Why Your Copywriter Looks Sad.

In this lovely publication from DMA UK, we learn about why your copywriters are sad. It's in-depth, incisive, *always spot-on and often funny.

Some of my favourites:

I'm not a copywriter. I'm the track changes approver.

Less Fewer copywriters know how to writer.

If you really love to write, then don't get into copywriting. *ouch*

On taking up copywriting as a profession: *It* chose me.

http://www.flipsnack.com/mergimg/why-your-copywriter-looks-sad-ftnl7es8x.html



*except the Vodka for breakfast part. A good number of us stick to cereal. Also, DMA, thank you for giving me a Leader award last week. 

The Best Highbrow Review of a Lowbrow Movie.

Remember Roger Ebert? Of course, you do. He was the best. Luckily for us they got Matt Zoller Seitz to lead RogerEbert.com after Roger left us. And even though he isn't Roger Ebert, I'm sure Roger would approve of him a full 200%. Check out this zinger from his Mission Impossible V review.

 If American films have proved anything, it's that Tom Cruise is The Best: at pool, at flying jets, at mixing cocktails, at racing cars, at building an airtight legal case against brutal Marine colonels and southern gangsters, at whipping sexist bros into a frenzy, at representing football players in contract negotiations, at defending Earth against invasion by extra-dimensional monsters and, in the "Mission: Impossible" series, at battling heavily armed bad guys while running and jumping and fighting and driving and hacking and playing “Flight of the Bumblebee” on the violin if need be.

Full Review here:

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/mission-impossible---rogue-nation-2015

A Change of Location Always Helps.

Nearly all late night talk show hosts shoot from their own dedicated studios. Nearly all of them (at least the present crop) do a good job of it. But Conan O'brien goes the extra mile. Whenever a special event comes up, he doesn't just have one of his comedians do a segment from that particular event. This guy actually goes the extra mile and shoots an episode from there. When Cuba and America resumed their trade relations, Conan was the only late night host who went there and shot an entire episode on location in Cuba. And boom - the internet exploded. With just one move, his views and coverage skyrocketed.

Here's him doing a bit straight from Comic Con.




What's the big lesson here? Always go where the action is? Well, yes, if you are a late night TV show host. But most importantly, when you are doing the same thing over and over again, try and change your location. Stuck while writing? Take a walk and watch how the words come to you. Sometimes a little change in the landscape is all you need to actually see things differently.

PS: Bruce Wayne must be hating on Conan so much after this clip. 

That Awesome Nike Commercial I Nearly Forgot About.

Nike doesn't sponsor big sporting events. It hijacks them. Of course, they put big money in media to promote their films but more than often they create films that people want to watch. Case in point, this epic flick from Guy Richie that used GoPro antics even before GoPro was mainstream. 

PS: Note how Guy Richie starts the film with a penalty kick and ends it with one too. And with that he basically shows what the brand is trying to say - an athlete's work is never finished, he has to keep working to improve himself.

Stand-ups You Should Know - Tommy Johnagin.

Tommy Johnagin. He is the quintessential guy next door with guy next door problems. Like how he and his girlfriend talk about having a baby in a year or two and then he ends up having a baby anyway. He's got a surprisingly strange and sound take on things. Check out his bit on the second video on how a successful marriage is one where you outlive your partner and then cry over their death. Well, that sounds twisted but it's true. As he points out, the other outcome for their marriage would be a divorce. His delivery is understated and he's really a lot of fun. Sample some of his stuff here.

Why Short Sentences Work Better.

Shorter attention spans. Greater distractions. That's the reality of our world. So unless you have Ian McEwan's ease with words, you are better off going the Raymond Carver way and write in short, crisp sentences. If you are writing for a brand, you will notice that your words will go down better when you manage to say more with less. Don't agree with me? Let me show you something. Here's my favourite original Abe Lincoln quote in its original length.

Good things may come to those who wait, but only what is left by those who hustle.

Eloquent. Thoughtful. Not too big on brevity though. Unless...

Good things may come to those who wait, but only what is left by those who hustle.

