. Could already predict the topic of the day for tweets and other status messgaes everywhere else. Some were appalled when I say I never was a big fan of him in the first place.

But whether you liked his music or not, you can't escape some things. Like I couldn't escape this post by Bob Giraldi narrating his experience working with Jackson on " The Pepsi Generation" campaign. The characteristic drama and high of creating a historic advertising campaign with a legend of his time and creating a culture out of it is something we haven't seen in quite some time where celebrity endoresements are concerned.

Here's the full story (via Advertising Age):

I crossed paths with Michael Jackson at an important time in his career, and at an important time in mine.

"Beat It," which climbed to the top of record charts in 1983 -- and later become one of the best-selling singles of all time -- was the very first music video I ever directed. A couple of months later, Paul McCartney asked me to direct the video for "Say Say Say," the song he co-wrote with Michael. When Pepsi's ad agency BBDO hired me to shoot "The Pepsi Generation" campaign, it marked my third encounter with the rising pop star.

Watershed Moment for Advertising

I still remember vividly being at a party to celebrate the announcement of Pepsi and BBDO forging a landmark endorsement relationship with Michael and his brothers, the Jackson Five. It was a nighttime event, and Michael appeared wearing dark sunglasses (like he often did throughout his life) -- it was quite jarring to everyone at the time. I've always thought it was Michael's way of maintaining some distance, like he was saying "I might be ready to sign the biggest contract ever with an advertiser, but I'm not ready to let you look me in the eye just yet."

Michael Jackson's Pepsi commercial shoot is unforgettable, and with good reason. It was the first product endorsement by a superstar of his magnitude in history. People remember it mainly for the last day of the shoot, because, it was -- as the late Phil Dusenberry indicated in the title of his book -- the day we set his hair on fire. But in actuality, the campaign was shot in a span of three days.

The first was devoted to what we called the "Street" spot. Michael and his brothers danced through the streets to rock-and-roll beats and lyrics crafted by BBDO to talk about the soda. The scene is etched in our memories: a group of kids are led by a marvelous young dancer, Alfonso Ribeiro, as he imitates the moonwalk of his idol only to bump into the real Michael Jackson. Michael made it magical.

The Infamous Incident

On day two, we headed to downtown Los Angeles to an auditorium to film the second spot, "Concert." We were prepping for the last take, in which we planned for big special effects. Suddenly, came screaming from backstage: The King of Pop had accidently dropped his sequined white glove into a sea of urine while on a toilet break. His brothers and I ran to the bathroom and Michael howled for one of us "to get it out of the bowl!!" We did. One crisis averted. Until ...

We're rolling tape again, and I was backstage standing amid nervous clients. Michael stands at the top of the steps, the explosion behind him grand and loud, the crowd cheering. As I scanned all five monitors, something seemed out of whack. I leaned into my producer, Antony Payne, and whispered: "He's out of sync ... Michael's never out of sync." The next thing we know, the star is struggling to rip off his fabled red jacket, thinking it was the jacket on fire, not his hair—and then pandemonium. The audience is in shock, some running to the stage, some trying to get out. Everyone comes forth from backstage rushing around him, comforting him. Emotions were high.

Through it all, Michael was brave. As he lay badly burned on a stretcher being carried out to the ambulance, he raised a shaky arm. Holding the dirty white glove, he wiggled it a bit, as if to signal to the world that everything was going to be all right -- and let his fans know he'll be back. I wish that was the case now.

Mr. Giraldi is also known for a series of commercials for Miller Brewing Co. and directing music videos for musicians like Lionel Richie, Pat Benatar and Will Smith. Today Bob Giraldi is director at GiraldiMedia, a New York-based media company.

Here's the "Street" spot being referred to in his post. This is from the year in which I was born.

Strange Love - Coke Commercial

2009-06-19T22:08:00.000-07:00

This ad's been on air for sometime now. I honestly don't know how to respond to it. While the little sketchy thing was niceish, I just don't get the transfer of... erm...fluids taking place.

I did fall in love with the song though.

Bird of Mouth Advertising - Should You Do It and How

2009-06-12T21:53:00.000-07:00

I'd recently come across an interesting tweet by Jacob Cass which said, "You know the times are-a-changing when you're asked to put a Twitter address on a letterhead."

I'd also written a post on Twitter some time back and said it didn't do justice to what Twitter really is about and how you can use it. This post covers some interesting reads about tweeting for brands, whether you should do it and how.

Going back to Cass's tweet, you'd think the first question is really pointless since Twitter became such a huge deal in such little time. Which means every brand worth its salt really should be on Twitter. But does a trend always translate into great results?

For instance, a BBC news report threw up some stats which might want to make you rethink the reach Twitter's got. For instance, it'll tell you how even though Twitter's the fastest growing social networking site today (with well over 10 million users), just "10% of Twitters users generate more than 90% of the content". Add the following stats to this and it really makes you doubt Twitter's status of being a "broadcast medium". The Harvard conducted study also found that:

Over 50% of Twitter users tweet only once in 74 hours
Most people tweet just once - they try the service out out of curiosity but rarely return
And while very few tweet regularly, few also listen consistently - this rules out the chances of Twitter being effective for brands even if they were to survive solely on the silent spectator's basis

(Related Story: Yes, Twitter is Revolutionary - Just Not in the Way You Think)

This brings me back to a time when I'd read an interesting interview in Brand Equity some months back. I can't seem to find the stoy anywhere now but I do remember reading, "New media don't build scale; traditional media can do that." And it seems very true now.

Given the drawbacks of Twitter, which are huge as they are, it becomes that much more important to Tweet right if you do decide to tweet for your brand or tweet on behalf of a brand. Some observations about tweeting for a brand:

Don't Just Use it to Tell People You've Posted a New Story on Your Company's Blog/Website - Twitter's more than just a convenient RSS feed. The reason it's called "conversational" is because you can make it personal. Follow people with similar interests, get them to follow you and actually talk to them. Yes, Twitter is not chat but it is about spreading information people really want to know. Some of the biggest brands, including Amazon and Hewllet Packard haven't managed to get this right.

Read more about the eight worst brands on Twitter.

Invest Time - It's called social "media" for a reason. If you're just going to start a Twitter account and use a couple of swanky widgets that link to your website and whatnot, you're better off not being on Twitter (or any other social networking site, for that matter). But if you do decide to advertise using the social media, treat it as seriously as you would any other media. Set aside time for it and twet often enough to makeyour presence felt. Engage.

Invest People - Before you do this, decide who should speak for you. It's like this. The advertising agency I work for is startup, but an offshoot of a slightly older branding & design firm. Either way, we're not the stalwarts of our field. In which case, it makes sense for our company to be the face of our company. However, if we were larger than that, then it would make sense for one person to tweet for us. I am more likely to read tweets written personally by Prasoon Joshi than read faceless tweets by McCann Erickson. It's all part of making you feel connected with people you think you couldn't know - celebrities, gurus or whoever. If you do decide to get one of your people to tweet for you, make sure it is that person who's tweeeting for you. No one wants to know that they've been fooled into believing they've been listening to Oprah or Ambani when they've actually just been listening to someone in charge of their PR.

Invest Money - If you can't exploit someone's persona for the brand, don't. And if you can't invest time yourself, get someone to do it for you. Just because the social media is easily accessible, doesn't mean you can't get it done by professionals. Again, it is a medium. Just like you wouldn't draw squiggly lines yourself and send out an ad for print or pick up a handycam and shoot your own TVC, don't tweet for your brand yourself if you're clueless or don't have someone to write interesting, results-oriented, 140-your characters-or-less lines. Also, it wouldn't hurt to make sure your Twitter page looks "you". Think of it as a mini-website. Extend your brand's linguistic and visual identity elements here. Get help if you can't do this yourself. You can also get your Twitter database organised and tracked by a third-party. Simply put, do whatever it takes to make sure you get the results you need through Twitter and don't let it get lost amongst a million other Twitter pages. Seek value-add. Fire your agency if you must if they don't do this well.

Research - If you are the agency tweeting for the company, research. Look for brands in the same playing field as your client's, see what they're doing right, what they're doing wrong, what they're not doing that you could do and then make sure you do it. Find people who would follow you religiously and retweet loyally.

Give Incentives - It's great if you're giving your brand's/client's brand's followers information they wouldn't nomally get but sometimes it helps if you could give them something else as well. Give them a reason to follow you. Use Twitter to tie-in with your other promotional and advertising activities.

Know Your Technology - Manage your Twitter account effectively by picking tools that make it more efficient to track and collate. I'm partial to TweetDeck. Read more about essential Twitter tools for company accounts.

Once you're all set, go back and check and how you're doing. If you're not getting the kind of followers you are looking for, you can now "buy" more followers.

Everything that you could possibly need to use Twitter well if already there somewhere. All you have to do is put it all together.

P.S.: The title of this post was inspired by Brian Clark's tweet - "Bird-of-mouth (noun): The spreading of news or information via Twitter".

Other Related Stories

Advertising & Poster Design Tutorials

2009-06-07T01:38:00.000-07:00

Just came across this post on Smashing Magazine. Worth a read.

"Everyone in the business world knows the importance of posters and ads in advertising for specific products. Posters are an integral part of advertising. An eye-catching, attractive poster that conveys a professional, compelling message about a product, service or event will invariably hold the user’s attention.

In this article, we have collected a mixture of Photoshop and Illustrator tutorials related to posters and advertisements. You will find some are intermediate and some are very advanced, but they’ll all give you a lot of direction with photo composition, illustration, coloring processing, typography techniques, pen tool tricks, shapes processing and much more."

The Vendor Client Relationship Video

2009-06-07T01:33:00.000-07:00

Nestle Club: Stir Something

2009-05-31T04:15:00.000-07:00

TVC for Nestle Club. The line asks for so much more.

Agency: JWT Sydney
Associative Creative Director: John Lam
Senior Writer: Simon Armour
Art Director: Blair Kimber
Animation: Collider
Director: Andrew Van der Westhuyzen

Advertising & Branding Stories - The First Pile Up

2009-05-30T00:10:00.000-07:00

A lot of reading piles up at times, with relevant news articles bookmarked and kept aside for later. This post is just a quick roundup of five interesting advertising & branding stories from recent weeks.

1. The Poor Man's Billboard Arrived

A New York Times (NYT) article talks about how, where advertsing is concerned, any space can be media space. Storefront advertising, once thought of as the "poor man's billboard", is seeing increased activity by creating a win-win situation for both realtors and advertisers alike. Smart use of media space, but nothing quite astounding just yet. The only one that seemed interesting in concept was the one for Tim Burton's movie Coraline created by Inwindow Outdoor.

This NYT story links here.
Related story.

2. Because if You Don't Watch the Ads, it's like You're Stealing TV

TiVo just went out and proved how you can't be cynical about advertising on television. The company which lets subscribers skip the commercials is now letting advertisers host interactive ads strategically. Of course, if a TV commercial is not annoying and does not interrupt your show at just the right moment, it's really not advertising at all. But here's to all those who are naive enough believe it's just the coming of age of television advertising.

This NYT story links here.

3. Spot. Shoot. Tweet. Advertise.

Reacting rather quickly to McDonald's line of McCafé drinks, Starbucks is pulling all the stops out on its advertising by making people readvertise for them using the social networking media. As part of the strategy, Starbucks is asking people to spot its advertsing posters, shoot them and then share them using Twitter, among other sites such as Facebook and Youtube.

This NYT story links here.

4. The Rise and Fall of the Zoozoos

Regular ol' blogger Pyiyank Sharma stumbles on a likeness of the Zoozoos on Stockxpert and his blog post is suddenly breaking news. Now known as the Zoozoo Scandal on Twitter, one of the most watched virals in the past weeks might have to face the brunt of its "inspired ideas". Or maybe it already got all that it had to in the weeks gone by. Whether the scandal will actually 'cause serious damage is something we'll just have to wait and watch.

Maybe Someday.

2009-05-19T09:17:00.000-07:00

I took my first leave (since I started work one year back) this week. This is a misleading statement, even though it is factually correct. Misleading because the statement might make you think that since I took off from work for the first time after some 400+ days, I would not want to and, therefore, would not think about work. Although I must admit this was the original plan, I have failed miserably at it. Not only have I given in and thought about possible crisis situations at work in my absence (I'm not very modest... I consider myself one of those indispensible types), I have also taken the opportunity to mull over my career so far and what lies ahead.

