BRAToSPHERE

Tag: advertising

  • Pandeymonium – Book Review

    What name comes to the mind when someone mentions Indian Advertising? Piyush Pandey. The award winning head of Ogilvy and Mather and now the recipient of the PadmaShri, Piyushhas proven again and again that he is the go-to person for ideas and fresh thinking.

    The book begins with a song, in a typical piyush style, and starts right from his early school days in a hilly northern indian place to his rise in the advertising world. The book talks about his roots, how these roots helped him develop the wings and his eventual rise.

    The book is written by Anant Rangaswami and in the very beginning it is mentioned how after a lot of convincing and a couple of weeks of solitude in Goa, the book turned into reality.

    The narration of the book is simple and makes the reader feel like he himself is there in the scene as a mute spectator. The events come out live and being from the same industry, most of the situations elaborated here are pretty everyday scenario’s.

    One quality of Piyush that stands out throughout the book is his candid confession again and again that most of his ideas are directly lifted from the happenings around him. Be it his wife Nita, or his father for the fevicol ad. Makes one think that every small incident that has ever occurred in our lives probably comes back in some way given that we retrieve it from our memory at the right time.

    Though touched in a short chapter, the section on the importance of research in creating advertising excited me the most. Piyush hits the cat’s bell when he says, “If you ask stupid questions, you would get stupid answers” pertaining to consumer research. At the same time, without brandishing research at all, he reiterates its importance but stresses on the need to evolve the methods. I am sure many readers would wish there was more on this here.

    Also, Piyush has been known in the industry for this, and the book only proves it again – give credit where due. Right through the book there are references to countless people for each of the campaign that shows the right team spirit expected from a leader.

    There are places in the book where it feels like a PR machine for O&M, the agency that Piyush has been associated with forever. Also, somewhere the entire book feels like an acknowledgement section or a literal version of an awards acceptance speech. I guess with multiple decades of work being described in a book, such pitfalls tend to become unavoidable.

    Overall, the book is like a face to face interaction with the man himself and is a must read for anyone with the faintest interest in advertising in India.

  • Konjo – Book Review

    Recently while browsing a book store, I stumbled upon this book with a weird name which immediately attracted my attention. The subject seemed interesting and relevant, and I ended up buying the book then and there.

    Konjo, which in Japanese means – “The Fighting Spirit”, is the story of Dentsu’s entry into India and is written by Sandeep Goyal, the person who got Dentsu to India.

    The book is in a chronicle format detailing the author’s life from the point where he quit Zee, to heading and making Dentsu a formidable advertising Agency in the Indian Industry.

    Goyal is not one to forgive, and at no point does he mince words or not mention names. He is brutal and honest in recalling incidents. Like the time where he mentions wanting to slap the CEO of a prominent agency, or accusing an insurance firm of using a tag line created by his agency much after their association was cut. He is honest to the point of embarrassment.

    At the same time, it is not a “unleash my grudge” kind of book, and the author details out the entire ardous journey of him convincing the Japanese of why he is the most suited person to mantle Dentsu in India. The process of setting up a winning team, and the many snippets and anecdotes of various pitches and campaigns during the crazy years in Dentsu makes this book an interesting read.

    it provides a good insight on the ways of working of the Japanese, and the subtle cross cultural differences that need to be kept in mind during interaction with them.

    It also has some hilarious short anecdotes like the one where Sandeep was regarded as a very rich person in Japan Dentsu office as he had served Mangoes to his Japanese guests during Dinner. Or the incident where the entire Dentsu mechanism got into chaos looking for a missing Japanese employee, who was later found to have locked himself up in his room watching TV!

    After selling his partnership back to Dentsu, and making a lot of money in the process, Sandeep is now left with enough free time to pursue his many interests. He is now writing a PhD thesis on “Human Brands”, is involved with a food channel and dabbles in other interesting stuff. After reading the book, I am now curious to read his other book – “The Dum Dum Bullet”. A must for someone curious about the Indian Advertising Industry.