Story telling got me super-glued in 2012
I was awakened by this deluge of awesome to worth watching again to nice, kind of movies over the last 10 months. Hindi film industry has been starved of good scripts for a while. So this was a pleasant surprise. Does that require a blog post? Yes of course. Because it started with some good indie cinema and then went on to bigger banners. It’s often hard to believe that large banners can roll out stories that are time pass yet get you feeling that ’something something’. (No I don’t mean the yellow mustard laced fields variety or recently the boarding school with rich kids kind). And with indie cinema you’ve come to expect serious stuff with little entertainment value.
But here I stand in October ‘12, with a bag of goodies that will…
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An outstanding Creator meets his Creator. Steve Jobs, iBidgoodbye but not quite yet.
iCried today. Rarely has a perfect stranger caught me off guard like this. Then I realized I wasn’t alone. Many more through scores of bytes zipping across the smallest & fattest pipes were expressing their deepest void like never before. It seemed like a favorite toy had been pulled away from us. We were adults for God’s sake. Then why was there such an outpouring of emotions? The last time I felt sadness (like real sadness for a stranger) of a different kind was when MJ moonwalked away.
This post is a short & sweet one. Much like what Steve did to the many contraptions in our lives. Made them short, sweet & simple. The many words of gratitude continue to flow & I paused for a few moments wondering why across the world,…
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Indian Cinema…riding a change of sensibilities? (A slice from the cinema pie by Sherly Mathew, Strategic Planner, L&K Mumbai)
As young pseudo intellectuals waiting to join an advertising institute, we arrived with a certain aura around us. Living up to the stereotype – a weird dressing sense, self-created jargons, anthems of a different kind (read GMD and Sutta), gyan - lots of gyan and of course love for music and movies. And this is where we also took a good hard look at cinema.
Ah! but here comes the disclaimer (I know it should logically come in the beginning but then, logic main woh magic kahan)
I am no cinema expert with intelligent sounding views. I was just fortunate to be taught by a brilliant professor who asked us to explore World cinema while appreciating Indian cinema. So what follows is my understanding/observation of what’s new and refreshing to see and be…
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Would you rather love me for 30 secs or a life time?
The debate on whether television and print as a medium is losing its status of Holy Grail in the advertising community, has been on for quite some time now. Industry pundits will throw stats at you (and I won’t) and passionately argue that India unlike the developed countries still nurses an appetite for 30 sec commercials and full page ads.
So marketers still pump in thousands of crores to get ‘eyeballs’. They believe a full page ad in The Times of India will be enough to get the ‘changing Indian woman’ (just dissected the day before in the ppt). 30 or 20 or 10 is really not the point – the secondage never was, question is: “is television enough to anchor your brand in the lives of consumers?”
Here’s my argument:
We live in…
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Is your creative brief tuned to creating brand wealth?
Pompous as it may sound, the start of any creative brief must state the business objective. If it doesn’t, junk it this very minute. Because it is the one point in the working of a communication company, where the business, strategic & creative disciplines meet on a common ground. And toppling the very reasons these silos were created I’d say that without due diligence done & respect given to the marketing ambition, these disciplines have no reason to exist.
As an extended arm of the marketing team and possibly as the truest custodian of the brand, communication partners need to re-consider their approach to the brand building process. All too often collaboration in its truest sense is missing. Which means inspiring market traction, cannot be the problem of one or two disciplines but all owners…
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Title titillation
There’s a reason I hate entering a movie theatre late. I’m a sucker for title sequences. While everybody is settling in, sending of one final text message (or even worse, bbm-ing), I’m staring fixated at the words and images blending together on the screen.
Draw inspiration from a movie? Of course. But from a title sequence?? Why not? A title sequence draws you into the film. It gives you a great preview of what’s in store. It’s the all-important start that gets you hooked from the first second…long before the actors, dialogues, screenplay, sfx, plot, subplot, twist, action and everything else grab you.
Here are a few examples of my favourite sequences and a little bit about why I love them.
Catch me if you can. A brilliantly animated sequence that doesn’t just capture the…
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Is longer really better? A ringside view by Charles Victor, NCD
Advertising and words – it was a love that seemed to last forever.
Then Mr. Jobs came along with a fancy looking machine and before you could type ‘double click’, young art students airbrushed away the written word from advertising.
Make no mistake; everyone (including my 89 year old great-grand aunt and myself) loves pictures. Especially if they tell us a clever story. And some of my favorite pieces of advertising include many such visual stories. Visual stories are great but their older counterparts have a magic that a picture can never perform.
The ‘no-copy’ ad doesn’t give me an alternative. It doesn’t let me complete the rest of the picture/story in my head. It doesn’t always let my imagination get involved in the piece of work. I see it, consume it and go ‘wow,…
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