So over the first four days of my nine-day leave, I have done what you call a Mental Self Appraisal and Goal Setting Process (I'm not much of a wild child either... my holidays are just a pathetic excuse for not having to meet people). Now the Self Appraisal part I won't go over because that I do pretty much every day at work when I say, "Bleh... I suck at this. I should just quit!"

But the Goal Setting part brings me to one day at work when I was asked, "Do you want to win a Cannes?" and I thought to myself, "What kind of a dumbass question is that?! Why wouldn't you?!" This in turn takes me back to the days when I was still in school and was just about deciding on a career in advertising and would spend Wednesday mornings with Brand Equity, wanting to be Piyush Pandey. Yes, at 15, I wanted to be a fat, old, jolly man with a handlebar moustache... seriously.

So part of the Being Piyush Pandey plan was winning lots and lots of awards. Of course, if you're familiar with what's said in advertising circles, you'd also be familiar with the "Awards-don't-mean-a-thing" type of statements. I've said them myself at interviews actually, with a bit more tact. But the truth is, I really wouldn't mind winning a couple of hundred while I'm here. As in, they don't all have to be a Cannes... a few of the "smaller" ones also I can make my peace with. People don't know this about me, but I like a fair amount of bling myself.

The ironic thing is that thinking of getting those awards seemed more likely then, at 15. Now that I'm kind of actually doing this stuff, it doesn't seem so easy anymore. I mean, I'm already in Year 2 and no awards yet. Sigh! But maybe someday. And maybe someday soon.

One Year Down

2009-05-05T08:51:00.000-07:00

Calendars are funny. They tell you when you're supposed to celebrate things. They also tell you to keep track of your life. Sometimes they tell you that you've lived for 64 years and haven't done anything with yourself. And sometimes they tell you that you've stuck around for 365 days at something and that that's an achievement. Today a calendar tells me that one year back this day was my first day at my first job. This means a lot of things have happened between then and now, some good and some not so much.

For instance, there have been a lot of early hours, late hours and extra work days. There have also been a lot of, "I suck at this... I quit!" moments, without the "quitting" part. There have been a fair share of screw ups and a not-so-fair share of Superwoman days. There have been moments of glory and moments of nothingness, moments of "There isn't enough time" and a slow & painful realization of the fact that there's never going to be enough time. There's been work to love and work to hate, days to remember and days to forget.

And between all of this, what sucks the most is having to finally give in after one year and agree to move out of my sheltered little place because of two things that aren't even two weeks old. Ah, very.

Image from here.

Vodafone Does Not Animate

2009-04-28T08:17:00.000-07:00

Turns out the Zoozoos weren't animated after all. Nirvana was still behind the production... but pretty crazy the process. I'm just copy-pasting part of the afaqs! story here. This is the bit that talks about the creation of the Zoozoos.

Making of the Zoozoo

No, they aren’t animated characters. They are human beings who were made to wear body suits. “The design of the characters is such that one gets fooled into thinking it is animation,” shrugs Rao, which was indeed the very illusion that had to be created. “In a sense, it is ‘live’ animation!” he quips, referring to the fact that it was all shot live.

Prakash Varma, ad filmmaker, Nirvana Films, has directed the commercials, and reveals that the Zoozoos were a big challenge to create. The practical aspects of how they will move, talk, gesticulate and emote were very important. Essentially, costume design and artwork were crucial elements.

“It took me three weeks of pre-production to understand how it will work,” says Varma. There were two fabrics that were considered for the body suits, and one was rejected for it had too many wrinkles and was shiny. The wrinkles would have shown when the characters moved, thereby shattering the illusion of animation. “So we chose the more practical, thicker fabric,” Varma explains.

The production team divided the outfit into two parts: the body and the head. The body part of the outfit was stuffed with foam in some places, while the head was attached separately. To make it look bigger than a human head, a harder material called Perspex was used, which in turn was stuffed with foam (with scope for ventilation).

If one wishes to understand the size of this head, here’s a fact: a human head would typically reach up to the mouth level of this giant Zoozoo head. “We kept the hands and legs thin, which is why we cast women – and occasionally children – wearing the costumes,” says Varma. The thin limbs, contrasted with big bellies and a bulbous head, all add to the illusion that these creatures are ‘smaller’ than humans. Sets were created to suit the size of the Zoozoos.

Cinematically, this ‘size’ was a trick: the creatures look smaller than they actually are on screen, to portray a different world of sorts. For this, the speed of shooting was altered: Nirvana shot it in a high-speed format to make them look the size that they do.

Furthermore, simple sets/backdrops were created and spray painted with neutral Greys – a colour of choice so that attention isn’t diverted from the main characters. For a supposedly ‘outdoor’ shot, even the shadow of a Zoozoo was kept ‘live’ and not done in post production: it was painted in a darker shade of grey on the ground. An even lighting was maintained throughout.

There was virtually no post production work done.

The films were shot by Nirvana in Cape Town, South Africa, with the help of a local production house there, called Platypus. Incidentally, the same combination of people also worked on the ‘Happy to Help’ series last year. When asked whether Cape Town is fast becoming a tourist spot for Vodafone and Nirvana, Varma laughs, saying, “Oh no! It’s just that we are very comfortable with the team there and know what sort of work to expect from them.”

Nagpal adds here that the production cost had to be minimal for unveiling such a large number of commercials. “Otherwise, our production costs would exceed media spends,” he quips.

I also checked out the microsite and I'm apparently a Busy Zoozoo. (Yeah, I really needed Vodafone to tell me that) Not a very wow microsite but they seem to have a pretty good fan following on Youtube and Facebook. Look it up if you really care.

Vodafone Animates

2009-04-26T04:35:00.000-07:00

New set of animated Vodafone spots. A little disappointed because most of them are cute but not quite heavy on the idea, which is unlike Vodafone. Like these:

I did like these though. Made me smile.

Overall, it still works though. I'm guessing a lot of people will love it just because. And sometimes that's enough.

Now to find out who's behind the animation of the Zoozoos. Anyone know?

A Little Birdie is a Big Deal

2009-04-26T00:59:00.000-07:00

I'm generally very cynical about things over the Internet that people get really excited about and end up getting there a little behind time. When Gmail was catching on, I didn't understand what the big deal was and kept delaying accepting invites to it (this is when not anyone could have a Gmail account and you had like a limited ten invites to give out). Same was the case with Orkut (now long dead and gone), Facebook, Blogger and then Twitter.

I got onto Twitter a few months back when some friends of a friend wanted to discuss a related project (which, I now realize, I've completely lost track of). I kind of knew what Twitter was but just didn't get why it was such a rage. I mean, we already had status messages on Facebook so I didn't understand why we needed a website just for keeping people updated on what we were doing.

This was then. Now I suddenly have huge respect for this seemingly useless site. It's like an introductory blurb on the site reads - "If you aren't familar with Twitter, it is one of those things, like MySpace, that sounds totally stupid when you first hear about it. But once you start using it, you realize how much fun it is." (Eric Nuzum, author of "The Dead Travel Fast")

Now beyond feeding our voyeuristic and exhibistionist instincts and just being "fun", Twitter's gone a step ahead to become an employment generator as well. A New York Time article talks about Pizza Hut hiring Twinterns to work as their social media journalists. A few months back I would have scoffed at this idea as over indulgent; now I think it might serve a purpose in communication that you can't ignore.

Then you have celebritites like Oprah Winfrey, Ashton Kutcher, Shashi Tharoor, Imgoen Heap and the likes on Twitter, making them part of your larger social circle. Not to mention the corporate brands that you might also want to follow if you're part of their loyal customer base. For instance, after a quick search I found tweets from The Body Shop, Apple & Mac, Hershey's and Starbucks, keeping people updated on where their coffee comes from to the new, delicious peppermint foot scrub.

This would probably also explain why so many people are talking about Twitter and the phenomenon that it is (sort of like this post, but only with more expertise). Andrew McAfees' Blog has a pretty decent article on the Twitter called the "17 Things we Used to Do". Then there were stories that describe what kind of a Twitterian you are and the psychology of Twitterians ("Twitterian" being a term I'm just using but not an actual term).

So as much as I hate admitting it now, Twitter is suddenly a big deal; this post hardly did justice to the trend that it has become but I'm still in the process of understanding its implications on communications and branding. All I can say for now is, between being the "poor man's email" and the site for micro blogging, it's actually also a lot more. Whether the tweets will actually translate into real results for brands, by how much and for how long... that we'll just have to see. That's until we get a new site to take over our lives.

This is an Ad. This is not an Ad.

2009-04-19T00:17:00.000-07:00

The thing about advertising is that everyone is always trying to do something new. At least, that's what we think. On most occasions, we fail miserably. On some rare occasions, we succeed.

Now a part of this said "do(ing) something new" is using the medium of communication differently. Not just the message, but where the message appears and how. Also, in trying to arrive at this said rare, occasional success, you're sometimes tempted to doing anything so long as it's different. It doesn't always make sense, doesn't tie in very well with the message but makes a few people sit up and take notice and gives the advertisers a pretty little ego boost.

This brings us to an ambiguous divide between what is an ad, and what isn't. For instance, Juggernaut Advertising, USA, responded to BMW's competitor like this:

This is an ad. Not forced, not trying-too-hard. Just simply "Please eat your words, Audi.", which I'm sure they did.

On the other hand, this is not an ad. This is a gimmick.

The bald head has nothing to do with the airlines, does not have a strong messgae and does nothing for the general brand building, except for maybe a few days' worth of, "Oh, look. A bald man's asking me to fly with Air New Zealand!" By contrast, knowing that the hair off the shaved off heads was donated to some cancer organization is a good PR activity because it does something for the corporate citizenship aspect of the brand, but the overall effect is still too rounabout and far-fetched.

Read the complete story on "The Body as a Billboard: Your Ad Here" here.

The Tragedy of Writing

2009-04-18T01:46:00.001-07:00

Recently at work, while working on an internal project, I'd written a line about words calling it "The monologue in your mind; a soliloquy on paper". As luck would have it, most of what I wrote for this said project was not understood by a lot of people. My boss congratulates me on having written copy that was a little more cryptic than you would have liked, and I couldn't care less. Because maybe, just maybe, incomprehension preserved the sanctity of the monologue that was; no tragedy of moving away from the private to the public. Just the tragedy of "What's not to get?!"

Image from here.

We're Getting a Tad Impatient Too...

2009-04-18T01:09:00.000-07:00

... With bad advertising.

Few ads have pissed me off as much as this one is the past few weeks. There's a lot of bad advertising out there as it is, but when it comes from a brand that generally has a good record of advertising to its credit, it's even worse. Add to that, I think this comes from Rediffusion... one of the agencies with the cleanest work in recent times. Which also adds to the disappointment. I mean, it's a freakin' braodband connection. Did we have to elevate it to the status of an entire generation's "mantra" or whatever the shit you call it? I know there's been this whole hue and cry about the power of the new awakening young India and all that jazz, but just because Jaago Re! did it, doesn't mean everyone has to do it. And then there are the actors and voiceovers straight out of some preachy PSA-typey thing. What a waste of a perfectly good opportunity. This one time I actually wish the agency has only the client to blame, 'cause I don't feel like losing respect for Rediff just yet.

Oh, and, here's the ad. Enjoy.

Semiotics Paper

2009-04-12T01:44:00.000-07:00

Written in 2006 I think. Putting it up just because.

Semiotics Research Paper

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Business & Economics Research research advertising

The Poetics of Advertising: Part 4

2009-04-11T01:34:00.000-07:00

No Refrain from Refrain

If advertising, like some delusional person, had to find its purpose, it would have to be that of making people aware of and remember something... products, messaging, the works. And one way of doing this amidst all the brouhaha is repeating what has to be said over and over again. In slightly more sophiticated terms, it leads to "Brand Recall". For the not so pretentious, it's called nagging. Unless you do it tastefully, and then it's called the refrain... "A line or set of lines at the end of a stanza or section of a longer poem or song - these lines repeat at regular intervals in other stanzas or sections of the same work. Sometimes the repetition involves minor changes in wording."

