Saturday, March 17, 2007

Living to tell a lie and earning a living out of it

Advertising is a strange buiness, some say only the dregs of society walk into it. On hindsight, I feel it's very true. If I look at myself, when I finished degree I was at my wits end and absolutely clueless about my life and career. Then, for lack of any other capability, I started out in an ad agency as a copywriter.

Since then many people have asked me what I do for a living and I try to explain the whole process, mostly meeting with blank stares. Many professions are quite hard to explain, perhaps advertising is the hardest of them all. Simply because the essence of advertising is to persuade people to buy things that they actually can do without. Now that's only a very crude explanation of a complex business.

At the end of a lifetime, will I be satisfied? Or will I be trapped in the lie and go on and on until some kindly soul enlighten me?

Advertising is enshrined in a shroud of mystery because the intended consumer is not a classification like SEC A, B but a thinking, living, reacting individual called your wife as David Ogilvy famously declared. Tons of research data are available on the consumer thanks to the deep pockets of clients who want to somehow map the consumer and feed them with messages that will translate into sales. Much of this advertising money is spent cluelessly, much of advertising too is a waste.

Can a line or a visual change mass perceptions? There are many examples, but the best ones are outside of advertising, like quit India, and Marx's famous exhortation to the workers of the world.

Is advertising intersting? quiet so, because the truth, whatever it is, is never interesting, lies are.

Portfolio / client / Adfest


Portfolio / client / SIB


Portfolio / client / Pulimoottil


Portfolio / client / CDB


Portfolio / client / CDB


Portfolio / client / CDB


Thursday, March 15, 2007

Advertising is the greatest lie of all

As long as human beings remain human, advertising has to go on. No matter how it's going to change or evolve as each day passes, the basic tenets of advertising will never change. Envy will express itself in many ways, but will envy change to something else? Never. Will our sex drive change? I don't think so, unless God plays a prank on us. Some people think we are the most over sexed generation, but I prefer to differ. We are perhaps, the most under sexed rather. Because early man, at least, never hesitated to have sex, where ever, when ever he feels like making it out with his female counter part.

Today's generation browses through porn sites for lack of the original stuff! But then, we're actually deviating from the main subject. So, to come back, advertising is really a reflected lie that we love to believe in. One half of our brain says it's all crap, the other half would be tempted to at least try out the fantasy and see whether it's going to come true. Check viagra sales figures for 2006-2007 and you'll know what I am talking about.

Well, if you think this is interesting, I will come back with more thoughts.

Adfest 2007

Great art direction, again by Joshi Mathew

Portfolio

My work for Kerala Adfest, an advertising
festival which was held in Thekkady.
The art direction was done by my art partner
Joshi Mathew.

About Me

An advertising copywriter by profession. Loves to read. Travel. Get wet in the rain. Play with my daughter. Learn to play guitar. Go on long holidays. Immerse myself in a river and drink beer. Meditate on top of a lonely mountain. Make lots of money. Write fiction. Live life fully.