The TOI guys asked me to take a crack at a bunch of questions for an article. Had to really jog my memory, but it was fun and got me all nostalgic...
HOW IT ALL BEGAN…
Well, I’ve had several interesting firsts... I almost became a Chartered Accountant under duress, clearing my CA entrance exam, signing up for articles at Ernst & Young [then Arthur Andersen] after 7 rounds of interviews. Deciding to not join 1 day before start date as I would have slashed my wrists if I were looking at balance sheets and P&L statements 5 years from there. Little did I know, that in addition to my role as creative head, I’d also be running the P&L for MTV, a few years from there.
In college, I’d started an ‘advertising agency’ titled “Fresh Lime Soda” with a class-mate [Jehil Thakkar, who now heads the Media & Entertainment management consultancy division @ KPMG]. Later I had a short stint as Junior Copywriter @ Contract Advertising [when all the creative gurus were there – Ravi Deshpande, who now runs it, Rahul D’Cunha, Prashant Godbole, Renton D’souza – working with Raj Kaushal who’s now a rocking Bollywood producer/director].
Then all the ‘middle-class maharashtrian’ insecurities came in and my parents had said, “Get a real job, you can’t be writer for a living!” So, I did the ‘sensible’ thing. Went to Business School. Still wanted to be close to creative – and in those days [94-95], the only option that gave you that outlet and still a steady income was advertising. So I decided to go back to it. But switching sides to Account Planning. I did my summer internship at the University of Advertising, Lintas and got a pre-placement offer. Eventually when I joined, I had an option of joining one of two divisions at Lintas: Bombay 1/ or 4 which handled all the Unilever’s business, seen as the hottest place to learn strategy, planning, handle large multi-media campaigns with big billings OR SSC&B Lintas, the new creative off-shoot of Lintas, set up to handle conflicting accounts with Ajay Chandwani as President [who is simply one of the best presenters I’ve ever seen! I mean truly, I used to think I was the shit, but I saw him pitch for new business and I was, “Master, teach me Kung Fu!”] that had just picked up India’s first Cannes Gold Lion for Advertising.
For someone who was starting out his career in advertising, the choice would have been simple. But for someone who came back to advertising because he tripped out on good creative work – Bombay 1, in those days would have been creative hara-kiri. I didn’t see myself working on campaigns/ briefs that were as open as “Write anything you want in the headline as long as it has the words ‘shiny’, ‘luxurious’, ‘black’ and ‘hair’, ok?” Or selling detergent through housewives in white saaris talking about jhaag and daag… AAAAAAARGH! And so SSC&B Lintas, it was.
So that technically was my first job.
Loads of fun stories associated with SSC&B, including the initial departmental rotation/ training that our batch of Management Trainees went through – that we wanted to run out of.
I remember my first day post assignment too, when a fight had broken out between a fairly senior female Creative Director and one of the Servicing guys – and the full on gaali galauj that were being screamed a each other across the office. Hell, if you think the Roadies auditions have a lot of bleeps, baby, you ain’t heard nothing. This was induction by fire! I was too petrified to ask anyone where the pantry or the loo was that day.
WHO WAS YOUR REPORTING BOSS AT YOUR FIRST JOB? DEFINE HIS/ HER PERSONALITY AND HOW DID HE HELP YOU GROOM YOUR SKILLS?
My first boss was Suman Srivastava [he now heads Euro RSCG across Asia-Pacific and most parts of the inter-galactic milky way from what I know]. Full on techie, obsessive planning addict and a stickler for detail and organizing things. The joke was that in the night if his wife woke up for a glass of water, when she got back, the bed would be made all over again! Suman was also my guide for the summer project I did there. From him I learnt about passion, passion for advertising & communication; the power of planning and about attention to detail. I think, he also gave me his OCD though…
My first reporting boss though was Rajesh Tahil [who made a lateral shift out to head Radio Mid-day, Go 92.5fm, then become publisher of the Mid-day group and now is an entrepreneur doing some really cool shit like bringing in Pakistan’s first horror/ slasher flick]. Rajesh was the rockstar at the agency [hell he’ll always be a rockstar!], so I was really lucky to have him as my boss. From him I learnt that there are creative people and there are suits… you’ll find loads of both. But a ‘creative suit’ is a very very rare mix. If you have that, then you’re sorted. Rajesh was the original creative suit. Who could write a strategy presentation as well as a tagline for a campaign. Who could handle the excel sheet & credit collections [although grudgingly] and enjoyed chasing billings as much as the joy of seeing, getting and executing a good creative campaign out there. I guess my ability to pull off a dual profile of being business & creative head has happened also thanks to the grounding that I got with him.
