Ideation Madness. Logic… or Magic?

4Ps B&M's Monojit Lahiri attempts a dip-stick in troubled, mysterious, unpredictable waters…

Another school of though throws up environment, ambience, atmosphere. It has to do with good people. A conducive setting is ideal for great creative advertising, a seductive aphrodisiac, the real stimuli. “Like-minded souls, bold, fearless, always poised for that astonishing creative leap do wonders for the adrenalin! Defines the basic difference between the morons, the living dead, the boring, predictable dodos from the ingenuous, innovative & intoxicating ideators!” says a free-wheeling, award-winning, hot-shot, young creative animal.

There are other “takes” too. While some feel it’s good to feel scared when in the throes of ideation “because it automatically saves you from falling into the trap of doing something that’s too pat, easy, predictable or soft”; others believe that “isolating the key idea is critical.” It comprises putting down everything you know about the product, then isolating it with the essence intact, giving it personality, projecting chemistry & making it look it fresh, new, exciting. Its not easy, but it can really be an mind-bending discovery into a whole new world of benefits, rewards and attributes… What about imagination?

Every time the word comes up, the mind races to evoke images of some of the iconic guru’s who powered those elusive magical, mystical windmills of the mind… right? Gurus like Newton, Da Vinci, Piccasso, Van Gogh, Michaelangelo, Darwin, Madam Curie, Shakespeare, Stephen Hawkins. However, the eminent social/ behavioral scientist, Jacob Bronowiski insists that “imagination is a human gift & to imagine is a characteristic, not just the fiefdom of poets painters artists & scientist, but everyone! Animals don’t possess imagination. It’s about discovering new connects between things not by deduction, but by that unpredictable blend of speculation and insight that scientists call induction, which like other forms of imagination, cannot be formalized.”

At the end of the day – in the ad domain – what distinguishes the outstanding, unique, memorable & hence effective from the mediocre, is being more “human” & less “addy.” Create communication that is not spectacular, but resonating & essential to the people addressed. The need is to be warm, believable, credible, conversational, basically human. It comes from the three simple attributes (often overlooked, ignored, neglected and devalued) that belong to all of us, but seldom touched upon with the right quantities of passion, purpose, power or perspective. These are observation, imagination and experience.

So, go for it guys. More wind beneath your wings. Your’s is the power & glory…

Ideation Madness. Logic… or Magic?

CREATIVITY RE-VISITED

4Ps B&M's Monojit Lahiri attempts a hard close up on a fiercely debated issue

Indra Sinha, the brilliant & celebrated British communication maverick of Indian origin (whose AMNESTY campaign re-defined public service advertising like nothing else before or after) once stated that advertising is hardly a new phenomenon. It has existed for centuries. Then, tongue firmly in cheek, let fly a zinger. “Actually, it’s the second oldest profession & arose directly from the needs of the first!”

John Hegarty, another ad guru, offers his take in terms of persona. “As an industry, it occupies only the margins; the bits in between the editorial content; and the space between the programmes. The creativity bit is really guerilla creativity! It comes in, makes a hit & zips out.” However he is quick to point out that “creativity is the very essence of humanity. Civilisation’s great leap is because of human beings creative impulse & drive. It could think, put different thoughts together and come to different conclusions. I am always blown when people come to me & say, oh you’re so creative! Does that make me special weird, different, species… what?”

However, coming to the bigger picture, creativity is often defined as the public face of an ad agency; the external manifestation of its culture. Every piece of work builds the agency’s & clients brand. Some experts believe that this brand-building exercise can be measured in 5 ways. One, by the number of clients who stay or leave. Two, the number of pitches to which the shop is invited. Three, the quality & calibre of people it attracts. Four, by what its peers, clients and competitors say about it and five, by the awards they win in major festivals… They also believe that to create truly great advertising, 3 elements are de rigeur. One, the management should genuinely want it. Two, the creative guys should have the ability and confidence to produce it. Finally – the most important – the clients must recognise, green-light and endorse the work and buy it with enthusiasm and vigour.
 