And without losing any meaning, you get.

Good things come to those who hustle.

Works better, right? Unless of course, you want to sound more hip.

Get Rich or Die Tryin'

- 50 Cents

Don't Criticise. Celebrate Instead.

Criticism is futile. Maybe it's reading Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections which is decidedly anti-criticism. It even has one character who teaches criticism theory realize that you can't change the world by criticising it.

And while we are at it, the most read topic on my blog is still this piece where I destroyed Ghajini. And even got offered my first book job for it.

But I think I've risen about it. Even small or big pieces where I celebrate works of art get better hits than my criticism pieces.

But that's not to say criticism is unnecessary. It is. And we need it even more now to guide us when more and more pop culture is created every day. It's after all the critic's job to guide the masses. Except today a lot of pop culture is critic-proof. The next Avengers' movie will gross 500 million. The next GaGa album will be platinum. So a bad review won't stop a fan boy from paying his money and consuming inferior pop culture. A parent with two kids will watch a bad animated movie. That guy has no choice. But that doesn't mean the critic has no voice?

The critics need to channel their inner Roger Ebert and unabashedly love pop culture that needs loving. So yes, the critic should give a bad piece a bad review. But it's her job to show his readers that why an overlooked movie, the book by an unheard author or an indie artist is where his readers should put their money. That'll only happen when critics learn to do more than critique. They learn to drive conversations and action by celebrating the right kind of pop culture.

Where to Find Inspiration for Your Novel.

From life, of course. But, which parts of life? If Hanya Yanagihara would answer that question, she would say photos and articles that somehow get seared in your consciousness. I hadn't even heard of Hanya till the Vulture covered her and her process of writing a novel is fascinating.

Hanya narrates how before she started writing her novel A Little Life, she was collecting these pieces - both photographic and written and kept referring to them while writing her actual novel. It's amazing to see how she let the pieces themselves inspire her and lead the way. She didn't use them to stitch a narrative but rather help her find the nuances and the mood of her story. Pretty cool, right? Makes me feel that I haven't been spending too much time collecting material for my debut novel.

Read the full piece here:

http://www.vulture.com/2015/04/how-hanya-yanagihara-wrote-a-little-life.html?om_rid=AAEMPD&om_mid=_BVP$bEB9BHu0qL

People Will Watch Your Ad If It Doesn't Feel Like an Ad.

In today’s media-manic, ADHD-driven consumer landscape, it doesn't matter how good your ad is. What matters is how well it can engage your consumer. So, even if you are selling printers, you have to do more. You don’t just offer your consumer a commercial. You give him content that either entertains, engages or does both to him.

The perfect example for this is Beats by Dre’s The Game before the Game video. Notice the way I use video and not ad. This thing here is beyond classification. One part commercial, one part music video and a whole lot of fun. It comes as a surprise to see how one of the best ‘ads’ to come out during the World Cup wasn’t from a sporting brand. Beats by Dre’s simple video showing a whole volley of soccer stars pumping themselves up clearly emerged as a World Cup winner.

The Millennial Work Ethic Conundrum.

I am actually a millennial myself. So, hold your horses before you call me a geyser. Besides, this isn't another 'The olden days were the golden days' type post. I want to talk about some of the problems I've observed in my millenial co-workers. 

The first bit - money. Us millenials had it easy. It's not really our fault. Every generation gets a better life than the one they precede. So, yes, the internet's first generation had a lot of things handed to them for free. And, they grew up with a sense of entitlement. So when they step into an office, they expect big bucks even before proving their mettle.

The entry-level salaries in advertising and media are beyond pathetic. So, if by any means a 20-something manages to overlook this major inconvenience, they have to start putting in major hours. That's exactly what a life in advertising demands. Any writer worth his salt will tell you that quality comes from quantity.

 I am the defacto guy for training juniors, interns and trainees. I share with them the same advice Luke Sullivan gave to Sally Hogshead. Which is, for every headline you need, write a 100 options. Sounds a lot? It isn’t. 