WHAT WAS YOUR AGE WHEN YOU JOINED?
I was about 21 when I joined. This was post B-school and a specialization in media, marketing & communication.
WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST SALARY? WHAT ALL DID YOUR SALARY INCLUDE? WHEN DID YOU GET YOUR FIRST INCREMENT?
Lintas was not too bad, in fact, it was one of the better paying Companies on campus, definitely the best start in advertising. I started at a 1.2L per annum package with a bonus of 20k at the end of the year. In fact, our batch of MT’s was paid higher than the servicing bunch that was a year senior to us which had caused insane amounts of HR issues within the agency then… ha! My first increment was on completion of a year. In those days, you were pretty much sure of Death, Taxes & Promotions in advertising.
WHO WERE YOUR FIRST COLLEAGUES? NARRATE AN EXPERIENCE OF WORKING WITH THEM.
I have always been fortunate to have had a chance to work with complete psychos. Right from one of my batch-mates, Kusal Roy [an IIT Kharakpur, IIM-A topper, who now is MD, Barclay’s Bank, NBFC division] – who had got ‘conned’ into joining advertising with a killer pre-placement talk by Andrey Purshottam [now on the boards of several Companies, consultant for the Mahindra group and more] that led him to believe self-actualization and Nirvana will happen at Lintas. Kusal was assigned the Double Bull account where he dealt with a fun client called Mr. Thadani [pronounced “arre babba Tharraaani!”] They were in the midst of launching a lingerie [pronounced “arre babbaa LINGAREE!”] brand. We used to wait for Kusal to come back from a client meeting just to hear him mimic Mr. Tharraaaani about his vision for the brand, the Company and he “A-cup, B-cup, C-cup, Brows and Pontees!”
Then there was Darius Shroff, psycho-bawa for some, killer virus for all, as he abhorred computer games and anyone who “indulged” in them. He had undertaken a personal mission, actually a “jihad” against Tetris, Solitaire & Freecell in particular He’d stay back late in the agency just to delete the games of everyone’s machines. And often several other files – including important communication like someone’s cv that they’d spent the better half of the week updating – just to teach them a lesson! “Saala-log ne samjha ke nahi samajh nahi parrtaa hai toh mein delete karke seekhaayega!” he would say in his best “Pindi” [that’s Dadar Parsi Colony accent wala Hindi].
But one of my favorite stories is inspired by one of my Scott Adams’ early books – The Dilbert Principle/ The Joy of Work. Besides the funny comic strips, this book has a fantastic closing chapter that doles out some serious management advice. It’s titled “O.A.5.” which is “Out at 5pm”. The principle is to make sure you plan/ work in such a way that you are geared to leave office by 5pm latest. Doesn’t mean you shirk work, or do it shoddily. But just prioritize, plan life and manage it so smartly that you are out of office by 5. So you have a life! Fantastic thought I say. We were young, innocent, easily influenced and mostly stupid. My & my colleague Azhar Shamim [who’s now in Dubai running a consultancy and smoking a cigarette] decided to try and put this into practice. Of course rechristening it, “O.A.8.” as 8pm in those days as a trainee when you’re at the bottom of the food chain was a serious ambition. Rajesh, our boss came to know. So to make things interesting, he decided to up the stakes and added a twist to the game.
