‘Advertising is a wonderful profession. Learning never stops’

Everyone knows advertising.

Except the lot of us in advertising.

Advertising is a wonderful profession. Learning never stops.

I’ve been in advertising for nearly forty years. But I can still go to a wedding and learn how to sell a luxury car from a man I met over the soup.

I am sure you’ve met experts as well.

Your cardiologist will have a campaign idea. Your electrician knows why your commercial failed.

Back home, your uncle believes the product should appear earlier, preferably before the film begins. 

And your mom, if she is anything like mine, will always frown at the colour of the model’s saree.

I am convinced that we have the world’s largest pool of creative talent. Quietly wasting their lives as teachers and accountants.

No wonder the clients don’t want to pay us. Even their octogenarian foofas are sleeper CDs.

As an effort to channelise all this latent energy, we should ideally put this talent to work.

For one day every year, agencies should open their doors to everyone who knows how advertising ought to be done.

Doctors, engineers, traders, politicians, pilots, chefs, and the gentleman who runs the corner photocopy shop.

Everyone gets a real brief, a budget and a deadline.

Clients should participate too. As overseers. They have spent years teaching us.

Here is their chance to play obstetricians at the birth of ideas.

The advertising people can just mill around. We have considerable experience in feeding people who are disappointed in us.

Soon, the venue will crackle and pop.

The cardiologist will prescribe fear for a cooking oil. A man collapses at breakfast. His wife looks at the bottle. We could have saved him. Pack shot.

The architect will propose a film about the geometry of a biscuit. Somehow he is upset that biscuits aren’t azure blue.

The politician will want his photograph on the biscuit. Democracy can now be dipped in chai.

A trader will solve the premium watch brief with a free wall clock.

Our uncle will finish six campaigns, each featuring a product, a smiling woman and a phone number.

Clients will suggest a celebrity. As a celebrity playing an ordinary customer who mentions all 9 product benefits.

By lunch, somebody will write a jingle. Everyone will sing it twice. This will count as research.

Someone in the room will get pedantic and moan that the brief is restrictive.

‘Goes with the granularity of advertising.’ He chuckles.

By four, the campaigns will be ready. The luxury hotel will promise homely rates. The bank will guarantee happiness. The shampoo will almost save baldness.

Every presentation will receive applause. Before we introduce a few familiar conditions.

The celebrity is unavailable. The budget includes production. Legal has rejected the guarantee. A competitor owns that line. The founder dislikes green.

Plus we can’t have puns, we need 15 languages, and the campaign goes live on Monday.

There will be a thoughtful silence. Many heads will be scratched.

Ah, then the bulb lights up.

The garrulous CMO will turn his face to the advertising people.

‘Ok, we’ve have given you the idea. Surely you can take it from here?’

Of course, we nod. Retainer is in the nodding.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not in any way represent the views of exchange4media.com.