My first boss, an old hand made me do it. I scoffed at him. Gave him some 10 odd options and patted myself on the back. Then, I came across Sally Hogshead online. And guess what, she did listen to her boss Luke Sullivan and did write a 100 headlines. Here’s some of the ‘ground-work’ she put in for BMW before writing some award-winning ads. Eventually I followed suit and 2 awards later, I'm better for it. The grind will do you good, my 20-something friends.

100 Headlines by Sally Hogshead from School of Visual Concepts

The problem I feel with millennials is that they don’t want to put in that much work. They feel that their salaries should merit the amount of hard work expected of them. What they don’t realize is writers are paid for their writing skills. And these skills improve, the more often you write. Most newbies in advertising only write a couple of options. They think it's beyond them to churn out a 100. And this pisses off a lot of seniors. I've myself been a little put off by the amount of effort it takes to get some juniors to put in some real effort.

So, if you are just starting off, remember this golden rule of writing.

Now, if you will excuse me I have to make my juniors see the merit of writing more every time they need to write.

PS: I usually prefer Dorothy Parker’s version – ‘Writing = ass in the chair.’

Sharing Is Growing.

Knowledge is power. Hoarding knowledge, of course means exclusivity and economical leverage. If you do that, you would be like Apple. You'd hold on to your patents and reap on their rewards. 

Or you could be like Google. Take an operating system like Android and make it Open Source. Let people build and experiment with it. Slowly and steadily, you too would move forward and piggyback on the system's growth.

Individually, we all face similar choices. Do we hold on to the information we have or do we share it? Right now, I offloaded some insights I gained over the years to a junior. 30 minutes later he gave me some output that was exactly what the brief needed. I could have hoarded that information. I could have used it as leverage. I could have worried about his growth affecting my standing in the system. Instead I accepted that as the system grows, I'll grow with it.

The choice at the end is yours. Will you hoard or will you share? 



Photo credit: Got Credit

What Grammar Nazis Miss Out On.

So, I live in India. You'll find that some of us hold a fluency in English that can only be matched by native English speakers. Yet some others butcher the Queen's language without a second thought. Now, you'd have to be in Mars to realise that English is the de facto lingua franca of the world and India. It is our comfort with English that gives us an edge over the Chinese. So much so that being good with English somehow determines your professional graph here.

Now, on face value there's nothing wrong with that. Being good at a language means being good with words. And at the end of the day, how you express yourself will influence your odds at finding success. The problem is this somehow stacks the odds against a whole lot of Indians. A good number of Indians get educated in their regional languages. Mother tongues, as they are called. They only learn English much later and they get comfortable using it much later in life. This puts a lot of Indians on the back foot professionally. As if things weren't bad enough, there's a fresh crop of problems for those trying to improve their English. Enter the cult of Grammar Nazis.

Now most Grammar Nazis as you are aware are a passive aggressive lot. They have a decent grasp of grammar. They can even pronounce Sauvignon properly. And since they possess these two skills, they make it a point to belittle anyone who flubs while speaking. They actually derive pleasure from it. Looking down upon someone who doesn't have the same amount of knowledge as you is a time-honoured tradition. Yet here it takes a different colour.

 Being a Grammar Nazi in India isn't the same as having an affectation. It's straight-up bullying. It's denying a person the right to express themselves and to flub while doing so and hence, improve in the long run. I've seen it in my own college, at work and even while travelling in the train. People asked to pronounce things right. People being told to use the right verbs. To not forget the gerunds. And it makes my blood boil. Unless you work at the New York Times, which most Grammar Nazis don't by the way, your correction of another's command of language is pointless. It's only stalling their progress and denying them their chances by destroying their confidence. So go on, judge people. For the quality of their ideas and thinking. Not the quality of speaking skills.

PS:

What's surprising is this problem has been around since the Roman era. Check out this excerpt from Emperor Marcus Aurelius' book called Meditations. Here he reveals how he learnt from a literary critic to focus on a person's words, not his pronunciations.