He said, each time either of us couldn’t exit at 8pm, he’d fine us 10 bucks and place it into a box called ‘the Chatter-box’. That would be opened at the end of every month. And the money collected would go towards funding a gift, flowers, chocolates and more for a girl who we found particularly annoying - Srija Chatterjee [Chatter-jee, hence the ‘chatter-box’, get it?] Srija now of course, is a pal, but then was just an incentive to leave office fast! Needless to add, she was one happy woman who believed she had developed 2 hopeless admirers who kept showering her with gifts every month – as we never made it out the door before midnight. So we finally, of course drove her so mad that she not only quit Lintas, but left advertising for a bit to run marketing at Marico.
NARRATE YOUR FIRST GOOF UP AND HOW DID YOU DEAL WITH IT?
I used to work on an account called Allwyn refrigerators. Massive consumer durable brand down south. They had 2 huge bursts of advertising – one during the summers and the other in the festive/ diwali season. Diwali used to run a big discount scheme. And given their spread, their campaign used to be a humongous, multi-media one that ran in 13 different languages, with 6 different subjects, 4 different sizes with different amounts/ price-offs for different areas basis taxes and a varying ‘dealer panel’ under each ad. Production and logistics were a nightmare!
In one of the inserts, which was in Oriya – so I couldn’t have caught it either inspite of language proof-reader, multiple checks – instead of “Allwyn’s special Diwali offer, new refrigerator with Rs. 1170/- off!”, the sub-head had become, “Allwyn’s special Diwali offer, new refrigerator FOR Rs. 1170/-” From what seemed like a really effective ad as there were riots and lines at the showroom – it turned out to become one huge disaster.
I dealt with that in the best, and the only, way I know how to deal with goof-ups. Own up. Apologize. And offer a make-good. Fortunately, the publication we released the ad in used to get a lot of business from Allwyn and didn’t wanna lose the campaign, so they did a bonus ad for us and all was well that ended well!
NARRATE THE FIRST TIME YOU WERE LAUDED FOR YOUR WORK BY THE TEAM AND YOUR BOSS.
Advertising people love awards. No matter what they say. Everyone. From the creative to the media guy. And ‘scam ads’ and ads that were never released, but entered just for ‘awards' were the rage then. I personally thought that was a really rotten idea. Now our Art Director, Mahesh Gharat [who’s now Serious Creative Big Cheese at O&M] had cracked a super ad for the new Allwyn Deep & Wide refrigerators <layout attached="">.
.
I’d told him I’d get him a release, I’d sell it to the client even if it was off-season, this was an ad-hoc release and/or not in line with the main campaign. But we’d do it with the client’s formal sign off and at their cost. So I drafted a letter to sell it to him as a script <copy attached="">
and shipped it out.
My client, Mr. Jassawala who ran Allwyn, was also a guy with a really wicked sense of humor. He signed off on the letter saying giving us the permission to release the ad but had strategically placed his initials and the line “Go ahead” right next to where I said, “Or I’ll just have to shoot myself!”
The team and my boss, had of course, loved that I did sell this through and that the ad also got us some awards that we all loved added to the joy.
WHEN DID YOU HAVE YOUR FIRST ARGUMENT? WITH WHOM DID YOU HAVE IT? AND WHAT WAS THE FINAL OUTCOME?
I think among the first few arguments I’d had was on one of the Pharma accounts I worked on – Boots, for their brands Strepsils & Icy cough lozenges. This was with the writer on the account – Vishal Vij – who’s also an awesome adfilm maker and more. This was over a fabulous script he’d written for Icy featuring the ‘Yeti’, the abominable snowman. The script was terrific, but for the dus paise ka goli being pitched to the lower end junta, the context was entirely off. Their reference points were DD and at the most Annu Kapoor singing, “deewane, mastane, parwaane” in Antakshari on Zee TV. Great creative expression, completely off-brief. I argued, fought, fought hard. Finally we decided to present both routes. Everyone laughed and loved the Yeti route, but decided to go with the other campaign. I won. Hee! Ha!
WAS THERE A TIME WHEN YOU FELT DEJECTED WHEN AN IDEA WAS REJECTED, ETC.?