Another special and spot-on fact is articulated with passion by another hi-profile ad practitioner, “It’s great clients who make great agencies and great campaigns – not vice versa. Remember they are the guys who take the risks, buy the stuff and have the balls to run with the idea! When you look at some of the truly great stuff done in recent times (Apple, Absolut, Volkswagon, Nike, Fevicol, Airtel, Liril, Surf Excel, Vodafone, Perfetti, Aviva, Fair & Handsome, Dove…) chances are, you’ll find a great company behind it… and behind the great company a great visionary who challenges and stretches you as much as you stretch him. There has to be (and usually is) a tacit investment of trust and belief that is both inspirational and stimulating. It drives the process. It can never be a one-way-street.” There is also a word of caution. “The advertising should educate them with evidence. Remember clients are in the business for results – not to tilt at windmills, be courageous and brave for the sake of being perceived as courageous and brave!”

At the end of the day, creativity is a destructive, risky business engaged in tearing down to build afresh. It’s about swiftly (and seamlessly) shifting gears from logic to intuition and adjusting perspectives in line with the shifting realities. It’s about taking note of the fact that human behaviour has not changed; what has is the environment they reside in and the means we access them. For true-blue, red-hot creativity (designed to make a difference) it is crucial to ensure that you make a difference first within yourself. Kids or star-struck, glamour-driven aspirants desiring to enter this universe will be well-advised to follow the priceless words of Indra Sinha. ”It is a world blitzed with conditions and rules. You can play by them, play safe and win fame and fortune, without really stretching yourself. However, if protean creative urges rumble within and scream for release, be prepared to go it alone without any help from the industry. It is these people who follow their own instinct and fight for them who are the ground-breakers. The real creative titans… The figureheads of the future!”

The last words however must belong to the latest luminary on the block - the new Executive Chairman of Lowe, Balki, who has his very special take on Creativity. The Director of 2007’s acclaimed film Cheeni Kum – all set to put together another film, PA, starring both, the Big and Small Bachchan- strongly believes that creativity is not necessarily about humour or popular hindi street-speak, but engagement and interest-value based on basic consumer insights. “For me, creativity in advertising is anything that is interesting and engaging… anything that kills boredom. Creativity is the biggest currency that drives effective and memorable advertising. It is not strategic inputs, marketing warfare, business plans or gimmicks, but how interesting you are as a person, brand, commodity of organization. Creativity need not – as some believe – only follow the haha (entertainment) route. It can make you cry, think, be scared, anxious, romantic, nostalgic… anything that connects. The idea is to see creativity as a powerful instrument that engages the reader /audience /consumer to reach a new level of empowerment”.

Lowe and behold - Balks could well be right!

CREATIVITY RE-VISITED

CRASH BURN! DESTROY! CAN DISRUPTION WORK IN AD-LAND?

4Ps B&M's Monojit Lahiri examinies an amazing phenomenon that challenges legitimate logic by celebrating the virtues of DHAMAKA!

Advertising has often been described as a calling that deals single-mindedly with the business of ideas …ideas that connect with their prime constituency and patao them to leap towards products or service advertised. In this exciting kabaddi, several routes, avenues devices (humour, insecurity, charm, fear, pride, envy, snob-appeal, rebellion) have been successfully developed to seduce the prospective customer, but the one that has bewildered, shocked, intrigued, even provoked several zillion people is the use of disruption as a bait! C’mon, can disarray, disorder, dhamal, split or severe ever hope to woo customers into an affirmative or approval mode? Isn’t it unsettling and fundamentally frightening? Why would anyone sane, deliberately disrupt anything? Can disruption really be a force designed to create something dynamic from something that has gone static?

