The God Of Ad Things.

Contrary to what many people believe, I work too.
As one copywriter put it, "We write lines to make people buy things that they don't actually require." So much to convince my mom!!

I don't blame people for taking our profession so lightly. It basically stems from the fact that people just read a line written on a hoarding, and assume that they would've done a better job writing that line. Well, even i thought that way and got duped into believing its so easy that I can do it any time of the day. I figured later on that days notwithstanding, even during nights I had a problem writing that one line.

As David Ogilvy once put it, "people think they know everything about two things. Sex and advertising." People always think great ideas can come from anywhere. Why does the world need copywriters to work full time. Such waste of resources. But then, another copywriter had a fitting answer to that. "Great ideas can come from anywhere- my ass."

Constantly churning out stuff is no child's play. We're in the business of building and sustaining brands. Last week I had the opportunity of being addressed by an advertising guru, the man who built brands such as Asian paints, Cadbury and Fevicol to name a few.
The name is Pandey. Piyush Pandey. The bond... The Fevicol bond of Indian Advertising.

Also encouraging is that he happens to be my boss's boss's boss's boss. So yeah, I can claim to be working under him. Rather working in his under's under's under's under.

First impressions.
Cocky. He has reason to be.
Confident. He has reason to be.
In love with me. He has reason to be. (I really didn't know what else to add)

His opening lines to us were, "Speculations are rife that I'm retiring soon. Well, no. I still haven't finished humping my competitors. I have humped them for 15 years now, and i will do so for another 15."

The story of how one of the Cadbury campaigns came into being was quite entertaining. While holidaying in Hawaii, Piyush got a call from his partner in Bombay saying, "What the fc*k! Cadbury has called for a pitch!"
With no time to spare, Piyush booked his return ticket to India. Meanwhile, waiting to board the plane, Piyush started work on the campaign.
And those memorable Cadbury commercials that eventually ran on TV are the ones that were written behind the boarding pass! This campaign was bloody successful and it went on to become a case study at the Harvard Business School in the years that followed.

Well that says two things about Harvard.
You don't have to be at Harvard to study at Harvard.
You can be an outsider and let Harvard study you.
To cut a long story short, I'll cut it here.