THE LITERARY CRITIC ALEXANDER

Not to be constantly correcting people, and in particular not to jump on them whenever they make an error of usage or a grammatical mistake or mispronounce something, but just answer their question or add another example, or debate the issue itself (not their phrasing), or make some other contribution to the discussion—and insert the right expression, unobtrusively.

How to Announce to the World That You've Been Acquired.

Usually mergers and acquisitions are bad news. In fact, they aren't news. You get to hear about them through gossip from the industry grapevine. The gossip causes stock prices to fluctuate, gives undue anxiety to employees of the two parent companies and if the merger does go through, it often see a lot of employees get the pink slip. But in the current startup climate, mergers are usually a good deal. The smaller startup usually makes a lot of money, gets heft and scale, even a bigger office. And the best part, we get to see some really clever announcements from the brands involved..

And one of my favourite merger announcements of all time is this one. Snapdeal acquired my favourite Indian mobile startup Freecharge and they made their merger look like a marriage proposal.

On-brand, cheeky and a whole lot of fun. 

Stand-ups You Should Know - Aparna Nancherla.

If Mitch Hedberg was born as an Indian woman, he'd be a lot like Aparna Nancherla. I spotted her first on Twitter and loved her silly, thoughtful non sequiturs. I even went ahead and friended her on Facebook for kicks. And she was gracious enough to add me and every time I log in on Facebook now, I am laughing my heart out. Like Hedberg, she has this nonchalant passive delivery, except the punchlines are crafted with razor precision. More than often she says things, which take you by complete surprise. Case in point - the opening to her stand-up act 'I'm surprised that I'm a comedian too. Don't worry, we will get through together.'

And here's her New York moment that could have happened in any big city.

Dear Brand, You Are My Bae.

Hamburger Helper Is My Bae: Weird Brand Twitter from Chapin Clark

Ah, social media. The place where grammar goes for a toss and all gaffes are forgiven. It's where brands which follow guidelines to the T and are sticklers for propriety get a little playful. So, it's not unheard of brands to 'talk weird' on Twitter. In fact, it's actually quite necessary for them to do so if they want their consumers to listen.

So check out this cool presentation Chapin Clark of RGA (He's responsible for making RGA the funniest agency on Twitter) and Katie Notopoulos of Buzzfeed made on 'Weird Brand Twitter' at SXSW.

It's got a bunch of great lessons. Plus, it confirms what most of you already knew. Just like with TV, simple and silly ideas work best on social media. 

Practice What You Preach. Even More So If You're a Creative.

I work in advertising. It's a fun job but it offers a lot of leeway to the slackers. If you watch Mad Men, you know it's full of right brained  - Creative Team that conceptualises ads and left brained people - Servicing Team that liaises with the client, although no martini lunches for them any more.)

So what happens is the Servicing Team interacts with the client a lot more than the Creative Team. The Creative Team makes in an appearance at an important presentation but the Servicing Team becomes the face of the account. (Agencies started addressing the business of a client as an account thinking every new account would add more money to their bank account.)

Anyway, so if a creative resource does a bad job, it's the servicing resource who has to take the flak. He filters the feedback for his right-brained counterpart. This ensures that the right-brained guy, who is somehow assumed to be all id, stays motivated. You will be surprised though to learn that a good number of clients insist on personally praising the creative team a great job. 

You think all this is fine but somewhere things went south in the business. The creative team blamed the servicing team for every error. Every rejection was pinned on them. They got clever, as creatives are wont to do. 'You couldn't sell mineral water in the Saharas', they chirped. Had this been just poking fun at colleagues, it would be fine but after seeing this countless times, it just comes across as creative resources not taking accountability of the fact that may be somewhere they did a bad job. 

Such a thing can go on for sometime. Till one day, you put the creative resource in front of the client. The client growls. The servicing resources step in. They cajole. They comfort. They say, 'We could fix in post.' This is the point where a true creative resource steps in. He doesn't wait till the meeting is over and blame it on the servicing team. With as much suave as his servicing counterpart, he explains to the client whatever his team did with the creative was only done for the good of his own brand's business. 