TBWA’s moving spirit Jean Marie Dru believed it could. The objective of this revolutionary approach according to the great communication visionary was: Reframe the brand in a manner that is so startling that the market begins to look at it differently. De-familiarise or re-complexify it in a way that force consumers to see and notice brand characteristics that they had overlooked earlier. This leads to a fresh renewal of interest in the brand. Brilliant examples include McDonald’s selling fast food to the “snooty” French. Playstation selling computer games to adults. Most hilarious, the US buying Absolut Vodka that is not Russian!

There is more. Apple’s disruption (for example), slung out the time-tested, sacrosanct notion, which pronounced that communicating product features were the key to selling hi-tech products. Apple’s maverick visionary leader, Steve Jobs believed that a brand was not solely about “bytes or boxes but values” and proceeded to provide the perfect example of an organisation that knew how to constantly re-invent itself by disrupting the status quo. The introduction of Macintosh is an outstanding model. Its premise rested on challenging the hallowed premise that “people should be computer literate.” Jobs’ startling and revolutionary retort was “computers should be people literate and designed to work the way people do!” What followed was a pure, high decibel marriage of theatrics, showbiz and hard headed selling. For 60 seconds during the 1980 Super-Bowl (the mother of all major events in USA), he unleashed the (by now legendary) 1984 TV spot, which promised everybody a brave new world, free from the de-humanising effects of computer technology.

The words were simple yet cataclysmic… On Jan 24, 1984 Apple launches Macintosh. And you will see why1984 won’t be 1984 (a chilling connect with George Orwell’s ominous book). It was reported that the very next day over 200,000 people stormed showrooms across the US and within six hours, sales reached over $3.5 million! A decade and a half later Apple disrupted again with their landmark ‘Think Different’ campaign featuring great creators of the 20th century who are not fond of rules and have no respect for the status quo. Apple (Jobs announced) was a company that made ‘Tools for Creative Minds’. Today with iPods and iTunes music, Apple continues its path-breaking disruption mode.
 
To celebrate disruption, creativity has to happen at strategic levels before real creative work begins. The BIG IDEA is called for… and the answer is to look to the outside world for cues, guidance, hints, tips, inspiration. Look to the world of history, science, business for ideas that drove dramatic changes in perception. Before Copernicus (for example) the heavens rotated around the earth. Before Pasteur, there were no germs and so no immunisation. Before Ford automobile transportation was a relatively expensive indulgence and the privilege of a select few. Disruption changed it all… Copernicus and Pasteur are said to have had intuitive feeling about theories they went on to prove… and Ford had very definitive ideas about democratising automobile transportation.

The Guru of Disruption, (Jean Marie) generously offers a simple four-step guideline. One, identify the conventions and unquestioned assumptions that shape and form an organisation’s blue print. Two, look at how the different facets of its activity fit together. Three – enter disruption – challenge these conventions to find flaws in its thinking. Four, identify a vision or a projection of the company that represents the future. This vision is much more than a proposition or positioning statement. It’s a total culture – a destination against which all strategic and marketing decisions are/will be measured.

At the end of the day, disruption is neither a seismic shakeout, dramatically lobbed gimmick nor myopic anarchy. Beyond a mere formal procedure or process it is a strategically directed shakeup, a perceptive way of both thinking and looking at that killer opportunity. Its about seeing the world with an open and curious mind accepting nothing on face value and taking on odds, fearlessly… The basic point about disruption is – Disrupt before the world disrupts you. Invent the future instead of being evicted by it.

So crash, burn and destroy, guys. disruption is the way to go!

CRASH BURN! DESTROY! CAN DISRUPTION WORK IN AD-LAND?

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4Ps B&M's Monojit Lahiri ventures a close-up of the recent double-role being played out by an increasing number of gifted ad-film makers, balancing ad films with the biggest lure of ’em all – feature films!