This reminds me of the jingle where even the unwilling soul sometimes succumbs to unintentionally humming the tune, catching himself unawares and slightly embarrassed. Sometimes the jingle extends as an entire song. I remember this one ad for Nescafe, with a similar Hindi and English jingle, which was really popular when I was in school. People actually wanted it to have it as their cell phone ringtone.

And then there are those that you end up remembering for years! Like the "Washing powder Nirma" song. I think I've known the words to this since I was like three and don't see myself forgetting it anytime soon. I couldn't find the actual ad on YouTube, but found some varied renditions of it, including a metal cover. Here's one attempt at recreating it:

Then there is repetition that takes place at the level of how often you need to see/hear a particular message to finally get it. Take for instance the time when Hutch went Vodafone. As annoying as the constant repetition of the TV spots were, you had to give it to O&M for making sure people didn't miss it. The brand went through an entire volte face of a situation overnight and people were talking about it, whether they liked it or not.

And then there is the repetition of something successful... like the "Hamara Bajaj" commercial. Almost two decades after the 1989 commercial that went on to become the anthem of Indian advertising, the same song was reused in a newer version a couple of years back.

When I started this set of posts, I was just trying to make a point, which I think I've done. This could run into another fifty posts actually, but I'm going to stop at this one. I'm actually almost tempted to write another semiotics paper exploring this topic... but I won't. I'm just going to say that if advertising is the profession of the damned, well then... so is literature. Yeah.

If "Change" was the Word of the Year in 2008...

2009-03-25T09:19:00.000-07:00

... Then "Now" wins hands-down in 2009.

And NOW I'm wishing I could just say no... no to things that have to always be done NOW and have to be done right 'cause if they weren't right, you'd have to fix it NOW even if it means having to stay back late, every day, while your mother calls you and asks you to get home NOW and when you finally do get home (not NOW but later), you wear a face that inevitably warrants the question, "NOW what happened?" and then you pray (or imitate the closest thing you've got to praying) and say, "Please... show me a sign NOW... anything that'll make me know that, at the end of the day, it's all going to be worth it."

The Poetics of Advertising: Part 3

2009-03-21T01:33:00.000-07:00

Larger than "Larger than Life"

People are often skeptical about advertising. I'm in advertising and even I don't believe everything that is advertised. And the fact is, we've all sort of been brought up on a diet of dishonest advertising to the point that we've been desensitised to it. Sometimes it's not so much dishonest as it is an exaggeration of the benefits. Which brings me to the hyperbole; I can't think of a literary device more used and abused in advertising than that of the hyperbole - "the trope of exaggeration or overstatement."

The Advertising Standards Council of India has this whole section on honest advertising in its "Code for Self Regulation of Advertising in India." A good part of this is dedicated to exaggeration, like this:

Advertisements shall neither distort facts nor mislead the consumer by means of implications or omissions. Advertisements shall not contain statements or visual presentation which directly or by implication or by omission or by ambiguity or by exaggeration are likely to mislead the consumer about the product advertised or the advertiser or about any other product or advertiser.
Advertisements shall not be so framed as to abuse the trust of consumers or exploit their lack of experience or knowledge. No advertisement shall be permitted to contain any claim so exaggerated as to lead to grave or widespread disappointment in the minds of consumers.
Obvious untruths or exaggerations intended to amuse or to catch the eye of the consumer are permissible provided that they are clearly to be seen as humorous or hyperbolic and not likely to be understood as making literal or misleading claims for the advertised product.

The first two are quite rampant in advertising. Become thinner, become fairer, become nicer, become luckier. It's all there and done to death. And then there's the types which use the third type. And when it's done well, it's pure genius.

No Time Pass This

2009-03-15T01:33:00.000-07:00

Vodafone's out with a whole new bunch of TV spots for it's "Time Pass @ 10p" and "Tell the whole world" series, amongst others. Effortlessly simple, nice, clean. Particularly liked the one spun around the song "Dhal gaya din", which I think is from the movie "Hamjoli". But as technology would have it, it didn't download. Read an afaqs! story here and also watch the others along with it.

The Poetics of Advertising: Part 2

2009-03-13T23:11:00.000-07:00

Going by the List

A popular device in literature is the "Catalogue" - a traditional epic device consisting of a long rhetorical list or inventory. In stringing together a bunch of related or unrelated things, a larger meaning is arrived at from each of the littler things. It's kind of like a shopping list - if you put down a bottle of ketchup on a piece of paper, it's just a bottle of ketchup. But put it down along with a cake of soap, a bottle of Coke, a can of insect repellant, rice & flour, a shampoo bottle and the works, and it becomes a list of all that's part of our humdrum, consumerist lives. Here's an example from literature that I found while looking up cataloging.

"The pure contralto sings in the organ loft,
The carpenter dresses his plank, the tongue of his foreplane whistles its wild ascending lisp,
The married and unmarried children ride home to their Thanksgiving dinner,
The pilot seizes the king-pin, he heaves down with a strong arm,
The mate stands braced in the whale-boat, lance and harpoon are ready,
The duck-shooter walks by silent and cautious stretches,
The deacons are ordained with crossed hands at the altar,
The spinning-girl retreats and advances to the hum of the big wheel,
The farmer stops by the bars as he walks on a First-day loaf and looks at the oats and rye,
The lunatic is carried at last to the asylum a confirmed case.... [etc.]"
Walt Whiteman - "Song of Myself"

It's not all that different in advertising. The use of cataloging in copywriting is still quite a powerful technique when it comes to creating a rhetoric. The Lead India campaign did it (and is still doing it), the Teach India campaign did it, the India Shining campaign did it and I'm using it for a client's internal "election" campaign of sorts. If you're trying to perduade someone to do something, you do it by backing it up with as many examples as possible. Of course, there's the occasional satire-ridden, not-so-sublime rhetoric as well that we just love.

And then there's the cataloging of celebrities who come together to speak for the brand, lending their image to help craete the brand's image. I couldn't think of a better example in recent advertising than that of the Airtel DTH TVC that fell back on this technique for its "Bring Home the Magic" ad. But there was a really popular PSA that aired when we were younger that I had to put up here... for old times' sake.

Next post: The hyperbole

Google to Offer Ads Based on Interests

2009-03-11T09:54:00.000-07:00

By MIGUEL HELFT

Published: March 11, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO — Google will begin showing ads on Wednesday to people based on their previous online activities in a form of advertising known as behavioral targeting, which has been embraced by most of its competitors but has drawn criticism from privacy advocates and some members of Congress.

Enlarge This Image

Susan Walsh/Associated Press

Nicole Wong, Google’s deputy general counsel, says there’ll be a link to an explanation.

Perhaps to forestall objections to its approach, Google said it planned to offer new ways for users to protect their privacy. Most notably, Google will be the first major company to give users the ability to see and edit the information that it has compiled about their interests for the purposes of behavioral targeting. Like rivals such as Yahoo, it also will give users the choice to opt out from what it calls “interest-based advertising.”

Privacy advocates praised Google’s decision to give users access to their profiles.

Given Google’s position as the No. 1 seller of online ads, its approach is likely to put pressure on other companies to follow suit. Online advertising industry groups said it might help quell calls for government regulation.

But the privacy advocates also said Google needed to do more to notify people that they were being tracked.

“We think more needs to be done on how to educate people and tell them how to opt out,” said Ari Schwartz, chief operating officer of the Center for Democracy and Technology.

Google’s foray into behavioral targeting may represent the most visible result so far of the company’s integration of DoubleClick, an advertising technology company that it acquired a year ago. Google bought DoubleClick, which is used by advertisers and publishers to manage their ad campaigns, to extend its advertising empire into display ads, which it sees as the next best hope to reignite its growth.

Google will use a cookie, a small piece of text that resides inside a Web browser, to track users as they visit one of the hundreds of thousands of sites that show ads through its AdSense program. Google will assign those users to categories based on the content of the pages they visit. For example, a user may be pegged as a potential car buyer, sports enthusiast or expectant mother.

Google will then use that information to show people ads that are relevant to their interests, regardless of what sites they are visiting. An expectant mother may see an ad about baby products not only on a parenting site but also, for example, on a sports or fashion site that uses AdSense or on YouTube, which is owned by Google.

The program will first be tested with a few dozen advertisers but Google plans to expand it.

Google said the approach could help advertisers reach their audiences more easily and publishers to earn more from their sites. Users will also see ads that are more relevant to their interests, the company said.

Google said that it planned to segment users along 20 categories and nearly 600 subcategories, and would not create categories for certain “sensitive” interests, including race, religion, sexual orientation or certain types of financial or health concerns. It does not plan to associate the cookie of users with search data or with information from other Google services, like Gmail.

Google won’t notify users that it has begun to show them ads based on their behavior, but users who click on the “Ads By Google” link, which appears on thousands of Web pages, will be taken to a site where the technique is explained. There, they will also be able to tap into what Google calls the Ads Preferences Manager, to see and edit the ad categories that have been associated with their browser.

“We had to find some way to open the box,” said Nicole Wong, Google’s deputy general counsel. “Users don’t know how many entities pick up data. They don’t know what happens with it. And they don’t know why Cole Haan shows me a given ad. And even if they did know, they can’t control it.”

Mr. Schwartz said that Google’s approach showed that claims by some advertising companies that giving users access to their profiles would be too onerous were not true.

Google’s entry into behavioral targeting could complicate the company’s relationship with Web publishers that use its advertising services. Many publishers are reluctant to hand over information about their users to Google if the company will in turn use it to help advertisers reach those users when they visit other sites. Most advertising networks already do this, but Google’s broad reach makes publishers particularly nervous.

At the same time, if the behavioral targeting system lets publishers get higher-priced ads, they may find it too hard to resist.

“This further extends the schizophrenic nature of the relationship between Google and publishers,” said Rob Norman, chief executive of GroupM Interaction, a unit of ad giantWPP.

Google is allowing publishers to opt out of the program.

Saul Hansell contributed reporting from New York.

The Poetics of Advertising: Part 1

2009-03-06T23:24:00.000-08:00

When I was still new at my job, copywriting seemed quite out there as far as I was concerned. Which is not to say that this changes with time; it's always kind of hard to figure out its mechanics. And, as is expected, people always have differing opinions about what's good and what's bad in copywriting. For instance, one of my seniors then used to say how the other writers at work always found her writing extremely "poetic" and how they were always persuading her to change her style.

Having read some of this said senior's copy, I would say I understand why it was called "poetic" but can't disagree more with people being against poetry in copywriting or in advertising on the whole, for that matter. The problem really is the perception of poetry as "lyrical", which is as ridiculous as something posing to be "deep" being perceived as "philosophical". 'Cause here's the thing... poetry can be prosaic, prose can be poetic and advertising can be both of these at separate times as also at the same time. There are enough examples in literature of the first two; this and the following few posts are really just trying to make a point about the third.

Being Conceited about Poetry

Advertising, as much it tries to find a way out, is always looked upon with much cynicism. Unless you're a part of it, it always comes off as the most pointless field ever. And then you're out there trying to sell something as pointless as aerated drinks. Calling a spade a spade obviously won't be of much help in this instance, and so you try and make it larger than life. Strong cellular networks then come to mean strong relationships and a bottle of mango drink becomes "the equivalent of being in love"... all thanks to the conceit.

The conceit is more than a metaphor. It's actually just that... an extended metaphor. To quote Wikipedia: "Aside from its common usage, signifying "excessive pride", in literary terms, a conceit is an extended metaphor with a complex logic that governs an entire poem or poetic passage. By juxtaposing, usurping and manipulating images and ideas in surprising ways, a conceit invites the reader into a more sophisticated understanding of an object of comparison."

Having established this, there are two commercials I'm going to look at here that rely on the conceit. Both products are in the same category.

The first is the commercial for Slice. Come summer, all the brands for mango drinks go into full swing trying to find something to differentiate one mango product from the other. Slice started this last year by roping in Katrina Kaif and starting off the "Aamsutra" series. No longer the sweet, innocent drink of the good ol' days of "Mango Frooti, Fresh & Juicy", the mango drink adopted a new dimension and got heightened to the level of a nectar of sorts. Note, of course, the reference to the Kaamasutra (this could have been another literary device - the allegory), and the nectar becomes a sort of aphrodisiac. With JWT's new commercial, there's no doubt about it.

