| Coming to the point, Kakkar in essence talked about
unleashing an idea. Most people are very possessive about the idea.
But, what one mush fathom, is that a good creative idea can take on
different faces if allowed to be improvised on by key individuals
in the creative process. The idea still remains intact, although when
unleashed, the idea takes on a persona of its own. Hence, great ads
become greater when one does not get obsessive and possessive about
the idea.
Moving on to the sleek, absolutely picture perfect ads, absolutely
appealing to the naked eye, Kakkar juxtaposed them to the masturbation
experience. An absolute high for 10 minutes, followed by total eradication
from one's memory. Sleek commercial fail to make a connect, fail
to rake up real emotions and hence the exercise tends towards a
short term one.
Kakkar reiterated that great ideas are very very simple. Restating
his point of making an emotional connect and real advertising, he
says, "Successful advertising is advertising that can be taken
away."
Isolation, alienation
Talking about the Pepsi as a brand, he took us down the psyche
of the Pepsi brand value, the anticlimax of it becoming numero uno
in India, and hence the metamorphosis from being an irreverent number
two to not being so irreverent as no 1 in India.
One key learning of the session was that you might me an excellent
script or copy writer, but if one cannot communicate and express
what he or she is seeing or feeling, more often than not, one's
copies will be canned simply due to the lack of connect. Hence communication
and expression are
equally important features for creative.
Sometimes, one comes out with an audacious ad. An ad which is bold
but also makes that connect. One such ad that Kakkar screened was
the Parle Smoothies toffee. The ad which was rejected by the client
is truly audacious but Kakkar says, we talked from the heart and
if it had aired, it would have made a difference.
Foreign client! This was one arena no one covered. Kakkar made
a very valid and not so known point when he gushed, "Foreign
clients will only accept mediocre work for the Indian market, simply
because of their low opinion of the country." Talking about
how wrong the foreigners have got us, he says that as a country
we might be extremely corrupt, might be an extreme of a lot of things,
but what cannot be taken away from us, is that we are survivors
and a country of enormous amount of sophistication.
Although, international clients don't understand this and hence
decide to churn out extremely basic advertising for the Indian market,
failing to understand the Indian intellect as well as Indian sophistication.
Coming to a more topical concern of celebrity advertising, Kakkar
said that it was a very trick proposition, specially if you are
dealing with brand ambassadors like Bachchan and Tendulkar, as they
have been done to death and are common among a whole gamut of brands.
Having said that, Kakkar screened an ad of Navratna hair oil. The
ad starts of with Bachchan talking about his career in the film
industry and the highs and lows that he had to go through. And then
the real anticlimax is when he says, that I could manage all this
because of Navratna hair oil.
Everybody was in splits, and yes, the ad made its mark. The ad
was requested to be screened again. The strategy was essentially
reverse branding, so instead of the brand introducing Bachchan,
here it was Bachchan introducing the brand.
One grouse that Kakkar voiced was that most agencies do not get
involved in the production process and urged the creative minds
there not to alienate but become a part of that whole process.
A concluding message from the heart that went out to the young
agency gang was "Swallow your ego and become a part of the
whole creative process. Become a part of production too."
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