Rubbish!!!!!

Just thought will list down a series of rubbish that I don’t seem to be able to avoid -

Himesh Reshamiya - God can someone please kill him. Everyday since last one year almost I have been hoping that someday he will be wiped out of the system (and I will call it a system as I cannot call what he makes music, its utter crappp). But he seems to never end. I just saw his new song today Tanhahiyan!! Lord give us some tanhayi so we can find ourselves away from his rubbishhhh. It’s the same old sound just ringing in our heads all the time. Can u make out the difference? cuz I definitely can’t.

Aishwarya Rai – uggggghhhhh. Man as u can see the length of that uggh you just know how I abhore her. Plastic, sad , nonsense I mean I can just tear my hair off, that’s how much I can’t stand her. Maybe its my personal bias. Yes though I loved Hum dil de chuke sanam and her in it and think it to be the only movie where she probably did act. Otherwise she has been a disaster from start to end including the great Oprah Winfrey show. The less said the better.

Abhisekh Bacchan – The lastest AmEx ad. “dad did u just hear that, they just called me Big B” The whole parivar thing is overdone and beyond my tolerance, Think that his whole dad and mum I respect u shit is a little too over board. He is looking more and more worn down day by day, be It the Big Fm campaign or Dhoom 2. The Great marriage union between him and the lady above is something I would like to watch.

Simi Garewal – True Blue star. Ha Ha, Oh! My god , it must have completely taken an emotional toll on you, muah muah, awwwww…. Ughhhhhhhhhhhh once again. Ha Ha semi Girebal is probably the best thing that MTV has done and I remember someone telling me that the TRP’s of that show are higher than the original show as both are telecast at the same time.

Shahrukh Khan – Can’t stand him in plain simple words though must say that I watch every johar and chopra film even though I come out pulling my hair off late atleast. I am a DDLJ and KKHH and DTPH fan, but those were the three movies where my love and association with this man ended as he got more and more commercial and became a rutt. Don’t think there has been a movie in the recent times that has really made me say wow shahrukh, Yup Swadesh was a change maybe because his character felt more relatable and human in the movie and I did not see the superstar that peeps out of any character he does, does not matter what character he plays it just becomes shahrukh khan in the story and not that character which is extremely boring beyond a point.

Ekta Kapoor – THE LESS SAID THE BETTER. Have thought of this as a separate post I want to talk in. He He.

Technology – No end to it and we have stopped living our lives. Be it the cell phone or the television actually specifically these 2.

Multiplexes – Even though I worked for a multiplex brand I don’t think I have really ever been able to associate with the concept because I am a movie buff and to me being able to watch the maximum number of movies is what matters. Experiential businesses that multiplexes are, do not attract me because I just feel its unnecessary wastage of insane amount of money for me. When in college I could watch 5 movies a week, Rs 50 being the average rate per movie, now that darling Sterling has gone down (MISS IT :) ) and also with the INOX’s and The METRO ADLABS (my baby) taking a birth, cant seem to be able to watch any movie at a lesser cost. Pockets can’t afford so much. Now I spend 200 bucks on one movie and I used to watch 4, 5 movies in that budget 2 yrs back.

OK!! I think my list can go longer but I am already fed up. Please do list the set of things or people you can’t seem to avoid as well. Would like to know that :)

Character in crisis or Crisis in character?

Character is not made in crisis, it is exhibited….is what I read on the front page of Times of India today. Siddhu paji is the one who said this in an article on him.

I think it holds so much truth. We are always told that our characters are made with every crisis that we face in life but then I feel that we actually exhibit the already imbibed or present character within us when we face a crisis.

As an account management person I think our roles in an advertising agency to a large extent has reduced down to being Crisis managers and nothing else. Everyday seems to be a crisis and I think our characters are not really built from those crisis situations because most of the times these are unwanted and unnecessary crisis situations and therefore cannot teach us anything. If we learnt then we wouldn’t have them everyday. Instead actually we fight the crisis by being what we are and how we fight it depends on what kind of a person we are.

Some of us give up, some of us find ways of working around it every time by hook or by crook and some of us want to find that permanent solution towards that final end. I feel ours is an extremely insecure industry maybe like many others because it is a people centric industry. Relationships are the key towards a good professional life here. Most people instead of concentrating on their strengths are worried about being pulled down due to their weaknesses. And that’s where begins the game of political run down in an organization.

I think we are a humongous set of talented people out here and we all can make a difference in our own special ways. Let’s all of us concentrate on putting all our strengths together and making an organization work wonders because of its people. Its not a very difficult job, its just testing your character for once in the right way for the right reason.

What say???

Observation is the Key but....

Observation is the key to good advertising is what we were told repeatedly during the one year of my Advertising and marketing course at XIC. And I clung onto this statement as the golden words because this was the one statement which without fail remained the one common gyan given to us by all advertising gurus if I may call them so.

Though now I wonder is it really observation? In my now almost 8 months of working life in the real advertising world, I have barely experienced the usage of this key statement. Briefs come and briefs go and I wonder is there even any minimal amount of observation involved in the process, leave alone observation being the IT word. Starting from the point where a servicing person writes the brief right up to the creative who finally executes the final idea. It has always been an idea but I think never with real observation of the Brand, or the consumer of that brand or that particular product for that matter. Its always about all the technical things that a product or service offers, more like what Manish ( Planning Head - David ) said in one of his posts – “we help you achieve this, we help make life better” but has someone really ever thought whether the consumer wants to achieve it through that product or wants life to be made better with that particular product”

I think we tend to force most products down peoples throat rather than politely observing key aspects of people’s lives where we can really fit in. We just concentrate on fitting in but we don’t concentrate on how to fit into people’s lives in the right or the best way. If they use the product our purpose is solved but what we forget is that we have got to be used more than once to ensure the clients business sustains. And the way towards achieving that is being part of people’s lives in such a way that they cannot discard us.

I do not say that we do not do it at all. There is a lot of advertising around that does it in a very people centric and more human than technically driven. I think SBI life campaign with the two old sisters going to meet their brother, Bank of India ad with the Kid with a piggy bank are a few examples. The latest being the Sony Ericsson Walkman phone ad. I love Sony. Every observation made in it is something I relate to completely. The thought of getting lost in another world when you are listening to music is something I experience all the time. The thought of wanting to just listen to music (I love missing the last bus home) and forget about the routine life is something I always feel. But then these ads are few and far between.

Radio One decided to go Hindi in June this year, original fans of Go 92.5 like me were extremely disappointed but when given practical reasons it made sense because a practical and correct observation was made, that the listener base of English music are a handful and therefore in order to access maximum listener ship they needed to switch over to Hindi. At the same time they also decided to position themselves as playing only hits and no. 1 hits which in spite of all the arguments we had with them, they decided to stick onto. I still feel and I have heard from their own mouth that the programming of Radio One still is not considered to be at par with a Radio City or Radio Mirchi. I feel it is so as consumers don’t just want to listen to no 1 hits which might be a hit now but forgotten later, they want to listen to good music .Most of the music made these days are a hit because they are catchy but overplayed and bombarded in a consumers ear through mediums like Radio and Television. When a consumer has no choice he gets used to it and listens to it but beyond a point will want to switch. That’s where a Radio City known more too be playing mood music sustains in the long term as they catch the pulse of the audience with music that’s for lifetime and not just sometime.

I may be wrong in the observations made above and please do feel free to add your point of view but I do believe that the Golden Statement holds true in every way and I think it will definitely help our business more if we leave the numbers and concentrate and observe the real world more often. We will not need to crack our brains on unnecessary strategies if we only crack the code of observation.