When you feel as passionately about your work, and creative, there are several instances like that. This one particular time was on one of the accounts I serviced – a white rum from the house of UDV [that also distributed/ marketed Smirnoff, Archers, etc.] – called Malibu. They were doing a Caribbean Carnival event and there as 3 ad press campaign plugging that. We’d cracked some fun layouts featuring all the highlights of the party – face painting, hair braiding, flame throwers, etc. with all the cues of reggae, etc. <campaign layouts="" attached="">
The flame thrower layout had a Bob Marley-esque character. Our client, Mahesh Madhavan [who headed marketing and is now the MD of Bacardi in India], felt the picture looked less Bob Marley and more Sadhu baba and bounced it. Given the deadlines, we’d decided to just rerun one of the other ads. This was really depressing for the team as they’d all really busted their butts pulling off this campaign. So it became full ‘izzat ka sawaal’ and I decided to head straight from the client’s office to Wilson College’s hostel. I knew they typically hosted a few African American students. I picked up one of them, asked him to hop on to my bike, got the campaign still shot overnight and had the ad redone, and we got it approved, released as planned. What fun!
NARRATE ANY TWO WHACKY/ FUNNY INCIDENTS THAT TOOK PLACE IN YOUR FIRST JOB THAT STILL REMAIN ETCHED IN YOUR MEMORY
In those days, at Lower Parel, this is the Phoenix Mills complex which was a barren mill, no flyover, etc. – there used to be parking on only one side of the road till 4pm and then the other side post that – to deal with office rush hour traffic, etc. So we’d have to shift our cars, vehicles to the other side during lunch to avoid them getting towed. There was a production, printing & processing in-charge called Rahul who had a habit of leaving his car keys around.
So one day I’d managed to get a duplicate made of his car keys. [And he drove a Fiat – we could actually have opened it with a Godrej cupboard key.] Then it became a year long campaign to every afternoon go and mess with Rahul’s car, and his head. So everyday, we’d go and shift it two spots, put the seat down, switch the radio one, flip the direction of the parking, leave a magazine inside, move papers from front to the back seat. Just enough change to make sure Rahul notices, but not sufficient [like whacking the cassette player] for him to call the cops or anything. He’d be mindfried everyday wondering what the hell was going on. He went to give his deck for servicing every month as he thought it got switched on eerily on it’s own. It was like the Truman Show. Everyone except him was in on the gag. It was freaky. Finally a year later, when he was moving cities, we gave him the duplicate keys back and revealed the gag as a farewell gift. We thought he’s gonna have a nervous breakdown on hearing it. So if you thought our Bakras at MTV were wicked, oh my God… you have no idea!
----------
The other fun time was when we were doing a “free service camp” tactical campaign on Allwyn refrigerators for Kerala. So we’d created a character called “Dr. Allwyn” who could cure your refrigerator of all ailments. The ad released and I was flooded with calls from the local dealer/ sales agent saying “Pull it out, pull it out!” There were some 5,000 people outside the showroom where this camp was organized. Sounds like the sign of a successful campaign. The only catch was no one had a refrigerator, but they all had some ailment or the other – a drinking problem, someone was lame, blind, had lost money gambling, or so. They all thought “Dr. Allwyn” was one of those missionaries, gospel singers who comes and promises, “The blind shall see, the lame shall walk… come one, come all, Dr. Allwyn share cure you all!” Man, that was one surreal experience!
WHEN DID YOU LEAVE YOUR FIRST JOB?
This was in 98 sometime, when MTV came along. And I made a move out of advertising to media. I left SSC&B not because I was bored, but because I got excited by something else a lot more. What the brand allowed you to do, in fact, mandated, was outrageous creative work. And that’s what got my rocks off.
