On Being Creative 1

I have been struggling to write this first post of the year. Planners block in week one is not a good sign:-)

But I wanted to write about something happy, hopeful but most of all on the subject of being creative!

Luckily for me I stumbled upon Hugh MacLeod's(of the gaping void blog fame)this very old post(by life-on-the-web-standards).

Hugh is an ex agency copy-writer turned marketing strategist. But he is most famous for his cartoon-on-business-cards-concept(am a newly converted fan of his).

You can read the original post - 'How to be Creative'here

Here's my selection from the original spiked a little by my personal experience...

1.Ignore Everybody
And that includes EVERYBODY. Of course not all of them together and not all of them all the time!! LOL

Your spouse. Your parents. Your boss. The once-upon-a-time-mentor. The good-friend-who-always-thinks-good-of-you. The featured-in-the-Brand-Equity-Power List CEO type...

The more original your idea is, the less good advice other people will be able to give you.

2. Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in nursery.

The silo system puts all sorts of department labels to shut you up. But never lose your voice. Don't under-rate your inherent creativity. Write with your heart about the brand. Think taglines while you think strategy or run errands. Better the body copy of the ad if you can. Romance your brand in words slapped on gettyimages!

Think media neutral solutions. Think fearlessly. Talk about them. e-mail them to other people. Blog about them.

As a planner I have written print ads for clients, read out TV scripts at new business pitches often throwing the CD in a fit of shock, have written 360 brand narratives in new business and more over the year.

It's bloody tough & frustrating at times. But it's doable. And there's always a way for the creative mind:-) Like they will call a planner ad a brand print and other such non-sense! But stay on course. Enjoy the game!

Listen to the little voice(of creativity inside you) or it will die... taking a big chunk of you along with it.

Life has a little box of crayons for all of us. We didn't fear them in nursery, why fear them now?

3. Keep your day job.
THE SEX & CASH THEORY: "The creative person basically has two kinds of jobs: One is the sexy, creative kind. Second is the kind that pays the bills. Sometimes the task in hand covers both bases, but not often. This tense duality will always play center stage. It will never be transcended."

For me this blog is SEX, enduring endless-pointless-meetings CASH.
Leading projects like 'Future of Mobility' SEX, doing 'daak bangla' research CASH
Thinking about planning and creativity as part of my day job is SEX, living 3 days a week in Delhi CASH:-)and Jet miles LOL

4. Hang out with a Changing World
Some people are hip to it, others are not. If you want to be able to afford groceries in 5 years, I'd recommend listening closely to the former and avoiding the latter.

That means hanging out more with the really creative people not labels and visiting cards, the freaks, the real visionaries, than you're already doing.

Thinking more about what their needs are, and responding accordingly.

It doesn't matter what industry we're talking about- architecture, advertising, petrochemicals, journalism- they're around, they're easy enough to find if you make the effort, if you've got something worthwhile to offer in return.

Avoid the dullards; avoid the folk who play it safe. They can't help you any more. Their stability model no longer offers that much stability. They are extinct, they are extinction.

In the past year and a half, it's the conversations with people
outside my department
outside my company,
outside advertising,
outside India,
outside my comfort zone,
outside of what I know that have been really insightful....

The insiders haven't had much to offer:-)

5. Nobody cares. Do it for yourself.

6. Don't worry about finding inspiration. It comes eventually.

7.The best way to get approval is not to need it.

In 2008 and beyond, we will have to get used to a world that will gradually not look like the world in which we have worked till now.

The agencies, our jobs, the power-equations, the concept of what's creative, the supremacy and primacy of 30sec commercials, creativity in the digital domain will require all of us to be more creative in whatever we do...

Related posts on the subject of creativity- The New Creative, Where's the Glue Around Here?, Open Source Creativity

No Entry To Brands

I hate the term social media. I feel it lowers the value of both 'media' and the concept of being social. The term is just a convenient envelope to help brands/ commercial media trespass into the private space of people more indiscreetly than ever before!!

Some time back had stumbled upon this post by Richard Huntington which splendidly captures my sentiment. Do read the post.

By trespassing on spheres of conversations between real people, brands reveal their fake selves even more quickly than before.

Social media must not end up being a 'Selling Ground' for brands...The sooner marketers realise this, the better. Because the people out here are smarter, with more IQ, more EQ, more creativity, more environmental sensitiveness than what mass market brands would have ever come across!!