This is truly an irksome part of advertising. And there are many irksome things about advertising. A good number of creative resources would never rise to the occasion. Surely, some would get better at 'selling an idea.' But when shit has hit the fan, they wouldn't roll up their sleeves and speak directly with the client.

Honestly, this takes a lot of courage. A good number of clients still regard creative resources and ideas with fear. So when a client turns down your idea and if you use your zen-like aura to tell them why the idea is good for their brand, they are bound to hear you out. In many a cases, they will respect you for standing up. Mind you, standing up and not throwing a fit. Your servicing teammates will admire you for saying to the client what you said to them. And the best part, the client will a good number of times take money out of his own pocket to back your idea. 

Louis CK Is Asking You to Switch Off Your Damn Mobile.

Dammit! I sound like a pariah. I think watching the World Cup final without Team India made me just idle around Twitter a little too much. And I feel guilty about it. Anyway now is a time as good as any to share this funny Louis CK clip.

It's classic CK. In that it's about comedy. It's about his razor-sharp observational skills. And about...raising children. It's extremely inspiring to see how much he borrows from his own life. He's a single father of two, and I've reason to believe his kids don't have cell phones. He talks about how kids who spend more time on mobiles are less adept at being empathetic. And then they miss out on the essence of being in the present. Of being able to focus and be alive to the possibility of now without being distracted by the stupid drone on your cellphone.

I think in a few years, we won't do things without broadcasting about it on the internet. But until then, I want you to spend a little more time online and watch this.

Also, Louis CK is coming to town. His first Indian tour was just announced. Can't wait to see the greatest standup acts of our time in person.

How To Write Like Rajkumar Hirani.

3 Idiots. The Munna Bhai Series. And now, PK. Rajkumar Hirani and his writing partner Abhijat Joshi can do no wrong. What's more, me and this other colleague have a hunch in some other life these two would have been great ad-men. Every film they create has a tagline, a takeaway so to speak. Jaado ki jhappi. Get well soon. Aal is well. And all these catchphrases go viral. That's media mileage most brands would kill for.

Last night I heard him give a talk at an Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) conference. He discussed about censorship, creativity and how to deal with the unintended outbursts arising due to some obtuse interpretations of your work. The last bit, he unfortunately became familiar with due to PK.

But my favourite part of the talk was when he discussed the LCD principle. It's sort of a thumb rule he and Abhijat apply to every scene they write. As per it, everything you write should either make the audience Laugh, Cry or invoke some Drama. Short for LCD. Which makes a lot of sense. Not a scene is a filler. Every scene serves a purpose. Now that you know how two of the best writers in Bollywood think, have a good second look at your script. Maybe there's some room for rewriting and editing. 

No, Vimeo, No. This Is Not How You Ask Customers to Upgrade.

Recently I came across this banner for the video streaming site Vimeo. It's reasonably well designed, the text is given enough weightage and there's no gaffe in the grammar.

What concerns me is the messaging. Asking a customer to switch from a free version to a paid version is tricky. It's something advertisers and marketers are still getting a handle on. All this while, they were used to having customers paying upfront for their services. Apps and subscription-based services have changed the game. Now customers try a product before paying. And that's fair. More so ever, it's now the order of the day.

Now if you have ever tried streaming a video on Vimeo, you know it's no YouTube. 4 out of 3 times you won't be able to stream a video. Yet Vimeo comes with its own perks. Password protection, full HD streaming. It's a favourite among creatives, indie film producers and others. But that doesn't mean you are going to dissuade them from using Google Drive or YouTube. They will only pay you when you explain to them what they will gain. We advertisers are here to sell the sizzle not the steak. Remember, it's benefits people like you and me pay for, not for the guarantee that 'There won't be problems'. Oh, and being upfront about the fact that your free subscription is fraught with problems is not cocksure. It's marketing suicide.

We All Start Small.

In this lovely little spot Dell released after going private again, they put the focus on how some of the biggest companies of our time actually started small.

It's a lovely piece of writing and a great inspiration for anyone thinking of branching out and starting a business of their own. Also worth considering is the fact that Dell would be there providing with you reliable hardware and valuable tech support. :D