I’ve been with MTV ever since – this is, in fact, my 11th year with MTV. I’ve been lucky to have had a chance to work across functions/ departments – right from marketing, sales to programming, artiste relations, promos, show production to now the full creative & content plus business responsibilities. And in a place like MTV, everyday feels like a new job and a first day at work.</campaign></copy></layout>
HOW IT ALL BEGAN…
Well, I’ve had several interesting firsts... I almost became a Chartered Accountant under duress, clearing my CA entrance exam, signing up for articles at Ernst & Young [then Arthur Andersen] after 7 rounds of interviews. Deciding to not join 1 day before start date as I would have slashed my wrists if I were looking at balance sheets and P&L statements 5 years from there. Little did I know, that in addition to my role as creative head, I’d also be running the P&L for MTV, a few years from there.
In college, I’d started an ‘advertising agency’ titled “Fresh Lime Soda” with a class-mate [Jehil Thakkar, who now heads the Media & Entertainment management consultancy division @ KPMG]. Later I had a short stint as Junior Copywriter @ Contract Advertising [when all the creative gurus were there – Ravi Deshpande, who now runs it, Rahul D’Cunha, Prashant Godbole, Renton D’souza – working with Raj Kaushal who’s now a rocking Bollywood producer/director].
Then all the ‘middle-class maharashtrian’ insecurities came in and my parents had said, “Get a real job, you can’t be writer for a living!” So, I did the ‘sensible’ thing. Went to Business School. Still wanted to be close to creative – and in those days [94-95], the only option that gave you that outlet and still a steady income was advertising. So I decided to go back to it. But switching sides to Account Planning. I did my summer internship at the University of Advertising, Lintas and got a pre-placement offer. Eventually when I joined, I had an option of joining one of two divisions at Lintas: Bombay 1/ or 4 which handled all the Unilever’s business, seen as the hottest place to learn strategy, planning, handle large multi-media campaigns with big billings OR SSC&B Lintas, the new creative off-shoot of Lintas, set up to handle conflicting accounts with Ajay Chandwani as President [who is simply one of the best presenters I’ve ever seen! I mean truly, I used to think I was the shit, but I saw him pitch for new business and I was, “Master, teach me Kung Fu!”] that had just picked up India’s first Cannes Gold Lion for Advertising.
For someone who was starting out his career in advertising, the choice would have been simple. But for someone who came back to advertising because he tripped out on good creative work – Bombay 1, in those days would have been creative hara-kiri. I didn’t see myself working on campaigns/ briefs that were as open as “Write anything you want in the headline as long as it has the words ‘shiny’, ‘luxurious’, ‘black’ and ‘hair’, ok?” Or selling detergent through housewives in white saaris talking about jhaag and daag… AAAAAAARGH! And so SSC&B Lintas, it was.
So that technically was my first job.
Loads of fun stories associated with SSC&B, including the initial departmental rotation/ training that our batch of Management Trainees went through – that we wanted to run out of.
I remember my first day post assignment too, when a fight had broken out between a fairly senior female Creative Director and one of the Servicing guys – and the full on gaali galauj that were being screamed a each other across the office. Hell, if you think the Roadies auditions have a lot of bleeps, baby, you ain’t heard nothing. This was induction by fire! I was too petrified to ask anyone where the pantry or the loo was that day.
WHO WAS YOUR REPORTING BOSS AT YOUR FIRST JOB? DEFINE HIS/ HER PERSONALITY AND HOW DID HE HELP YOU GROOM YOUR SKILLS?
My first boss was Suman Srivastava [he now heads Euro RSCG across Asia-Pacific and most parts of the inter-galactic milky way from what I know]. Full on techie, obsessive planning addict and a stickler for detail and organizing things. The joke was that in the night if his wife woke up for a glass of water, when she got back, the bed would be made all over again! Suman was also my guide for the summer project I did there. From him I learnt about passion, passion for advertising & communication; the power of planning and about attention to detail. I think, he also gave me his OCD though…
My first reporting boss though was Rajesh Tahil [who made a lateral shift out to head Radio Mid-day, Go 92.5fm, then become publisher of the Mid-day group and now is an entrepreneur doing some really cool shit like bringing in Pakistan’s first horror/ slasher flick]. Rajesh was the rockstar at the agency [hell he’ll always be a rockstar!], so I was really lucky to have him as my boss. From him I learnt that there are creative people and there are suits… you’ll find loads of both. But a ‘creative suit’ is a very very rare mix. If you have that, then you’re sorted. Rajesh was the original creative suit. Who could write a strategy presentation as well as a tagline for a campaign. Who could handle the excel sheet & credit collections [although grudgingly] and enjoyed chasing billings as much as the joy of seeing, getting and executing a good creative campaign out there. I guess my ability to pull off a dual profile of being business & creative head has happened also thanks to the grounding that I got with him.
