The Oops and Downs of Advertising

"Don't go away, we'll be right back" by Indu Balachandran, who spent 29 years in JWT, going from Copy Trainee in JWT Delhi to Executive Creative Director in JWT Chennai, launched earlier this month. Indu combines her insights and affection for the profession with the wit and satire of a humour columnist, and has us laughing all the way. The question as she rightly poses is, do crazy people join advertising or does advertising make people crazy?
Read about the launch here
http://www.adgully.com/media/print/indu-balachandrans-book-%E2%80%9Cdon%E2%80%99t-go-away-we%E2%80%99ll-be-right-back-the-oops-and-downs-of-advertising%E2%80%9D-launched.html-of-advertising%E2%80%9D-launched.html

http://www.afaqs.com/news/story.html?sid=30755

And some reviews...
http://www.businessworld.in/bw/2011_06_18_Its_A_Mad_Ad_World.html

http://www.financialexpress.com/news/life-in-an-ad-agency-a-roller-coaster-ride-book/808180/0

Transformation by design

Brands and corporates changing their name, logo, identity, philosophy, vision... How do communication agencies participate in this process, partnering their clients? Stop with design and logo? Or go beyond? Truly understanding the brands' dreams, fears; translating it to product philosphies and internal HR policies, cascading it to all stakeholders, knowing how to set metrics of success and measuring them? Surely transformation is not just about design. But by design. Beyond changing the logo, it is about managing the change across the organisation and the ecosystem in which it operates.

Mike Bentley, Chief Strategy Officer, Team Detroit, communication partners to Ford Motor Company in the USA, answers a few questions on Change Management. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bebOHQXipj8

As a corollary, here's Ford Motor Company's worldwide CEO Alan Mullaly in a Stanford classroom talking about the transformation of the company.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIwz1KlKXP4&feature=player_embedded

Wake up, Delhi . Or Die. Iraj Fraz Batla, JWT Creative, Delhi calls a spade a spade

This year’s fest was a big, painful slap on Delhi’s face. Yes, of course, a lot of press/poster/radio was scam. But a good deal of work that won was great, solid brand work. Work that we all saw on TV or in the outside world. Kind of work that we seem to do a lot of, here in Delhi. But just not as well.

Why, Delhi did have Kit Kat (Squirrel), Airtel (relaunch films), Airtel DTH (Packing, Sardar, Bride) and Apollo Munich (Love Actually). Endless Goodbye picked up a metal as well. But 1 silver and a handful of shortlists was like nothing as compared to the work of Ogilvy Bombay or Leo Burnett Bombay.

But to feel the shame, you had to be there.

Appreciating KBC, Silent Jana Gana mana, Shubh Arambh when it played on the screen in front of the fraternity. Cheering the winners as they climbed up the glorious steps to pick up what they so truly deserved. And thinking where you went wrong to be only sitting in the crowd. It was a slap on Delhi is because a massive majority of great work seemed to have come from LB, Ogilvy, Mudra, Creativeland, Grey - all from Bombay.

And in there, perhaps is some fodder for thought for all of us advertising geniuses sitting here in Delhi.

There’s definitely a lot we are not doing right.

The Brief: sell the biggest brand ever. Broti Ganguly, JWT Creative, Kolkata, shares the inspiration from Goafest

It took just one session with Bittu Sahgal, editor of Sanctuary Asia, to remind me (not that I had forgotten it completely) of the reason why I joined Advertising in the first place. I wanted to change the world – change perceptions and I felt Advertising was the most powerful tool I could ever have to do so. Naive is a term I have oft encountered for my views and it was heartening to note that I wasn’t the only one.

And there is hope.

As Mr. Sahgal took us through ‘climate weirding’ ala climate change, and how the damage caused during the Mumbai floods, the tsunami, and the rapidly disappearing wildlife was the immediate effect of bad planning on our part and not merely the wrath of nature, he put forward a simple plea to the advertising fraternity. Save the biggest and the most beautiful brand – brand earth. The startling facts were enough to shake off the apathy, arrogance, or a bit of both that each one of us living on the planet seem to treat Nature with. What was rather unsettling was the fact that it’s not she who needs us for protection but we who need to save her for pure selfish reasons: our need to survive.

To do this we could take a tip or two from what Robin Wight had to say. Earth has enough and more to go about ‘peacocking’ to get noticed. Of course, in the beginning we will have to make that extra effort to sell brand earth. After all, the brain is basically lazy – the reason why it takes the easy way out and picks brands in the first place. Why it looks for readymade symbols of trust, quality...

Well, if we want to work on Mr. Sahgal’s brief we will have to begin by making people aware of a brand called earth.