And then there's Limca that's also come a long way since it's "Lime-n-Lemony" days. With it's full-length song (that could have just as well been part of a movie), the ad goes on to extend the idea of a "refreshing drink" as "refreshing life". The lyrics hardly talk about the drink, except for the occasional last line of the verse that mention's the product's name. Which means the product almost takes a back seat to the idea and lets it set the mood (another literary device) for what become the narrative... or the lack of it.

Either way, the product is not sold just for itself but for all of its implauisble possibilities.

Next post: Cataloguing

There are Always Lessons to Be Learnt...

2009-03-03T08:18:00.000-08:00

...And today I learnt that your account is like your baby for eight whole reasons.

It's loud
It's whiney
It's always asking for your attention
It's demanding
It's always at the back of your mind
You spend sleepless nights taking care of it in times of need, but it's still ungrateful as hell
No matter what you do, it's never happy. Unless, of course, you do something absoluetly ridiculous (like peek-a-boo)... then it's amused, but only for so long
Even if it's the ugliest thing you've ever seen, you're always saying it's the best thing that ever happened to you

C-Sawing Between The Client, The Creative, The Cynic and The Controversial

2009-02-22T02:48:00.000-08:00

The past few weeks have been difficult getting through, to say the least. And for more reasons than one. It takes the remnants of the final shreds of your sanity and strength trying to handle it all - the client, the creative, the cynic and the controversial.

On most occassions you have the client and the creative at loggerheads; this constitutes the two opposing polarities in advertising. My CD recently told me that if your creative is actually good, your client won't need any convincing. The theory's pretty creative too, but I'm not buying it just yet. And in the larger scheme of things, this sort of represents the Liar's Paradox. This I won't get into at this point in time. What I will say, though, is that the client doesn't always know best and it's worse when the client thinks he does. The only thing that can top this off is the client who thinks he is creative and steps all over your work, picking your words and choice of colors for you. And the only thing that can top this off, is the client who actually is creative. Pretty rare, this; but when it is the case, it's not very pretty. I would like to think most of my better work is work that has been rejected by the client. The only probelm with this is, it really isn't my work if it didn't materialize. This is another kind of paradox. Paradox makes life difficult which makes it nice.

But sometimes, before the client can come swashbucking in to do your idea to bits, a little internal filtering does that for you. This is done by the cynic. The cynic is repulsed by the new. The cynic pretends it is creative and lets you toy with the idea that you have an idea and then, just before you can execute it, the cynic executes it in a very different way. This is what we call a very bad pun and a sin of sorts in copywriting. But the cynic would in all probability love it. Because the cynic thinks puns are funny and cynics don't have what we call a sense of humor. But the cynic is not static. Which means anyone can be a cynic. Sometimes the creative becomes the cynic and sometimes the cynic becomes the creative. This makes things unpredictable in a very predictable sort of way. This is a third kind of paradox.

The creative is by far the most sought-after. Everyone wants to be one; few really are. Between the client and the cynic, the creative is mostly left with an immense feeling on wanting to slit its wrists. But it won't. Because the creative is also a romantic and convinces itself into believing tomorrow will be better; things will be different then. At this point the creative can't be a cynic. But things won't be better tomorrow; the romantic will die and the creative will surrender. The cynic wins and so does everyone else who survived.

But, at the end of the day, the thing most likely to survive and outlast everything else is the controversial. There's lots of it, apparently, in advertising and I've already seen more than my fair share of it.

In Response to Santosh Desai: Good, Bad and Ugly in Advertising '08 - Part 3

2009-01-25T21:10:00.000-08:00

About a month back, Santosh Desai of Future Brands was on Storyboard (CNN IBN), taking stock of advertising in 2008. Pretty interesting, his insights. Clips of the video are up here and there. This is the third and last part of the posts in response to Desai's interview.

Riding on CSR

One of the major trends in advertsing that ensued over the past year or so, was that of advertising that weaved in a social cause with a seemingly banal product or service. I would think the trend caught on with the Lead India campaign launched by the Times of India (ToI). Although I personally wasn't a big fan of the campaign, it was a favourite at the Cannes. This was in 2007.

Then ToI launched the Teach India campaign, which continued the trend well into 2008. It also brought back the long copy in print and quite well. And by now, corporates and advertisers were sitting up and taking notice of advertising that wasn't for the passive consumer, but for the consumer who wanted to particiapte.

This was followed by such ads as Idea Cellular's "What an Idea" campaign. Although slow initially, the campign moved away from just "feel-good" social messaging, to social messaging with actual activity. This came in towards the later part of 2008 with the "Agar aap junta ki sunenge, to junta aapki sunegi" ads. Idea followed this up with the launch of the website - For the People, By the People.

And then there was the Tata Tea "Jaago Re" campaign which was perhaps most successful in generating a huge response to its voter reistration drive. I've worked with clients now who've used this in their internal communications to have employees register through the website.

What I liked most about these ads was really how response driven they were. And suddenly advertising has a "larger purpose" which it has long been accused of evading.

In Response to Santosh Desai: Good, Bad and Ugly in Advertising '08 - Part 2

2009-01-01T01:45:00.000-08:00

Recently, Santosh Desai of Future Brands was on Storyboard (CNN IBN), taking stock of advertising in 2008. Pretty interesting, his insights. Clips of the video are up here and there. This is the second part of the posts in response to Desai's interview.

The Dying Breed

Desai's having said that copywriting in some sense is dying whereas scriptwriting is now alive suddenly threw so much light on why it is so difficult to explain to someone what a copywriter does. What follows is hardly an exaggeration.

Y: So what do you do?

Me: I'm a copywriter.

Y: *Slow, extended nod*

Me: *Here it comes*

Y: So what exactly do you do?

Me: I conceptualise for ads and write copy for them.

Y: *Attempts to take it in* Oh. So how is it related to the legal bit?

Me: It isn't.

Y: *Walks back to square one* So... when you say you write copy for ads, what do you mean?

Me: The copy! The copy! I write the copy! Headline... body copy... the works.

Y: Ah... so you write stuff like "Hurry! Offer valid till 31st January only." and "upto 50% off!"?

Me: Yes, that... and also, like just copy in general. *Clutching onto the final straws* And scripts! I write scripts! Yes... that's what I do. I also write scripts. *Smug*

Y: Ohhhhh... so you're a scriptwriter. That's nice.

Me: Yes. Yes it is.

I suppose I understand why nobody gets what copywriting is. For starters, like Desai said, print advertising has become merely informative. "Call: 5555 ----", "Log on to: www.yme.com", etc. And this is probably an offshoot of the fact that nobody reads anymore. Which means that long body copy is thought of the most sacrilegious thing in advertising now (What?! Like waste all that ad space on words?). Which means that the copywriter is called upon to salvage an ad only when there's no budget to buy images or to shoot and the illustrator's chosen the perfect day to call in sick. Yes... the copywriter truly is indispensable. And it's the most precious moment when after spending five hours on the perfect headline and another couple of hours on the bodycopy, after having waited for the words to ferment and rise slowly in trying to have them read like an Indra Sinha, you have the client smile and say, "I like it... but what does it mean?". Which is why when in those rare moments an ad appears with close-to-inspirational copy, stop you who read it and say, "Here's an ad with all that space wasted on words... or perhaps it was just an indulgence long called for."

In Response to Santosh Desai: Good, Bad and Ugly in Advertising '08 - Part 1

2008-12-29T05:26:00.000-08:00

Recently, Santosh Desai of Future Brands was on Storyboard (CNN IBN), taking stock of advertising in 2008. Pretty interesting, his insights. Clips of the video are up here and there. The next few posts are in response to Desai's comments... where we agree and where we disgaree.

DTH is the new FMCG

Desai's having said that some of the bigger ad spends came from the DTH segment this year was not surprising. Some of the most "noticeable" advertising of the year was from Airtel DTH, Tata Sky and Reliance Big TV. And then you had some Dish TV and Sun Direct thrown in as well for good measure.

Now althought a whole slew of ads came with the advent of all the DTH players, few ads were really impressive.

McCann-Erickson's advertising for Sun Direct, for starters, got lost for its "A versus B" approach among other more creative, coherent efforts.

Then there was Lowe Lintas with Dish TV's "Thodo aur wish karo. Dish karo." advertising, which was a tad too aspirational for a segment that seems to be doing better with the fun and glitzy approach. I'm tempted to think that asking everyone to ask for more would do better as one more of those product/service ads tied-in with a larger social message. And given that this was one of the biggest trends in 2008, it might've done them some good. I can already imagine what the agenda of this people-empowerment website would be. And ironcally for something that so asked for something bigger, the ad failed to deliver on just that... a big idea. Unfortunately, Shahrukh Khan can't make up for the lack of one anymore.

Amongst all of this, I would think JWT mangaed to grab a few eyeballs for its "Come home to the magic" campaign for Airtel. As I'd mentioned in a previous blog post, the campiagn took off with a set of teasers, followed by the big launch ad with a whole bunch of celebrities endorsing it. Now again, the idea was not exactly what you would call brilliant, but it was executed well enough to have people differentiate Airtel from the other brands that were advertising in the same medium at around the same time.

By contrast, I would think the Big TV advertisement was an idea ad that verged on "funny" but got lost somewhere in the execution. The idea resonated of one that Vodafone did sometime back for its "Listen to more songs" ad, which used "Kabhi Kabhi" as the done-to-death song. But where the subtle execution of that ad made it memorable, there the over-the-top drama of this one could have spelt success, if only with that little extra effort which was missing. It could have even made up for the bad spoofs and other trying-too-hard ads that were part of the "TV ho toh Big TV ho" campaign.

And then there was O&M with Tata Sky. When the advertising for this started off, I was a little skeptical. I mean, I just couldn't take the "Isko laga daala, toh life jhingalala" thing too seriously. But Tata pulled it off and how. I would think it became all the more successful after they roped in Aamir Khan for endorsement. Althought Aamir Khan's dual role in the earlier ad received mixed responses, the recent Aamir Khan and Gul Panag ad hit home with its simple, clean line of thought.

This ad would probably also make it the most successful celebrity endoresement in the segment. I'll admit that when I saw the previous ad, I was wondering what happened to Aamir's perfect endorsement streak that everyone boasts of. But the new set of ads were the saving grace. And beyond doubt, Aamir and Gul together outdid the whole bunch of people put together in Airtel and SRK in the Dish TV ads. So although the DTH sector seems to be borrowing the FMCG tactic of celebrity endoresments with all the bling, few have managed to get it right so far.

An AFAQs story on DTH today talks more about the prospects of the industry. And from the looks of it, it's not a very happy picture.

The Ghajini Viral for OkayTataByeBye.com

2008-12-25T21:23:00.000-08:00

Been there, know that...

2008-12-16T07:19:00.000-08:00

...and not getting used to it in this lifetime.

Helvetica Started the War.

2008-12-13T04:22:00.001-08:00

When you're working alongside a team of animators, anything seems good enough inspiration for a new series. Rejected mascots designed for some crazy client's internal communication, people at work, people at work with weird histories, work itself. (Long pause) Alright fine... not anything is inspiration. It's generally just stuff related to work. So we're sad like that. Like that was some big secret anyway.

So one fine day, like any other day, we just happened to be talking and I was saying how we should have a series about work. I mean, if we can have Grey's Anatomy and Scrubs and Boston Legal and The Office, why not have a Sorry Lives series? "Sorry Lives... The Things People do for a Living."

And then I finally get down to watching Helvetica and realise that someone actually went out and made a whole movie out of it. And it gets worse... it's not about the whole army that's working behind one ad or one piece of design, it's just about the typographer. Only unlike my idea (of having 24 minutes of a 30 minute show dedicated to being focussed on aligning objects to gridlines), this movie is not half as dull. In fact, it's actually very interesting. I'm not sure I would've found this as interesting a year back when typography didn't mean squat to me, but I'd still suggest watching it just to see how an entire film can be made about a typeface.

Here's a trailer of the film. Read more about it here. Or you could just watch it. Torrents are widely available.