The cost of a backlash to an intrusive brand sales pitch could be quite high in the long term!!

15% More Insights on Love Marketing. Hurry!

Yet another 'diary-page' from a young(er) friend of mine!

Super Duper Hype.. but its become a huge marketing endeavour every year.. specially since last few years...from greeting card companies to cell phone companies, to even banks use this occasion!

i came across this while i was googling - HDFC is offering a new variant of Gold Bar - an attractively priced 2.5 gm Heart-shaped Gold Bar.
HDFC Bank Credit Card holders would enjoy one per cent cash back on every 2.5 gm Heart shaped Gold Bar, bought by swiping their credit card!

Valentines day till a few years back, i didn't even know, but by the time i was passing out of school which was about 8 years back... it had started catching up big time at the archies and hallmark level.. now i think it has crossed all boundaries...

i saw the hutch hoarding at bandra with pink heart shaped balloons all over - i think was for downloading lovey ring tones or something for valentines.. i personally wanted to puke..

valentines is not just about lovers.. its about LOVE across genders across age and across relationships but unfortunately the marketing has stuck to focussing on lovey couples and it begins and ends at that.. hotels have special dinner meal offers and parties.. its anywhere and everywhere and u just cant miss it...

personally valentine is just another day in the year and it is bloody annoying wen people have to find a day to make it gooey and say things to their girlfriends or boyfriends.. in anycase in a city like bombay u mite tend to feel left out because the hype is so bloody much and people are so for it that u cant avoid it..

the reason why valentines so big here i think is solely because of the mad marketing because and the media hype around it within the country because otherwise its not such a mad thing abroad.. its big but people don't treat it stupidly.. i remember going out and catching a movie with my girlfriends (all of us single and no boyfriends to go out with he he)..this year i think will be going out for dinner with my girlfriends again.. ha ha.. lol!

thats about it.. i guess the media exposure and wanting to ape the western culture bit has gotten the people down to following such days including fathers day motherdays and blah blah.. these are undoubtedly great cashing days for various companies without doubt..

chalo nothing more that is coming to my mind..

Picture courtesy a colleague who was kind enough to model for indiadrant:-)

Gift Wrapped Love with 25% extra Romance!

The new India that the world loves to talk about is not just young. It's madly in love!
Or so the $65-90 mn that were spent around Valentine Day last year suggest. (The figure might be puny compared to global 'mush-market-index' but then our Valentine market is in nascency)...

Well, the decibel levels of v-marketing have risen dramatically this year. The day that stretched a week is now a full month. Pretty soon, we may have the Year of the Valentine!

There are more hearts per person in Bombay today. There are red-n-pink hearts everywhere and love messages on sms and buildings/ bill-boards wrapped with heart-shaped-balloons.

Of course, there is much money to be made from mush. But what nauseates me is the 'lowest-common-denominator' of love-communication. Looks like marketers and ad agencies are catering only to age 16, starry eyed kids. It's the dumbing down/ in-your-faceness of the Valentine communication and the cluttered shelf space of love that sucks!

Commerce > Romance.

Being on the other side of 30, I asked few of my young friends to pen down their feelings on V-Day marketing...for a better/ balanced perspective!

Here is a page from the diary of a young friend...She is young, very bright, very blunt. Definitely not a silent consumer(as they say, not me:-) of 'mush marketing'!

Love sells. It's as simple as that. If it didn't we wouldn't have so many jewelers selling diamonds on the anniversary gift concept. And guess what, it works! I mean I would never imagine a practical man like my father could buy my mom diamond earrings for their anniversary, but then again it was their 25th year and they love each other…so see what I mean, love sells because everyone seems to be so smitten by, well, love!

And now coming to Valentine's Day, that fateful day in the middle of the shortest month, it can also be identified as the biggest brand for love, its byproducts being cards, gifts, and other moronic lil pink n red objects floating about like chaos (ref. to ancient Greece where it was believed that chaos was the mixed matter the Universe was made up of before the Big Bang).

Wait a minute, I hope you don't think I'm another political party with an anti-love agenda, actually I'm quite mushy in my own right. What makes me queasy is the desperate search for a Valentine a week before Feb 14th.

This has now resulted in a phenomenon known as "the friendly Valentine". It starts with a Valentine'less' guy who just can't seem to find a chick no matter how much Axe he sprays all day long. He then uses his devious mind to come up with a plan to save face- ask one of your best friends! They'll never let you down. And even if they try to you can always say "yehi dosti, yehi pyaar???" Cheesy, I know, but works like a charm. Said best friend gets emotionally blackmailed and desperado has a date.

