Creativity and business

the creative director of Leo Burnett, KV Sridhar, was here to talk to us about his views on advertising. it was a two hour talk, very poorly attended. during the talk mr.sridhar himself mentioned to us that during his last visit, the lecture theatre was full.

well, blame it on placements - will you? but even before the placement buzz knocked on the students, most lectures were poorly attended. so you cant blame today's poor attendance on this single aspect. maybe there's some other reason or just that most people are just too lazy to move those cheeks.

the whole thing is so skewed and mysterious. we've had great people who have contributed to changing the face of the indian economy and then just 20 people turn up to listen to them. so whats the deal? nobody knows.

one thing i have noticed is that people rush in herds to listen to consultants from the mckinsey's and bcg's of the world. does that give any clue?

coming back to creativity and advertising, we should know that advertising is all about exploiting the minds of the consumer. if you dig deeper, then you'll realise that most advertising themes are lifted directly from events that happened in a person's life. right from Persil that said "dirt was good" to coca cola kept inside the well, its all about incidents that happened in your childhood, teenage and the later stages in your life.

then there is also this concept of connecting it with the audience. jackie chan in a bajaj ad looked like a chowkidar, but lalithaji in the surf ad was just like our mom.

ads also have to be changed according the changing trends, that is, it should reflect the mindset of the current generation. for example, we cannot use the same 15 yr old liril ad in which the bikini clad girl was dancing in the waterfall. with that lets have a look at the new liril ad. i had never seen this ad before. but when i saw it yesterday, i was surprized and thrilled. the ad was quite interesting. its based on the live-in relationships that we currently see in films or amongst friends. something like the hum-tum or salaam namaste.