And when I grow up, I want to be Patrice Dumas.

2008-12-13T03:30:00.000-08:00

I've had a miserable couple of days at work. Miserable enough to make me want to rethink my choices. But then a Patrice Dumas pens down some brilliant copy and it reinstates my belief in all things sacred and all things putrid.

The rest of the series is just as "nice".

You know you're in advertising when...

2008-12-02T07:08:00.000-08:00

... your wallpaper chages ever so often with every new ad you favourite on AoTW.

Now on the lonely desktop - The Lonely Calorie.

This one's my favourite of the series.

Not a writer...

2008-11-29T23:29:00.000-08:00

The thing about these social netorking sites is that years after you've forgotten people, they turn up out of nowhere and pursue you relentlessly to know what you've been upto in the years gone by. This happened again recently when an old classmate tracked me down and asked the inevitable question. When I said I'm a copywriter she said she somehow always knew I'd be a great writer someday. Now, after the copyright-er/copywriter mix-up, this is the second most popular mistaken-identity-tag-thing pinned down upon us. And it's all the more annoying because you're not a "great writer"... just a low-life copywriter. I mean, I like my job and all that jazz and sure it involves a fair amount of writing, but the fact of the matter is, it just is not writing. It's hard to explain, but I like to think of it as a sort of intellectual prostitution.

Fortunately, there are some people slightly more articulate than me and I'm thankful for that. This series of ads should kind of help explain what I'm talking about.

Mr. Mark Braddock sir... we can't help express solidarity with your situation.

Just some ad I liked...

2008-11-08T02:23:00.000-08:00

...that I happened to chance upon while I was killing time in the middle of the day at the reception of a corporate client trying to cool my heels when Haddon seemed too morose to make up for the sleaze that was hanging off my shoulder which just goes to show that not all good things go to win awards and not all things that go to win awards are good which is ironic considering this is ad is for some awards but what to do?

What Ogilvy would never tell you...

2008-11-08T02:01:00.000-08:00

They've sold houses and offices and lights and presposterous software.

They've sold chairs to be placed in offices and sold places to fill in those chairs.

We've tried to help them sell this, that, the other and everything else in between.

But between all of this, no one seems to be selling us a life.

I'm in a Love-Hate Relationship...

2008-10-25T05:12:00.000-07:00

...with my job.

I'm closing in on six months at my first job now and there are things about it that I've grown to love and things that I've grown to hate.

For instance, I love that:

I can tell people I love my job. When certain sorry sections of the working class complain about how boring staring at Excel sheets can get, I love saying that I get paid for thinking and writing. And post my small association with animation, I also get paid for being ridiculous. Seriously. Now I'll admit that when you divide my pay three ways (for thinking, writing and being ridiculous), I'm not getting paid a lot for each of my tasks. But eh... it's better than living on an allowance.
There might be an audience slightly larger than that of blogs that's reading something I've written. Sure, it's not going to win a Booker or a Pulitzer or even a Lion, but rumour has it that it helped sell a light bulb somewhere and sometimes that's good enough.
On a regular day, when you have nothing else to talk about between mouthfuls at lunch, you can talk about an advertisement you've seen on television without being worried about someone saying, "Aye, shut up da Maads! Can't you talk about anything else?!" And it keeps the boss happy because he thinks you're having a "serious discussion" even during your break. Tsk, tsk! Some people are so young, so innocent, so naive.
There's enough work on any given day to make sure I don't feel obsolete and also, to keep me out of home for most hours of the day. On a good day, the number of hours spent outside of home averages at slightly over 12. On a bad one, just over 10.
My parents hate it.

But then there are those:

Meetings with clients. As I was telling our CD one day, just before a meeting with one those stuffy, corporate clients, one of the reasons I chose to become a copywriter was that I thought I'd never have to meet people. See, the way we've learnt it works is that the client servicing department meets the clients and then tells the creative team what to do. Then the copywriters and designers, we sit in our own, little corners and do what we have to and the client servicing department takes over from there again. I mean, why the hell would you call an entire department "client servicing" if every-fucking-one had to do the job? But all that said and done, I think they're growing onto me now. Which is not to say I'm going to start loving them, but that I just might start accepting them as as unavoidable as rain on a day when you're wearing white.
Headlines. I know six months seems like a really, really long time but after all this time, I still haven't mastered the freakin' headline. It always takes forever, it always sounds horribly wrong and it always takes me to my "I've got to be kidding myself" moment. Always. And the day I write a headline that brings tears to my eyes, I'll revisit my 20th birthday again. That's just to even out the really nice times with the really bad. I wouldn't want the routine of my life being disturbed by too much joy in one sitting.
Deadlines. Deadlines that are so tight that you can't go beyond your 5th idea sometimes. And then you end up churning out some stuff that, on the morning after, will bring with it embarrassing memories of... erm... "creativity". I mean, rejections hurt bad enough but it's when you come to realise that the rejection was totally warranted that you wish you could undo it all. But apparently, Ctrl+Alt+Z doesn't work well enough for everything.
Days of unfamiliarity. You'd think that the wave of "Ooh! What's that?" would pass a couple of months into your job, but it just doesn't. Just when you think you've settled in and know the what's-what of your job, a little something new is always waiting for you right around the corner. And there are no polite, little introductions either. You just happen to meet them when you screw up because you didn't know what the hell you were doing.
Nights when you come back home knowing your parents hate it.

Spoof it seems...

2008-10-11T04:31:00.000-07:00

Spoofs have got to be the easiest way around things. They're what you resort to when you don't have an idea of your own. So if you are spoofing something, the least you could do is do it well. But this is what has happened in the past few weeks.

Airtel launched a whole set of teasers for its DTH service... the "See you at home. Soon." campaign. Like this:

Then DDB Mudra got whiff of who was behind these teasers and set out to spoof them for Reliance's DTH service. By picking on that red couch that fell at the end of the commercial in three different ways. There's nothing funny about them, there's nothing even remotely snide about them and they came just before Airtel revealed its launch ad.

So this is what bothers me. First, if you had to spoof these ads, wouldn't you much rather pick at the things that were easier targets. We had meerkats, an MTV VJ doing the whole Western thing, some indigenous native from I'm guessing Africa and a 60s type band, and you had to go pick on the freakin' couch! And then you use the same line that Airtel was using to talk about your product. Which made it seem less like a spoof and more like "Can I please piggyback off your idea?" And I'm guessing that just left most people feeling confused rather than laughing.

Here are the links to the afaqs! stories on this.

On Playing the Child Card

2008-10-09T00:03:00.000-07:00

So one day at work, I was asked to write a script for a TVC for a mall. Mr. H, who is my boss, he'd liked the script and said it would work, especially since there were kids in it. Something about an emotional hook, he'd said. I don't think I put the kids there deliberately but because I thought the script called for it. Anyway, the TVC didn't materialise so we're just going to pretend that what I'm saying is true.

But there have been other TVCs that did see the day of light and have kids in it. Some had to have them there because they were for children's products. Like this one:

And then there are those that didn't have to have the kids but did anyway. Like this one:

And then there's one for Union Bank which post its whole image makeover, has gone an emotional overdrive. Now you know they've got the cute-kid-thing right when the kid can do something as weird as pick some random person's tooth without making it creepy.

Wario Land

2008-10-03T23:18:00.000-07:00

This is something that you have to watch. The graphics aren't exactly what you'd call great, but stick around long enough to know what makes this nice.

How do you waste 3-perfectly-good-minutes?

2008-10-03T04:42:00.000-07:00

Find more videos like this on www.truveo.com.

By watching this ad.

When I first saw this, I thought it was some weird-ass music video. It turned out to be an advertisement. A 3-minute-long advertisement. A painful advertisement. So painful that if I had to choose between watching this and 3 minutes of The Bold and the Beautiful, I'd choose the latter. And that's not a very nice thing.

And like the ad itself wasn't bad enough, they had to take the singing to another level with all the yodelling. Because apparently preachy is not preachy enough unless the singer adds a whole lot of false vibrato to his voice.

For facts and figures, here's the link to the afaqs! story on this ad. I hope you live through it.

The Fine Print: Having said that though, this ad just might work for certain someones. The someones like the person who's embedded a Hrithik Roshan fan site in this video. Hrithikrules.com it seems.

Culture Studies Paper

2008-09-13T06:51:00.000-07:00

Culture Studies Paper - Upload a Document to Scribd

Sahara India Life Insurance

2008-08-15T19:42:00.001-07:00

Milk and cookies... and how

2008-07-20T04:29:00.000-07:00

Oreo Elevator from CL on Vimeo.

After a Long Hiatus...

2008-06-15T09:22:00.000-07:00

It's been really long since I've posted on this blog. But I should probably be doing this now more than ever. Because after all those years of standing up in class for those annoying introductory sessions and after all those years of telling people "copywriting"and "advertising", I'm finally there. Here.

It's been over a month now. People are still asking me what I'm doing and where I am, my mother now sort of knows that advertising is not the same as journalism thought she still doesn't quite get it, my dad still hates it though he won't quite say it, but I'm not regretting it just yet (although, I'll admit, there are a few love-to-hate-it moments).

How long it'll last and how far I'll go with this... that's something I'd rather now answer right now. Or can't answer, actually. But maybe I shouldn't have to. Maybe for once some people are right. Maybe being "just 20" has it's own advantages... like living with the illusion that the answers will show up when the time is right. As of now, it's time to brace myself for yet another week of work. Suddenly, I know the "Monday morning blues"... the melancholy soundtrack to our lives.

The Fine Print: Just for the record, a "copywriter" is not a "copy right"er (if there ever was one).

Women's Horlicks

2008-03-12T16:06:00.001-07:00

Simple. Nice.

When They Confuse Their Clients

2007-12-22T09:07:00.000-08:00

Ever since I finished interning at Grey, I've been sort of nice on the blog. I think. And I've mostly put up ads that I've liked. Mostly. But I couldn't resist this one... for obvious reasons.

This is supposed to be an advertisement for Urban Home Furniture. The last time we checked, ads more or less tried to sell their client's product. Uh... yes... so the point of this ad was... (?)

Now, I'm not one of those "Poor cows!" kind of people, but even I wouldn't want to buy furniture that blatantly shows cow + grinder = couch. Burger... maybe. Couch... NO! Oh and for the record, leather is made of their hide, not their meat. And they're skinned, not ground. If PETA did something like this, it'd make some sense. But furniture? And it gets worse. This ad is part of a whole campaign.

ICL

2007-12-11T05:17:00.000-08:00

Nepali fellow sent it one day. Like anything it is.

Finally...

2007-11-01T07:56:00.000-07:00

It's nice to see some ads once in a while that get right into the Indian mindset. And I have to say Reliance did it this time for their mobile services. The one that talks about how Indians always have advice to give as well as the one this one about the numerous questions everyone asks. After the pathetic "Change is good" Vodaofone campaign, this one came in as a nice surprise.

Watch the video here.

How to Tell an Advertisement is Popular

2007-09-15T05:56:00.001-07:00

It's bound to be in at least one of the rounds in any Dumb Charades competition. The most popular ones this season: The Bingo series (the old set) and Pepsi's "My Can". Popular, but not great.

So a friend asks me: "Have you seen the new Pepsi ad? the one with Hrithik Roshan?"

"John Abraham"

"That only. It's so bad!"

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.

After the fiasco that occurred post the last World Cup, Pepsi tried to cover its act with the tongue-in-cheek (?) advertisement, with some kids proclaiming they'll win the next Cup. Few eyebrows rose and fell. So maybe, Pepsi's back with this ad, cheesy as it might be. But like it or not, you have to give them credit for having better brand ambassadors than Garnier. Esha Deol? Seriously?

Philosophy Paper

2007-09-14T08:28:00.000-07:00

This was my Philosophy paper "I Feel, Therefore I'm Not?" analyzing the dichotomy between emotionality and rationality through non-verbal communication in print advertising. (I put it up here 'cause I was bored. )

Introduction to the Paper

A common approach to understanding the cognitive processes of human-beings is demarcating the emotional aspect from the rational aspect. The belief is that “emotion” is a binary opposite of “rationale”, and in the process of judgement and decision-making, one needs to rely more on the latter. Through this paper I have tried to understand whether such a dichotomy between emotion and rationale really exists, through the analysis of non-verbal communication in advertisements.