WHAT WAS YOUR AGE WHEN YOU JOINED?
I was about 21 when I joined. This was post B-school and a specialization in media, marketing & communication.
WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST SALARY? WHAT ALL DID YOUR SALARY INCLUDE? WHEN DID YOU GET YOUR FIRST INCREMENT?
Lintas was not too bad, in fact, it was one of the better paying Companies on campus, definitely the best start in advertising. I started at a 1.2L per annum package with a bonus of 20k at the end of the year. In fact, our batch of MT’s was paid higher than the servicing bunch that was a year senior to us which had caused insane amounts of HR issues within the agency then… ha! My first increment was on completion of a year. In those days, you were pretty much sure of Death, Taxes & Promotions in advertising.
WHO WERE YOUR FIRST COLLEAGUES? NARRATE AN EXPERIENCE OF WORKING WITH THEM.
I have always been fortunate to have had a chance to work with complete psychos. Right from one of my batch-mates, Kusal Roy [an IIT Kharakpur, IIM-A topper, who now is MD, Barclay’s Bank, NBFC division] – who had got ‘conned’ into joining advertising with a killer pre-placement talk by Andrey Purshottam [now on the boards of several Companies, consultant for the Mahindra group and more] that led him to believe self-actualization and Nirvana will happen at Lintas. Kusal was assigned the Double Bull account where he dealt with a fun client called Mr. Thadani [pronounced “arre babba Tharraaani!”] They were in the midst of launching a lingerie [pronounced “arre babbaa LINGAREE!”] brand. We used to wait for Kusal to come back from a client meeting just to hear him mimic Mr. Tharraaaani about his vision for the brand, the Company and he “A-cup, B-cup, C-cup, Brows and Pontees!”
Then there was Darius Shroff, psycho-bawa for some, killer virus for all, as he abhorred computer games and anyone who “indulged” in them. He had undertaken a personal mission, actually a “jihad” against Tetris, Solitaire & Freecell in particular He’d stay back late in the agency just to delete the games of everyone’s machines. And often several other files – including important communication like someone’s cv that they’d spent the better half of the week updating – just to teach them a lesson! “Saala-log ne samjha ke nahi samajh nahi parrtaa hai toh mein delete karke seekhaayega!” he would say in his best “Pindi” [that’s Dadar Parsi Colony accent wala Hindi].
But one of my favorite stories is inspired by one of my Scott Adams’ early books – The Dilbert Principle/ The Joy of Work. Besides the funny comic strips, this book has a fantastic closing chapter that doles out some serious management advice. It’s titled “O.A.5.” which is “Out at 5pm”. The principle is to make sure you plan/ work in such a way that you are geared to leave office by 5pm latest. Doesn’t mean you shirk work, or do it shoddily. But just prioritize, plan life and manage it so smartly that you are out of office by 5. So you have a life! Fantastic thought I say. We were young, innocent, easily influenced and mostly stupid. My & my colleague Azhar Shamim [who’s now in Dubai running a consultancy and smoking a cigarette] decided to try and put this into practice. Of course rechristening it, “O.A.8.” as 8pm in those days as a trainee when you’re at the bottom of the food chain was a serious ambition. Rajesh, our boss came to know. So to make things interesting, he decided to up the stakes and added a twist to the game.