Another nauseating symptom of Valentine fever is overt displays of affection, a frantic search for the perfect gift with "to our eternal love" on the card. By the way, Webster's just called, they're changing the definition of eternal to "a time period equivalent to a month or in rare cases, a few more".

Let's get this straight, I don't mean don't celebrate your love or your "beautiful journey together". All I mean is that when the axe falls on it, we shouldn't find that the glue that held it all together was made of gift wrap paper and greeting cards.

Valentine's Day is not a competition for the best gift or the biggest bouquet. It's a day to celebrate the fact that every time your special someone calls and that assigned ring tone rings, you feel that tingly feeling waking every part of you, or every time you walk together in the rain, you feel your senses coming alive. No corporate firm can package that and sell it to you in a box. The same way, you can't buy love. So when are we going to stop trying?

I've Just Been Tagged

As I was about to go to bed, just thought I would check my gmail and I discovered that I had been tagged by Neil Perkin- a marketing director based in London. Thanks Neil. Feels good to know that people whom I do not know(in person) have an interest in my thoughts, ideas and observations(often from the ordinariness of life around me). As I first discovered on John's(Grant) blog - “Tagging is this meme/viral that is going on for few weeks now where bloggers share 5 interesting personal stuff and then pass it on to 5 other bloggers.”

Before I tag 5 people I know, must download the few thoughts that are swirling in my head.

I have written in Blogs R Ushow blogs are changing our world, one tag/post at a time:-) and also about Blogging in India - Facts and Future.

Few new thoughts(and emotions), in no particular order...

1. Before Aug 18, '06 - the day I wrote my first blog post - Viruses of the mind, I was largely a lonely planner in a country where I feel there are plenty of planners but planning itself is in a stage of nascency. Well, we are planning to change that. Tomorrow might be a beer meeting(at Sports Bar)of at least 8+ planners(inter-agency). Looks like a first for Indian planners!

2. While there was Google and YouTube and sundry technology to get unfiltered and abundant data, as a non-geek, there was little I could do to connect with a global brain/ conversation/ POV(that's what I feel the blogosphere is turning out to be for me). And POV(new) is in short supply in the media space. Don't just go by the ra-ra press and mass media self-congratulaory gurgitations(of the media, by the media, for the media)!

3. I haven't read the James Surowiecki book - 'Wisdom of the crowds' beyond a few pages but funnily enough have written on the subject. And what a journey these last 6 months have turned out to be. The wisdom of the crowd through the blog world is a humbling experience. In the past 6 months, have gained/ gleaned more than I did in the last 6 years(maybe, most thoughts/ analysis these days are coloured by the recency effect.)

The blog world allows one to think like a micro-consultancy of one!

On Google amongst the millions of (lately badly matched data)pages, one still doesn't learn/ discover as one does linking through the nodes of the blog world.
It's like searching through the 'mind of people'(and it's more decent and fun and not as macabre as it may sound:-)

4. I haven't had much time to read too many blogs. Think am slow and am still low on experimentation. But John(Grant and Dodds), Russell. thotblurb are staple diet...
They keep me pre-occupied through the day and the week-end!

5. Coming back to the lonely planner syndrome. With the conversations in the blog world, I feel lonely no more:-)In fact, soon the problems might be of never being alone.LOL

Blogs are also the Low Cost Carrier of thoughts. They flit and travel at the speed of electrons. I feel there is so much positive energy all around. Some of the best minds are connecting and much good will happen sooner than later...

6. Why aren't more Indian planners a part of this. But that's one strange thing about many Indians(at least within the advertising/ media fraternity). We are too hierarchy driven(excluding the young planners on thotblurb:-). When I started my blog, I passed on the link to six of my ex-colleagues(no soured relations here:-) and 'three' of them didn't even bother to reply. The most enthusiastic response was from a planner friend who is at ChiatDay(therefore not in India technically).
I find most of the media guys(over 30) wanting in collaborative working. The few times when they do, its purpose driven. WIIFM(whats-in-it-for-me)variants!

7. The average number of thoughts I entertain on any given day has shot up dramatically. Does 'Technorati' measure that:-) I realise I also have become more observant because of my blog...And I sorely needed that...