Theories of Emotion and Rationale

There have been numerous theories on the issue of the rational and the irrational; the irrational being the emotional. A lot of recent research in various disciplines suggests that feelings might be linked to cognition and that the two variables are not necessarily at two extreme ends of the spectrum. Nonetheless, ordinarily the two are seen as originating from different sources and in different circumstances.

Perhaps the most magnificent theory in the area of reason was that of Descartes’, where he attributes existence to the capacity to reason (I think, therefore I am). Emotions do not seem to play a part therein, treated as a separate entity or even an irrelevant one in this case.

One of Plato's most famous ideas is that the world is a rational place and that we are all here for a reason. Being rational and practical is “good”. Emotions on the other hand could be both positive and negative. They are positive to the extent that they sometimes provide a means to access knowledge through inspiration; negative perhaps because they absorb the mind in matters that do not deal with the intelligible.

However a lot of other schools of thought, such as that of Stoicism, looked upon emotions with much scepticism and suspicion. The Stoics believed in maintaining a balanced state of mind even in the midst of extreme circumstances, not giving way to feelings.

And if one was to believe that everyone is a philosopher in their own right, then from experience I will say that people are extremely wary about giving in to their impulses. Emotions are deemed linked to the heart, in common understanding and rationality to the brain. Therefore, a smart decision can be taken by a person who is practical and thinks logically. A person who is by nature “emotional” is not considered “practical” and vice versa. This brings us to the conclusion that people understand people as two separate species, and that one person is primarily one or the other, but never a balanced mix of both.

Selling to the Breeds

Assuming that it is possible to classify people under the aforementioned categories of species, then it might also be possible to predict to some extent when an advertiser employs the concept of “soft-sell” and when he employs “hard-sell”. This is based on the premise that rationality is considered a masculine trait and emotionality a feminine trait. A study conducted by Stout and Rust (1993) found that females and older people are most easily persuaded by emotional advertising. They tend to relate better with such adverts, that to adverts with a rational appeal. Therefore, if the target audience for a particular advert is a woman, an advertiser is more likely to believe that appealing to her emotions would be a smarter move. The advertiser of course ignores the fact that a woman could be masculine and a man feminine, considering traits of gender have little to do with the sex of a person. In fact it is believed that this theory of advertising is true almost universally. However, this still does not validate the duality of emotions and rationale.

Role of Emotions in Persuasion

Aristotle in his famous work “Rhetoric” explains the power of emotions in persuasion. In fact, the emotional state of the listener or receiver of the message, is one of the main components of rhetoric. “The success of the persuasive efforts depends on the emotional dispositions of the audience; for we do not judge in the same way when we grieve and rejoice or when we are friendly and hostile. Thus, the orator has to arouse emotions exactly because emotions have the power to modify our judgments: to a judge who is in a friendly mood, the person about whom he is going to judge seems not to do wrong or only in a small way; but to the judge who is in an angry mood, the same person will seem to do the opposite.”(cp. Rhet. II.1, 1378a1ff.)

Perhaps the best example of this theory has been exemplified by Shakespeare in his play “Julius Caesar”, where Mark Anthony’s emotional speech at Caesar’s funeral sways the crowd to rebel against Brutus and his men. Brutus had been naïve enough to believe that a matter-of-fact approach about Caesar’s assassination would convince the crowd.

Anthony’s speech was perhaps one of the first to go down advertising history, because what is advertising but selling a point-of-view (simply put)? And till date advertisers have come to understand that emotions of their prospective consumers are their gold-mine.

Types of Emotions

Emotions have been classified in different ways by different persons. Aristotle, for instance, divided emotions as:

Anger vs. Calmness
Love vs. Enmity
Fear vs. Confidence
Shame vs. Shamelessness
Kindness vs. Unkindness
Pity
Indignation
Envy

Advertising, to a large extent understands the philosophy of emotions and plays on the same. Adverts that make use of emotions, however, are aware of the risk involved in the same. Contrary to popular belief, emotions used in selling are not always positive. In fact, negative emotions can be more effective and powerful. Human beings by nature seem to respond better to pathos (pathê: Emotions). What is important, however, is to make sure that a negative stimulus is followed up by a positive one. The consumer needs to know that there is scope for rectification and a way to achieve a higher self. Therefore, if negative emotions such as anger are used to arouse the passions of a prospect, a positive stimulus makes sure the prospect takes the steps to reach the goal. The goal for the prospect is to make amendments through the use of the product; the goal of the advertiser is to make the prospective consumer do just that.

Non-verbal Communication in Advertising

Non-verbal communication is often more powerful in the communication of emotions. Photography is one of the most common methods of non-verbal communication in print advertising that has proven to be extremely effective in getting the message across.

In employing photography, various other aspects of non-verbal communication are used. Some of these are:

1. Facial expressions: Facial expressions convey various emotional sates of a person. Through the process of social interaction people come to realise and understand largely what certain expressions convey. It is uncanny but a lot of expressions universally reflect the same emotional state. Charles Darwin, in his book “The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals” states that “...the young and the old of widely different races, both with man and animals, express the same state of mind by the same movements.” Even if one were to contest the universality of facial expression, it is largely true that at least within cultures they are the same.

The following adverts can be understood in the light of this theory:

This is a print advert for “De Beers” diamonds.

>>Headline: If I listen carefully, they whisper in my ear. They tease, they flatter, they make me laugh. I try to ignore them, but they won't be silent.

Bodycopy: Diamond solitare earrings set in Platinum. Most exquisite in 1/4 carat or more.

Baseline: A diamond is forever. <<

Note that the visual takes up half of the entire advertisement space. The audience is more likely to first look at the visual and then read the body copy of the advert. The models’ body and her face are both half concealed. Even though she covers her face with her hand, the look cannot be mistaken for coy. The eye is not maintained at a lower level away from the level of eye contact of the viewer; rather it looks right at the viewer. The look is not that of vulnerability and shyness, but of a certain confidence. The half-concealed face and the way she looks at you add a sense of mystery, and it is also slightly suggestive. She is of course quite pleased with herself. The viewer automatically relates with this picture. They understand that owning a diamond is a matter of pride, and inculcates a sense of confidence, achievement even.

The approach in this advert is obviously an emotional one. Purchase of diamonds is purchase of luxury and status. Diamonds do not serve any other purpose at the level of functionality. However, purchase of diamonds is considered to be that of high-level involvement if placed in advertising models. High-involvement purchases also involve higher levels of perceived risks. The role of the advertiser then is to reduce the perceived risks. So instead of talking about checking the quality of diamonds to make sure they are genuine, the advertiser will put the prospect at ease by painting a pleasant picture. According to the Contingency Approach of the Foote, Cone and Belding model, jewellery is a “feeling” product and therefore a primarily emotional appeal works best in selling here.

The following is an advert for “Nike”.

>> Headline: No Friends on the Court <<

This is a perfect example of communicating emotions through facial expressions. Save the 5 words, the advert has no verbal communication with the audience. Here the visual is divided into two halves, each representing opposite emotions. The forehead and eyebrow for instance are raised on the right side, indicating challenging sense of alertness. On the left they are relaxed. A raised eyebrow is analysed as follows:

“Usage I: Raising the eyebrows adds intensity to facial expressions. Brow-raising can strengthen a dominant stare, exaggerate a submissive pout, or boost the energy of a smile. The involved muscle (occipitofrontalis) elevates the eyebrows to form prominent, horizontal furrows in the forehead, making almost any facial gesture look and feel stronger.

Usage II: In tandem with head-tilt-back, raising one or both eyebrows suggests a supercilious air of disdain, haughtiness, or pride. ("Supercilious" comes from the Latin word for "eyebrow," supercilium.) We may unconsciously lift our eyebrows as we give orders, argue important points, or make demands.”

Interestingly, this is proven quite well in this advert where a sense of dominance and aggressiveness surrounds the right-half. Then there are the eyes. The eyes are slightly crinkled at the ends at the left, suggesting friendliness. The eye on the right is more open, reflecting excitement. At the same time, human beings are not programmed to stare right into another person’s eyes. The tendency then is to look away if the gaze is too direct and daunting, as in this advert.

The other features are sharper on the right, projecting a menacing look to the man. All these features have softer curves and are less angular on the other side. Even if a viewer looks at this advert casually and without investigating it too much, they know what these extreme emotions signify. The advertiser knows the product and knows the consumer. The product in this case is that of sports-wear. Sports-wear has little to do with the actual sport. But it does help convey a certain attitude. Sports are also in a sense synonymous with war; only of more refined, justified sorts. The advertiser arouses passion in the audience, the kinds that are seen on a war-front. There is an overt need to acquire victory.

2. Body Language: Body language is another important contributing factor in the conveyance of emotions, non-verbally. The way a model is represented in an advert can not only represent his or her emotional state, but can also alter the emotional state of the consumer.

This advert for Lee-Cooper (page left) makes use of two models. Ironically, the product is hardly visible in the visual. The female seems to lean against a wall. Her head is slightly tilted and her shoulders are squared. The man on the other hand seems to be supporting her, even though she does not seem to need any support. His body is placed such that he seems to be leaning in. this offers a sense of alignment, representing affiliation and admiration. However, the man’s head falls in the opposite direction.

This advert has shown more of the actual skin that the skin they are trying to sell. Adverts such as these make use of sex-appeal in attracting the consumer. The female model’s hands like close to her hips, but not in a sense of authority, but rather in a sense of casualness. The head-tilt is slightly coy, and inviting. The consumer understands the product in terms of its sex-appeal. Even though the product is close to invisible, they “know” that wearing the particular product will ooze masculinity in the man (supports woman), and a perfect mix of coyness, vulnerability and casualness in the woman.

3. Stereotypical Postures: Much like Carl Jung’s theory of archetypes, advertisers also make use of stereotypical postures to convey messages. The mother is perhaps the most effective.

Take for example this advert for Minery Footcare. Here, the model sits so as to cradle her own foot, much like a mother would cradle her baby. The model is happy, and expresses love (for herself). The advert goes to show that the product takes care of your feet like a mother would take care of her baby. There is a subtle sense of humour in the advert that arises because the consumer is well-aware of this cultural stereotypical image.

Breaking the Dichotomy

The above adverts show some of the ways of communicating emotions non-verbally, though the process is a lot more intricate than that. Nonetheless, it serves the purpose of understanding selling with the help of emotions.

Although the adverts shown here are primarily emotional, it cannot be said that the rationale plays no role in the consumers mind when making a purchase decision. Tracing back, the De Beers advert has quite a lyrical quality to it. But, the consumer also related to the advert rationally. The consumer is still aware that there is a certain sense of risk involved in the making of a high-end purchase. And it is not the emotions presented by the advert that necessarily puts the consumer’s mind at ease, but the tiny logo at the right-hand corner. The logo is a sign of quality. It represents a brand that the consumer has known for many years. Therein, it invokes a sense of trust. That, and not the poem, is what will ultimately make the consumer purchase the product. The sense of assurance comes from what that logo is a sign of: of quality products, of a strong brand.

The advertisement for Nike first of all needs the consumer to understand the subtleties of the message, which of course comes from the ability to reason. In terms of purchase decision, the consumer feels elevated by the sense of power. There is a certain ruthless appeal to the advert. The consumer is guided by his emotions to this extent. Further, it is his reasoning that comes into play. The tick-mark on the model’s forehead and on the body-copy makes the consumer understand that the advert is by Nike. This is probably why it is alright to display such ruthlessness. But, if the same message was used to sell sports and not sportswear, the reception might have been different. Take for example the recent series of adverts that were released in India, just before the cricket matches. The message was that it was tough to be a West Indian in India. The underlying message was the same: game means war. But wherein the Nike advert was received positively, the cricket ad outraged the masses because it reflects a barbaric reality. The sense of patriotism at the expense of another’s nationality did not appeal to the Indian masses.