He said, each time either of us couldn’t exit at 8pm, he’d fine us 10 bucks and place it into a box called ‘the Chatter-box’. That would be opened at the end of every month. And the money collected would go towards funding a gift, flowers, chocolates and more for a girl who we found particularly annoying - Srija Chatterjee [Chatter-jee, hence the ‘chatter-box’, get it?] Srija now of course, is a pal, but then was just an incentive to leave office fast! Needless to add, she was one happy woman who believed she had developed 2 hopeless admirers who kept showering her with gifts every month – as we never made it out the door before midnight. So we finally, of course drove her so mad that she not only quit Lintas, but left advertising for a bit to run marketing at Marico.
NARRATE YOUR FIRST GOOF UP AND HOW DID YOU DEAL WITH IT?
I used to work on an account called Allwyn refrigerators. Massive consumer durable brand down south. They had 2 huge bursts of advertising – one during the summers and the other in the festive/ diwali season. Diwali used to run a big discount scheme. And given their spread, their campaign used to be a humongous, multi-media one that ran in 13 different languages, with 6 different subjects, 4 different sizes with different amounts/ price-offs for different areas basis taxes and a varying ‘dealer panel’ under each ad. Production and logistics were a nightmare!
In one of the inserts, which was in Oriya – so I couldn’t have caught it either inspite of language proof-reader, multiple checks – instead of “Allwyn’s special Diwali offer, new refrigerator with Rs. 1170/- off!”, the sub-head had become, “Allwyn’s special Diwali offer, new refrigerator FOR Rs. 1170/-” From what seemed like a really effective ad as there were riots and lines at the showroom – it turned out to become one huge disaster.
I dealt with that in the best, and the only, way I know how to deal with goof-ups. Own up. Apologize. And offer a make-good. Fortunately, the publication we released the ad in used to get a lot of business from Allwyn and didn’t wanna lose the campaign, so they did a bonus ad for us and all was well that ended well!
NARRATE THE FIRST TIME YOU WERE LAUDED FOR YOUR WORK BY THE TEAM AND YOUR BOSS.
Advertising people love awards. No matter what they say. Everyone. From the creative to the media guy. And ‘scam ads’ and ads that were never released, but entered just for ‘awards' were the rage then. I personally thought that was a really rotten idea. Now our Art Director, Mahesh Gharat [who’s now Serious Creative Big Cheese at O&M] had cracked a super ad for the new Allwyn Deep & Wide refrigerators <layout attached="">.
.I’d told him I’d get him a release, I’d sell it to the client even if it was off-season, this was an ad-hoc release and/or not in line with the main campaign. But we’d do it with the client’s formal sign off and at their cost. So I drafted a letter to sell it to him as a script <copy attached="">
and shipped it out.My client, Mr. Jassawala who ran Allwyn, was also a guy with a really wicked sense of humor. He signed off on the letter saying giving us the permission to release the ad but had strategically placed his initials and the line “Go ahead” right next to where I said, “Or I’ll just have to shoot myself!”
The team and my boss, had of course, loved that I did sell this through and that the ad also got us some awards that we all loved added to the joy.
WHEN DID YOU HAVE YOUR FIRST ARGUMENT? WITH WHOM DID YOU HAVE IT? AND WHAT WAS THE FINAL OUTCOME?
I think among the first few arguments I’d had was on one of the Pharma accounts I worked on – Boots, for their brands Strepsils & Icy cough lozenges. This was with the writer on the account – Vishal Vij – who’s also an awesome adfilm maker and more. This was over a fabulous script he’d written for Icy featuring the ‘Yeti’, the abominable snowman. The script was terrific, but for the dus paise ka goli being pitched to the lower end junta, the context was entirely off. Their reference points were DD and at the most Annu Kapoor singing, “deewane, mastane, parwaane” in Antakshari on Zee TV. Great creative expression, completely off-brief. I argued, fought, fought hard. Finally we decided to present both routes. Everyone laughed and loved the Yeti route, but decided to go with the other campaign. I won. Hee! Ha!
WAS THERE A TIME WHEN YOU FELT DEJECTED WHEN AN IDEA WAS REJECTED, ETC.?