And more aware of issues that I wouldn't have cared/ had the time to think about.

8. Blogs have also allowed me to discover my voice. It even forces me to be true and honest at all times. As a culture we find it difficult to retort and be aggressive(although we argue all the time - read the Argumentative Indian by Amartya Sen). IndiAdRant has helped me release the pent-up emotions and thoughts...

And now let me get back to the tagging business. Okay 5 interesting facts about me...
Although as I trudge through the web, I realise every day how boring I am compared to the rest of you! And Neil, you make me look even duller:-)

1.I believe am as good(or bad)a creative as a planner. But agencies in India stuck as they are in the narrow silos are unwilling to buy my creative services LOL
This piece of creative strategy won us the account at TBWA Mumbai. Of course the great rapport which the branch head enjoys with the client had helped.

2. My favourite planner is Javed Akhtar and the planning book(Indian) is Talking Films - Conversations with Javed Akhtar(he is amongst the best Bollywood script-writer, lyricist and poet of our times!

3. I have changed my career 4 times in the last 12 years - from a 'network marketer' to a 'school teacher', 'computer engineer' to a 'creative strategist'.

4. On my current to do list, the most exciting item is to start a picture blog for my 3 yr old son - Neo.
5. Sometime soon, I want to start a social communication agency. Looking for partners and some funding! I might call it SCAM - Social Communication And More LOL

Okay now to tagging 5 of my fellow Indian planners
Saurabh Sharma(Inquiring Eyes)
Roop Mukhopadhyay( Tissue Issues)
Meraj Hasan(On Movies books, music, poetry and life)
Fink
Pooja Nair(Seeing Things Clearly)

cheers
M\

2007 - Fifty Drifts

Happy New Year guys! Just back from a trip to Mysore, Nagarhole Game Park(a tiger sanctuary 100km from Mysore) and Mangalore(attending a beach wedding of a friend). The trip was exotic, relaxed and refreshing! Though on occasions, I did miss the blogosphere. But not much:-)

I wrote this post(hard copy version)in a restaurant called Machchli Mela(inside the Summer Sands resort) overlooking the Someshwar beach, Mangalore!

Actually was trying to summarise all my thoughts on all the things in 2006. Here's my list of swings, trends, run-of-the-mill observations, comments on agency life, life, world of brands, buyers, marketers, et al!

The list is heavily skewed to my way of thinking, pet obsessions/peeves, observations. No tall claims of trend forecasting here!( and in no particular order either).

Here are the 50 drifts for 2007...Some are happening, some may take a while longer and few are from the attic of my personal wish-list:-)

1. Foresight > Insight
2. Planner + Creative > Art Director + Copy Writer
3. Stories > Slides(power-point)
4. Brand Quirks > Brand Values
5. Many to Many Conversations > Dialogues > Monologue
6. Being Personal > Brand Personality
7. Design > Analysis
8. Brilliant Execution > Correct Strategy
9. Random > Permanence
10. Collaboration > Competition
11. Culture > Core Value
12. UAE(Unique Amiable Experience) > USP
13. Designers > Account Planners
14. Mobisodes > TVCs
15. I > We > I > We
16. Employees > Companies
17. Karan Johar > Prasoon Joshi > Santosh Desai
18. Outdoor > Indoor
19. Experience > Analysis
20. Consumer Psychology > New Technology
21. Pop-up stores > In-store branding
22. SRK > Aamir
23. Future Group > Bharti-Walmart
24. Time > Money
25. Attention > Time
26. Trust > Attention
27. Soft Power > Raw Power
28. Expertise > Experts
29. Pop(Everything) > Everything
30. Bollywood > Cricket
31. Krssh > Superman
32. Hanuman > Krssh
33. WPP(in India) > Omnicom(in India)
34. Air Deccan > Air India
35. Blogs > Flogs
36. RSS feeds > Newspapers > Breaking News
37. News TV > TV Soaps
38. Shaadi.com > Shaadi Points
39. Digital >> Analog
40. Tactics > Strategy
41. Relationship > Reason
42. Being Creative > Being Right
43. Surprise > Consistency
44. Vigour(Energy) > Rigour
In brand thinking
45. Simplexity > Simplicity > Complexity
46. KBC3 > KBC 2 > KBC 1(?)
47. Fashion > Features
48. Blink > Consideration
In brand choice/ selection
49. Beer > Cola
50. 2007 > 2006

I am sure there are umpteen areas I have over-looked...But am working on the next 50!
cheers

Blogs R Us

Few days back, I had shared some facts and POV on blogging. Yes, its a niche sport:-)Many planners in India are into it...We(Iqbal, Kajal, Saurabh, I...) just started thotblurb, the thots and musings by planners on hopefully everything under the sun!