Even in the case of the other adverts, the consumer is well-aware of exaggerated claims. In fact, consumers are now more wary of being mis-led by advertising. Thus, the advert for Lee Cooper will not work just because it employs sex appeal. It will probably only inform the customer of the existence of the product. The consumer is aware that he has a choice; to but this product or a competing one. The consumers may feel that will be more attractive if they purchase this product, but a lot of other factors will also come into platy. For instance, if a consumer goes into a store and the product is not available, will the consumer wait for days on end till the product finally arrives? Or will the consumer be so convinced of the claims of that the advert that he or she will spend on a product even if they cannot afford the price. Chances are, no. If at all it does happen thus, it will be because the consumer understands what comes along with the brand. For instance, if the pair of jeans being advertised here were a pair of rare designer jeans, then the consumer might be willing to go out of his way to acquire it. Even then it is because the consumer is aware of his emotional needs: the need for acceptance and self-esteem that they would gain if they possessed the pair of jeans.

Thus, though it might be useful to use emotions to persuade a consumer, emotions do not occur sans rationality. In fact, adverts that sometimes over-play certain emotions such as humour or pathos, often are putting-off. The consumer needs to be credited with some intelligence. In fact, it is when emotions are most subtle, leaving the message for the consumer to decipher, that they are sometimes most attention-grabbing, with highest retention power. Emotions and reasons are not two unrelated: the advertiser uses reason to understand that a certain emotion will move you, and the consumer understands the advertisers strategies which is probably why they do not buy all the products that are advertised.

Bibliography

Livingston, Glenn. “Emotions vs. Emotional Benefits in Marketing”. Canadian

Marketing Association. 2004. Mar 20, 2007.

< wce="C=" 7ck="225195">

Givens, David. “The Non-verbal Dictionary”. Centre for Non-Verbal Studies.

1998. Mar 20, 2007.

Rapp, Christof, "Aristotle's Rhetoric", The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy

(Summer 2002 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). Mar 19, 2007.

4. "Philosophy - Plato". Anti Essays. Mar. 2007. Mar 19, 2007.

Coversational Discovery

2007-07-08T22:29:00.000-07:00

30 June: Post birthday lunch hangover. Made worse by the customarily painful music and colourful crowds at Barista. Unfortunately, they are both extremely loud... and the way they stand out like little, disgusting boils against the almost perfect weather.

All this time I'm drifting between three conversations at the table and start studying the board that reads FCB Ulka from where I sit.

As if on cue one of them says "...and what's up with the ads on television these days?"
And another one, "Yeah, especially that Amul Macho ad. It's disgusting with that woman...didn't it go through some censor board or something?"
My turn: "It did and in came out clean."
One more: "Even the Motorola ad is so dumb."
Me: "Which one?"
"The one with that girl who sits listening to music. She looks so stupid."
Me: "Haven't seen it." Someone explains the ad to me(which I finally saw yesterday).
Shrug.
"And even that toothpaste thing where that man jumps into some blue gel."
Me: "Pepsodent Centre Fresh."

And as the conversation is about to turn another way, there is a tone of hostile accusation in the air, as if to say, "Don't you be churning such shit if you ever do."

I know what you're thinking. And it's true. People actually watch ads.

On Air Now

2007-06-09T04:46:00.000-07:00

This is one of the ads on air that I really like. The ad for ICICI Prudential Life Insurance by Lowe took a whole new stance towards insurance by not reminding the consumers that they're going to die, that they have responsibilities towards the widowed wife and towards getting the daughter married. The ad very well brought out the cynicism people tend to have towards insurance and how, if not anything else, it's a good investment plan. The situation is extremely real and I would think takes place quite often.

Then there is this horrible ad for Bausch and Lomb lenses that lists something out like "A new wardrobe for college: Rs. some-ridiculous-amount", "Plastic surgery: Rs. another-ridiculous-amount" or "B 'n' L lenses, Rs. 250 only". Yes, that's all we need. Like we don't have enough people fretting over how they look all the time, you actually put ads on air saying ugly people need to get a plastic surgery to get into college. And that apart, how, just how does wearing contacts make you more attractive!? If you wear extremely huge frames, maybe you'd look slightly better with contacts or some such thing. But why would you go around selling contacts to ugly people? Unless of course you were trying to sell coloured contacts, which by the way, are the ugliest things ever and should never have been made in the first place.

And We're Done

2007-06-02T00:42:00.000-07:00

Seven weeks since then, and we're done with Grey. It's like Sham said, "It seems like you've been here forever."

After all those counseling sessions and writing "Recreate the magic..." a million times over, it's back to doing nothing for a while and then getting back to college (doing nothing for a lot more time.)

For the record, I'm not all that disillusioned. Just as much as I should be. So I guess that's alright. As long as copywriting is still an option...

Half Way There

2007-05-04T08:27:00.000-07:00

So maybe it isn't as bad as I made it out to be. Sure, it could've been better, but then, so can everything else.

Lessons learnt so far (both formal and informal):

If it's forced, it's no good.
Your first ten ideas are by default shit )this is a repetition, but yeah...)
If it sounds like it's been done, it's been done.
If you want to be in advertising, you're going to have to drink (a lesson I haven't really learnt)

That's pretty much it I guess. That and I have realised that people weren't exaggerating all this time when they would say they can't hear me speak. It's apparently true. And if you must irritate the shit out of people asking them to give you work, just do it.

Just for the Record...

2007-04-24T08:16:00.000-07:00

I am not going to stop belting ads that I hate just because I have discovered how hard it is to sell a toothbrush.

If you can't become an artist, become an art critic.

Chronicles of an Intern

2007-04-21T06:50:00.000-07:00

Eating some humble pie, and hating it.

Suddenly realise how difficult it is to sell a toothbrush. Yeah...those things you stuff into your mouth every morning and every night, do you even remember ever watching an advertisement for it? For that particular one. Chances are you don't. And even if you do, you probably didn't think twice about it.

Suddenly realise that all the ideas you thought were great (not your ides, but ideas nonetheless), have been done. You spend hours on a website that archives some of the most brilliant advertising ever done. Till you scroll down and read the comments some jaded person who's been in the industry too long has left. By default, there will be at least one who will tell you it's been done. And then you spend another couple of hours on the site and you realise that the person was right...unfortunately.

Suddenly realise that the job is more testing than you ever thought it would be. Sitting around for 9 hours, re-working the copy for some advert (which you already thought was great) and listening to the man telling you it isn't even close to what it was in the first place (uh...you don't say), is not a lot of fun.

Suddenly realise that you go through a million paradigm shifts per second. From "He's seems like a nice guy" to "I don't care if he's a nice guy...but must he be so fastidious" to "I am going to kill him if he gives me that look again" to "Fine, I admit it... He was right...Your first ten ideas are almost, always shit".

Suddenly realise you should probably take up a religion again (apparently cynicism doesn't count as one). Not so that you can pray and "chill", but just to be able to get through days...that's it.

Suddenly realise you've had too much of Chuck Palahniuk for the day and beginning to echo him. Well, you couldn't ever, really echo him. But you're being one of those cheap, rip-offs.

Aiieyo

2007-04-07T01:13:00.001-07:00

When I had first started this blog, it was with the intent of putting up really bad advertisements. However, due to lack of resources, I couldn't find most of these pathetic adverts on the net (until now). And there is low recall capacity as far as such advertising is concerned, so putting up a post without the advert was pointless too.
This ad just defies all logic behind advertising. Post the Orkut success, there have been websites in India functioning on the same lines. Fropper.com was one of the first few to come out with a campaign, which was quite forgettable. And then they changed it to the "Nobody is a stranger on Fropper.com" campaign. This advert doesn't even remotely attempt to set itself apart from the rest of the competition. Added to that, it's extremely pretentious (note the characters and the weird-ass style of talking: "A little bit of Pa-Da-Ni-Sa...makes it happening dude!").
The advert starts of by posing a question "What is DesiMartini(ugh).com?". And yet, the advertisement does everything but answer it. Save the wannabe soundbites that are thrown in, a person who is not familiar with the concept of social networking is not going grasp it through this advert. And people who are already aware of it in most probability already have accounts with other sites. This advert is not going to be the one making them want to switch over. The advert, therefore, is a complete failure.

Minery Foot Care

2007-03-18T06:50:00.000-07:00

Agency: Creative Juice/G1, Bangkok

Client: Minery Foot Care

Liquid Paper

2007-03-18T06:35:00.000-07:00

Baseline: Make it right.

Agency: BBDO, Bangkok

Client: Liquid Paper

See What They Do

2007-03-03T07:39:00.000-08:00

After a long break, I'm back to ads. I had been planning to write a post on how online job-sites have some really smart advertising nowadays, but Iromika did it before me, so I changed my mind.

So instead, let's talk financial ads. I guess it's pretty obvious and everyone's already noticed it, but I'll say it anyway. Adverts for financial companies have undergone a compete volte-face` of sorts. I guess it all started with the SBI "Shart Lagayee Aur Haar Gaya" campaign, where the loyal, public sector company shed all its old, governmenty, "fall-back-upon-us" air for a younger, fresher appeal...something a private company would be more likely to carry. I know some people thought the concept behind the campaign was stupid (my sister was one of them), but I personally feel it took some extreme steps with the whole image change.

Of the more recent ads the one that comes to mind is the UTI Mutual Funds advert: "Aap Ke Saath Aisa Naa Hoga". There's also the SBI ad I'd mentioned in a previous post where the little kids yell at the old men playing cricket. I wanted to put up the UTI ad for those of you who might not have seen it, but I have it in some weird format, so make do with the storyboard.

The whole transition seems really important to me. You no , longer have financial companies ranting about percentages, returns and statistics. It's not about some woman crying at her daughter's wedding and saying she had been blessed with a great husband for having taken "LIC" before dying. It's more like telling you that "Look boss, if you don't buy so-and-so mutual fund it's going to be your loss", but in not so many words. That's a type of hard-sell (I think), without being intimidatingly hard. Trading in the blatant messages for more subtle ones means you're subscribing to the fact that your audience is slightly smarter, and( let's face it) with a lot more options from which to choose. So if they're looking at different target audience, they had to change their act.

Read the small piece by some expert if you don't believe me.

And Finally

2007-02-15T23:20:00.001-08:00

And another

2007-02-15T22:44:00.000-08:00

Another One

2007-02-15T22:42:00.000-08:00

IBDAA Campaign

2007-01-30T04:02:00.000-08:00

This was one of my entries for the IBDA Awards. Don't judge me for the "graphics". Made minimum use of technology, as is obvious.

SBI Life

2007-01-23T06:11:00.000-08:00

How all those insurance/pension ds have come to change over the years... Look up this ad on page 5 here.

Tourism Madhya

2007-01-05T05:29:00.000-08:00

This has got to be one of the best advertisments I've seen trying to boost tourism in India, this one for Madhya Pradesh. It's not that the other adverts in the "Incredible India" campaign were bad, but this none of them was able to capture a plethora of uniquely "so-an-so-place" and "things-to-do" as well as this one. Add to that, this advert kept it snappy, minus bearing the feeling of a sublime journey to some exotic place.
Where it fails: Ability to connect with a prospective international tourist, for obvious reasons.

Look up the ad here (Page 3). The next update on the site is on the 10th of Jan, so watch it before that.

Helpage India

2006-12-31T22:45:00.000-08:00

Every New Year, TV channels take it upon themselves to list down the "Best of..." of pretty much everything. NDTV Profit was no different. So after a long time I sat down to watch "All About Ads" (Thurs, 08:30 PM), trying to make up for the entire year. Though the ad picks were fairly good, I wasn't so sure about one of their picks.
One category they picked out was the "Public Service Campaign of the Year", which Helpage India won, and they mentioned this advert. I thought the ad was extremely effective. However, what I did find wierd was this. First, I've never seen the advert on television. I think I watch enough television so I'm surprised I missed an ad like this. Second, although this ad was very well made, I'm not so sure of the entire campaign. Like one of the ads in the campaign goes like this:

A pizza delivery boy comes and knocks smartly at someone's door.

He gets no respsonse so he continues calling out.

He still gets no response so he tries the door, finds it open and enters.

Finds old man in wheelchair playing the piano.

Calls out to old man.

Old man asks him to set the pizza down.

Boy waits for him to pay the bill.

Old man wheels himself over to door and locks it behind him (them).

Old man smiles.

