BRAToSPHERE

Tag: sandeep

  • The Dum Dum Bullet – Book Review

    After reading Konjo, by Sandeep Goyal, I was instantly curious to read up his previous book – The Dum Dum Bullet. I laid my hands on it recently and finished it within a week.

    The name of the book is from the bullet factory at DumDum Arsenal near Calcutta, where the author equates life in corporate to a bullet. The tagline of the book states – “Adventures of a corporate soldier” and who better than Sandeep to recount his adventures.

    Sandeep is the founding chairman of Dentsu India Group and was the CEO at Zee. Prior to this he served as the president of ad agency Rediffusion DY&R at a young ripe age of 35 itself.

    The book recounts an insider’s view of the dynamic advertising world in India through the 80’s to the 21st century. It is a real life account of life in advertising, and has an anecdotal style told in a humorous fashion. It has real life incidents involving many corporate doyens from Anil Ambani and Sunil Bharti Mittal and corporate ranging from Citibank to Bhutan Board.

    The book gives a biographical feel, where the author recounts incidents and learnings right from his days as a management trainee in a paint company in the hiterlands of Rajasthan to his rise in the corporate world.

    Throughout the book Sandeep’s perseverance, his quick thinking and his fresh ideas come across. Right from the instance in Nerolac Paints, where a Calendar for the dealers was part of the annual marketing expense. Sandeep suggests shooting hot models on the calendar with Nerolac branding and personalizes it for the dealers with their names on it. The dealers now were purchasing the calendars in hordes as a gift item to their customers. An Expense item was now a sales item, with a much higher reach in terms of branding.

    Such simple ideas and wonderful execution is what set apart Sandeep from others.

    The book is a wonderful easy read for anyone interested in the basic working of corporate India, and especially the advertising industry.

  • 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.