However, blogging within the larger Indian advertising fraternity is still seen with amusement(that's what the research-by-one suggests),'passing-fad-hai glances', indifference, etc.

A friend of mine who is reasonably senior in account management refuses to see the reason why anybody would blog. And somebody who is nobody to that anybody would read!!

Another creative guy I know refuses to acknowledge blogging/my blog/ any blog...Yet another long-time ad veteran is reluctant to blog. And the sharing of private thoughts in a public domain doesn't seem to be the reason for his hesitance!!

What's the big deal about blogging? There are 100mn of them...

It's just a medium to express yourself, sans the filter of mass media censorship...It's a digital store-house for thoughts-never-penned-by-you, ideas-from-the-attic-of-the-mind, dreams-hidden-in-the-heart...

In my case also provides the space to share few-old-ads-as-brand-prints-languishing-in-powerpoint/hard-disc:-)

In contrast, a young friend of mine shared her thots on blogging...What a whiff of young thots...Here it is.

I knew of a professor of English Literature who used to wash dishes to vent frustration. She had told us that she imagined each plate, bowl, spoon to be a face of one of the myriad mischief-makers of the class. And when she explained the poem, Two Tramps in Mud Time by Robert Frost, to us, I realized that my habit of releasing pent up emotions on the last pages of my notebook wasn't exactly without reason. The poem begins with a man chopping wood to destress, I knew then that the pen was my axe!

Over time this pen has turned into the keyboard of a Compaq Presario M2000 and my notebook into, well, still a notebook but a digital one. Everytime i have a particularly gratitude-worthy day or a moronically frustrating one I get myself some coffee and chocolate and let the juices flow.

Everytime I learn from an especially stirring experience it's converted into a new page in my digital novel on life. The experience need not be a great loss like death or a happiness like a new life into the world. I don't have them, not too often at least. What I mean by 'stirring' is slight turbulence in my equation with those around me. Sometimes the most subtle of things can teach you an invaluable truth which you failed to see while floating on clouds of happiness, your sight distorted by the mist that had settled on your judgement.

Blogging is free therapy...and with demands for psychiatric help skyrocketing, blogging is a relief to the economically challenged. Personally just writing down my troubles is such a weight off my head, it's like having spoken to Oprah about it. And the comments you get from anonymous well-wishers is another bonus.

The "Blogopolitan" is a place where there's room for every intellectual, every moron, every terrorist and every zen aathma. 'Your opinions are your's and no one can change that' is the principle that the blogging world flourishes on.

Devdas drank himself to death to beat frustration, Hitler destroyed half the earth and Marilyn Monroe popped pills. I blog. Sweet addiction, isn't it.

Well, I wish my suit friend and the creative guy read this! Other stray thoughts/ rant/ hope...

1. I think marketing must soon realise all those years of lip-service that they paid to 'Consumer is King' has found a voice...Now we can't fool everyone all the time...

2. Authentic is in. Hype is out.
Conversations are in. headlines are out.
Content is in. Pretty pictures, expensive films devoid of ideas are out.

Brands with attitude/ rough-edges/grey shades/unique voices are in.
Brands with just USP/ only smooth edges/ standardised voices are out...

3. Advertising can wait at the periphery a lil longer or join in...

4. Looks like it's the beginning of the end of only templated advertising/ communication. CGC will hit India hard...

5. It's the beginning of the era of CEO/ brand manager as blogger.

6. It's the beginning of the democratisation of creativity...

As I approach the magic figure of 100 posts, I can tell, I have deeply gained from blogging...It has been a creative outlet for me...I have learnt a lot from everybody else...

It's been a humbling experience...I have become Nikon-friendly, I chat a lot, I enjoy my work more and have discovered new voices, friends...

Brands are like people. I think if they start a conversation, they can build more authentic, bigger brands, one conversation at a time...

It's very tough I would assume. There are no operating manuals at the moment. But I believe it can be done. It needs brave and honest attempts and loads of creativity!

BTW, Rithika has made the board for the Valence levels of creativity. Will upload it shortly...cheers