When you feel as passionately about your work, and creative, there are several instances like that. This one particular time was on one of the accounts I serviced – a white rum from the house of UDV [that also distributed/ marketed Smirnoff, Archers, etc.] – called Malibu. They were doing a Caribbean Carnival event and there as 3 ad press campaign plugging that. We’d cracked some fun layouts featuring all the highlights of the party – face painting, hair braiding, flame throwers, etc. with all the cues of reggae, etc. <campaign layouts="" attached="">
The flame thrower layout had a Bob Marley-esque character. Our client, Mahesh Madhavan [who headed marketing and is now the MD of Bacardi in India], felt the picture looked less Bob Marley and more Sadhu baba and bounced it. Given the deadlines, we’d decided to just rerun one of the other ads. This was really depressing for the team as they’d all really busted their butts pulling off this campaign. So it became full ‘izzat ka sawaal’ and I decided to head straight from the client’s office to Wilson College’s hostel. I knew they typically hosted a few African American students. I picked up one of them, asked him to hop on to my bike, got the campaign still shot overnight and had the ad redone, and we got it approved, released as planned. What fun!NARRATE ANY TWO WHACKY/ FUNNY INCIDENTS THAT TOOK PLACE IN YOUR FIRST JOB THAT STILL REMAIN ETCHED IN YOUR MEMORY
In those days, at Lower Parel, this is the Phoenix Mills complex which was a barren mill, no flyover, etc. – there used to be parking on only one side of the road till 4pm and then the other side post that – to deal with office rush hour traffic, etc. So we’d have to shift our cars, vehicles to the other side during lunch to avoid them getting towed. There was a production, printing & processing in-charge called Rahul who had a habit of leaving his car keys around.
So one day I’d managed to get a duplicate made of his car keys. [And he drove a Fiat – we could actually have opened it with a Godrej cupboard key.] Then it became a year long campaign to every afternoon go and mess with Rahul’s car, and his head. So everyday, we’d go and shift it two spots, put the seat down, switch the radio one, flip the direction of the parking, leave a magazine inside, move papers from front to the back seat. Just enough change to make sure Rahul notices, but not sufficient [like whacking the cassette player] for him to call the cops or anything. He’d be mindfried everyday wondering what the hell was going on. He went to give his deck for servicing every month as he thought it got switched on eerily on it’s own. It was like the Truman Show. Everyone except him was in on the gag. It was freaky. Finally a year later, when he was moving cities, we gave him the duplicate keys back and revealed the gag as a farewell gift. We thought he’s gonna have a nervous breakdown on hearing it. So if you thought our Bakras at MTV were wicked, oh my God… you have no idea!
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The other fun time was when we were doing a “free service camp” tactical campaign on Allwyn refrigerators for Kerala. So we’d created a character called “Dr. Allwyn” who could cure your refrigerator of all ailments. The ad released and I was flooded with calls from the local dealer/ sales agent saying “Pull it out, pull it out!” There were some 5,000 people outside the showroom where this camp was organized. Sounds like the sign of a successful campaign. The only catch was no one had a refrigerator, but they all had some ailment or the other – a drinking problem, someone was lame, blind, had lost money gambling, or so. They all thought “Dr. Allwyn” was one of those missionaries, gospel singers who comes and promises, “The blind shall see, the lame shall walk… come one, come all, Dr. Allwyn share cure you all!” Man, that was one surreal experience!
WHEN DID YOU LEAVE YOUR FIRST JOB?
This was in 98 sometime, when MTV came along. And I made a move out of advertising to media. I left SSC&B not because I was bored, but because I got excited by something else a lot more. What the brand allowed you to do, in fact, mandated, was outrageous creative work. And that’s what got my rocks off.
I’ve been with MTV ever since – this is, in fact, my 11th year with MTV. I’ve been lucky to have had a chance to work across functions/ departments – right from marketing, sales to programming, artiste relations, promos, show production to now the full creative & content plus business responsibilities. And in a place like MTV, everyday feels like a new job and a first day at work.</campaign></copy></layout>
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