In the beginning came the great god Ray – Satyajit to 7-stars morons! – who after doing time in the hi-profile D. J. Keymer in the fab ’50s (as a distinguished Art Director) left, for two reasons. One, as a passionate film aficionado (he started the iconic Calcutta Film Society with noted film critic Chidanand Dasgupta), he was getting increasingly drawn into the world of feature films. Two, he discovered that ‘hawking cigarettes, biscuits and tea, day in and day out isn’t really the best stimuli for creativity!’ Dry wit at its acerbic best from the master!

Over the years – Shyam Benegal, Muzaffar Ali, Robin Dharamraj, Zafar Hai, Chidanand Dasgupta, Harisadhan Dasgupta – there has been a decided shift-of-focus happening, with the to-day guys really turning on the heat. Shoojit Sarkar, a brilliant ad film maker, switched lanes a couple of years ago to give us Yahaan. Pradeep Sarkar, another renowned ad film maker and ad agency veteran took the leap with Parineeta and Laga… while Lowes hi-profile NCD Balki let loose Cheeni Kum with the customers begging for more. The brilliant Abhinay Deo – another outstanding ad film maker – threatens to join the club any moment. Some other eminent players in this ad films-to-feature game include Dipankar Banerjee (Khosla Ka Ghosla), John Mathew Matthan (Sarfarosh), Mahesh Mathai (Bhopal Express), Rakeysh Mehra (Rang De Basanti), Rajiv Menon (Sapnay), Ram Madhvani (Let’s Talk)…

What’s the problem? Why this ‘khujli’ to move towards the bigger format? Is the 30-seconder getting a bit too restrictive, limiting and tight? Over time, are these guys getting bored doing the same old stuff – after all how hot can your creativity get in this time frame? Having learnt the critical aspects of the art and craft of the discipline, are they now in the mood to embrace the real thing?

Abhinay Deo opens the batting with typical panache and starts scoring immediately. Contrary to popular belief, he does not believe that it is a “logical or automatic transition because both have their respective – special – areas of challenges and opportunities. For me, as a passionate film lover, they are both amazing avenues because they come under the common umbrella of film making.” However, he is quick to confess that the ad film-maker, sometimes, has an edge over the feature-wala because of the former’s constant, 24x7 drive towards creating, achieving and delivering a product that is fresh, unique and clutter-bustling.
 
“This makes innovation a part of our DNA. After all, selling products and services to a new-gen, promiscuous target-base in a way that delights and surprises, is no easy task. It demands speed with quality and provides us with a fantastic sense of perspective that certainly helps in the long run,” he explains.

Pradeep Sarkar who made his debut into the world of feature films at the “young” age of 48, has a different take. He believes that ad films and feature films are definitely inter-connected, in some fashion. Both have a product to sell and in both the disciplines, the aspect of “story-telling” is critical. Both are audio-visual mediums with their own compulsions.

Balki believes that the attraction for the big screen for most ad-film makers is natural because “once you’ve tasted blood, you want to go for the big one.” However, it’s not as easy as it sounds because from 30-60 seconds to holding audience attention for close to three hours can be very daunting.

A sharp media tracker who has seen this phenomenon grow over time believes that all these guys are suddenly and unnecessarily playing coy and cute. The real reason for this shift, he believes, is simple and two-fold. One, every creative animal, after a while, feels hemmed in by continuously doing stuff that has a limited creative bandwidth. The motivation and hunger – despite all the clichés about constantly re-inventing oneself blah blah – wears thin and soon technique rather than inspiration, take over. The solution is (literally) the big picture… a canvas he can truly take-off with. Secondly, hey c’mon guys, who doesn’t want to hit the big time, rub shoulders with glamorous stars, be perceived as a successful film maker, appreciated by the media, classes and masses instead of just cranking out (as Ray rightly said) stuff hawking tea, cigarettes and biscuits… and now colas and condoms!

Beyond the incestuous and industry-specific tamasha at Cannes and ABY’s, their product gets to be seen and loved by the most significant and desired target-audience they can dream of – the hydra-headed creature called the aam junta! That is the real high – and let no one kid themselves!

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