Super: Loneliness is curable. Spend time with the elderly. Helpage India...
(I've seen this advert only once so details might not be completely accurate but you get the picture).

Okay, so to me this ad is extremely scary. Not only does the old mad have a sinister smile on his face, it makes you want to keep away from old men for fear that they might all be as senile as this man. The message is simple and obvious. The "putting across" of it this time was not so great. Try and watch the ad on tv sometime.

Semiotic Analysis

2006-12-22T07:53:00.000-08:00

My first draft of the semiotic analysis of advertisments employing popular songs is put up here. "Constructive Criticism" for following drafts welcome. You'll have to download the draft though.

Just for You...

2006-12-19T04:00:00.000-08:00

I'm putting up my collection of ads (small though they may be) for you to view, here.

Old Spice Now

2006-12-19T01:50:00.001-08:00

Old Spice Then

2006-12-19T01:47:00.001-08:00

Levi's commercial

2006-12-16T04:21:00.001-08:00

Found this ad while looking for the new "Make them your Own" Levis ad.

AIDS Awareness Campaign

2006-12-04T08:18:00.000-08:00

Slightly delayed, but I have lots of work to do and at such times, I'd rather blog than get to doing those things. Ad sent by a friend to me, reduces workload.

2006-11-23T06:58:00.001-08:00

I really like how Pebl gets advertised...the whole placing of the phone amongts pebbles. The Indian ad for Pebl was sort of on the same lines though for some reason it didn't stick very well. I guess it was too subtle for a place where Abhishek Bachan is more successful at selling phones.

Coffeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

2006-11-19T04:34:00.000-08:00

Headline: Nothing wakes you up as Nescafe.
Agency: McCann-Erickson, Chile

Too lazy to write. Put this up just because...

Honey, How the Hell do we Shrink the Kids?!

2006-11-02T23:31:00.000-08:00

A recent news story said that European health ministers are alarmed at the rising rates obesity amongst children and have therefore called for a ban on food ads. Some health campaigners have called for a complete ban on food ads before 9pm, while some feel a complete ban is not required. This is being done in association with the WHO and European countries are going to sign a charter with relation to these ads and the marketing of these products.

I'm somehow not totally convinced with this. It's the same thing year in and year out. "Should smoking be banned on-screen?", "Should colas/ junk food be banned on educational campuses?", "Should ads for liquor and tobacco be banned altogether?" I was an obese kid myself and from what I remember it wasn't so much the adverts that were to blame. Sure advertising is really powerful when it comes to enticing children to buy something, but then again, every advertisement is trying to sell something and you don't necessarily go out and buy everything you see. We can talk about responsible advertising and corporate responsibility all we want, but the fact of the matter is, we're soon going ban a lot more adverts than is really necessary. If you're really worried about advertisements sending out the wrong message to your children, maybe you should gift them a bike or something and make sure they don't spend that much time in front of the t.v. in the first place. Also, leave the kids behind when you go grocery shopping.That should help...

Watch some "evil" junk food commercials here

Campaign for Beauty

2006-10-27T10:03:00.000-07:00

If you've noticed something about the adverts for the Dove bathing bar, you'll find one thing in common to all of them. They never use these high-end, fashion models in their ads. It's the common Jane, so to say, who seems all happy with "good skin" or 'great skin" or something like that. Not soap that promises to do something for your sex-life or soap that tranforms your life in general with a great career et all, but a soap that'll transform your skin...period. And now I sound like I'm selling the soap so I'll just get into the "Campaign for Beauty" by Dove.

I first found out that not having super models was a deliberate strategy when we had this Psychology project thing to do in college and we'd narrowed the topic down to low self-esteem in teens. Prior to that I had heard about the ads had used "curvy" women in them on the Oprah Show and there were a bunch of women going "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" and the whole sister bonding in general. But then I didn't know it was a full-fledged campaign. So some of these women ( from the ads) were on the show embracing their curves and all.

And then I realised they actually go out of their way to make sure they project "reality" or something close to when selling Dove. The recent ad that's been doing the rounds is this one. It's on their site and also on Youtube (the video didn't upload for some reason so look it up...tags: distorted, perception, beauty). This ad shows how a plain person can be transformed into a goddess for the sake of an ad and how you come to think of them as the yardsticks to measure beauty.

Now here's the thing. Personally, the ads didn't touch a chord with me. I couldn't say Dove is doing a great thing in terms of media responsibility and all that blah (though it probably is). But When it comes to smart advertising, the concept is brilliant. For the simple reason that it made people sit-up and take notice for being different. There were certain people (men, mostly) who hated having short, pudgy women in their underwear on billboards. But then again, it was the kind of ad that made the women say to them "Who cares". It's the kind of thing Indian advertisers have been trying to achieve with the whole "dark/fair" debate. There were certain face creams that started using dark models but I can't recall the name of the cream.... Fresh something. The slogan was "Mujhe lagna hain hardum fresh". Never mind. The point is, it was (is) a great campaign till someone can turn the tables on Dove and say they're encouraging obesity.

Tang-tada-dang-tada-dang-tada-dee-da-dee-da

2006-10-21T02:44:00.000-07:00

I hate Diwali...It's too bright and noisy. I also hate Diwali ads. It's like every brand will just somehow accomodate the Diwali message in it. So you'll have one person say "Happy Diwali" and then there are fireworks in the background. Yay!

But this ad by Titan kind of did justice to the whole thing. You have just the right amount of sap, and all the colours and lights you need to make it seem like such a beautiful festival to gift such a pwetty gift.
The storyboard of the ad here.

Move Over Sony ...Microsoft's in Town.

2006-10-11T01:40:00.000-07:00

The latest advert for the XBOX 360 in India. A lot of people don't understand why Microsoft would place something like an XBOX in a village backdrop to sell it in India, but I think it was a smart concept. It gave it that personalised Indian feel to it...Coming second to Sony's Playstation here, having an exclusively 'desi' campaign was definitely a good move. May also boost sales with grandpa's who don't know what the hell the console is all about but want to gift something new to the brats around Diwali. Just an opinion...who knows.

A Not So Original Idea...

2006-10-10T04:37:00.000-07:00

Idea's new advert seems to draw a lot from the Hutch campaign. So instead of the pug, you have monkey and instead of "Wherever You Go Our Network Follows" you have "A Network That Works Everywhere Is A Good Idea". Ummm...We understand that tried-and-tested is sometimes the safest bet, but the least the brand could do is live up to its name. Watch the ad here. Plays with RealPlayer.

Johnny Cash in Levis...

2006-10-07T04:41:00.000-07:00

Kid who helped us...

2006-09-21T07:05:00.000-07:00

Recently in college we had this quiz thing where one of the questions was "Which brand is G-A-T-T-U associated with?" Watching all those shows on advertising finally paid off. Gattu was the brand mascot for Asian Paints. I don't think they use him any more, but you can still see him on some walls if you go on long road-trips and pass by little villages (you can also see him painted outside run-down hardware stores on the way to my house, which goes to prove I live in a village, for those of you who don't believe me). The masscot was created by cartoonist RK Laxman. I guess he was used at a time when the "Mere wallah blue" campaign was still part of their line of advertising. Then there was the "Har rang kuch kehta hain" campaign, which did well too, I guess. And if you think of the whole revamp that happened their, there really wasn't much place for a "half-pant", yellow-shirt clad boy. Not a very nice picture, but the only one I found, so yeah...

Nostalgia

2006-09-11T06:44:00.000-07:00

There are ads, and then there are ADs. I was just thinking about ads the other day, how some brands haven't advertised in a really long time but you still remember them very well. Like I previously mentioned Chiclets and Lijjat papad once.
So these were some ads that I still remember.
1. Essel World: Not the best example, but if you were the kinds who grew up on the diet of Zee TV till the age of 9 or so, you'd remember this ad. It was a long song with shots of different rides there. I still remember some of the words. If I'm not mistaken, some years later Essel World came out with another ad campaign when it lauched it's water park. That I don't remember very well, though it was more recent.

2. Dairy Milk: The old ads... "Kya swaad hai zindagi mein" campaign. The ones which were not tainted by Amitabh Bachan's "Larger-than life" persona.

3. Surf: The Lalitaji ad created by Alyque Padamsee... the famous, practical words f advice that came from her "Sasti cheez or achchi cheez me farak hota hai, bhai saab" made her really popular with the housewives then. Some trivia- Apparently in a poll conducted then Lalitaji was second in the popularity test (regarding the most influential women) only to Indira Gandhi.

4. Pepsi: Not so much the ads but the jingle "Yahi hai right choice baby... Aha!". Was over-used by the wannabe kids of that "era" but it stuck so I guess it worked. (We're adopting a highly simplistic model here)

5. Dhara Oil: This is a not-so-old ad where the little kid runs away from home and is enticed to return by the user of jalebis... reminds me of a friend whose sisters ran away from home once. It was the mot adorable ad ever (yes I use words like adorable once in a while...) There was also the "My daddy strongest" ad which I loved.

Another One... Wild Postings

2006-09-10T00:19:00.000-07:00

Ah...Finally!!! I need a litttle more buddhi

2006-09-10T00:18:00.000-07:00

I feel so stupid. I spent so much time trying to watch iPod ads. My Quicktime didn't play it, so I tried downloading newer versions that screwed up the existing software. Then I uninstalled and re-installed it 4 times till it started working again. And all I had to do was upload it on Youtube and watch it. Wherein I found other iPod ads, which preious search results didn't show. All this, I realise, has nothing to do with the ad, but what to do? I love to ramble.
Anyway, go back to belief sysems and "product and packaging" to understand this one. Probably the most iconic product of "our times". And the looks of the product are equally important to the genius that the product is. A benchmark innovation that probably could've survived without any advertising. (Wrong thing to say, I know, but it's true)Which is probably why it was able to do so well in India, with just a few lame ads in the newspapers once in a while. This one was a really famous ad for the iPod.

Feminists seeing red?

2006-09-07T09:08:00.000-07:00

Hmmm... The recent Tetley Tea ad made me wonder why women organisations haven't already taken them to court or had the ad pulled off air already. The ad is not a great ad... but one could probably consider it a breath of fresh air considering most of our tea ads either show some happy family or social gathering or something else to that effect. But then again, the ad comes really close to The Tea Board of India's advertising philosophy... "Chai peene wale hamesha mast rehta hai". And so the exaggerated servitude of the wife gets negated by her throwing her husband's ticket out of the window and the "ha-ha" lying therein. Which is probably why AIDWA isn't making a fuss about it just yet. It's like they say... "(S)He who laughs last, laughs best."

The ad for the previous post... LIRIL

2006-09-06T07:33:00.000-07:00

The ad that completely changed Liril's line of advertising; from the "girl-under-waterfall" to... well... this.

Belief Systems

2006-09-06T06:35:00.000-07:00

So in Semiotics class one day, the lecturer mentions this book called Primal Branding by Patrick Hanlon. I didn't find the book, but I did find an article that spoke about belief systems in branding. One part of this belief systems includes that of packaging and the product, and how it becomes iconic. The first thing that came to my mind was the Apple iPod, for various reasons. But I tried looking for ads previously for this product, and failed miserably. The ads I found were so bad, it's embarrassing to think the product could've been associated with them.

A lot of other products came to mind, especially in the category of cosmetics, because they adopt some kick-ass packaging techniques to sell their products. Recently, for instance, I was part of this market discussion thing for Liril.

In an attempt to revamp the whole image for Liril, they (the market researchers) asked us a whole bunch of questions from what we thought about Liril ads, to what kind of changes we would like to see in the product. Then they showed us this whole bunch of possible packaging for Liril. Some were good, while most were pathetic.

But here's where the problem arises. Sometimes you begin to identify the product so well with it's packaging, that no matter how bad or dated it is, you can't associate it with the new packaging, no matter how good it is. Which is what happened then. We were so used to thinking about Liril in the green and yellow packaging, that the new ones just didn't seem to fit the bill. The fact is, however, that the green and yellow packaging hasn't been used in a very long time.

This is the packaging they've been using:

So then, the whole talk about every product having a USP becomes a little paradoxical. Because it probably would've been easier to make the change if the USP wasn't so strong after all. A very "Damned-if-you-do...Damned-if-you-don't" situation...