Scene 1 , take 1....

While John Ford was directing a film for Sam Goldwyn, he fell one day behind the shooting schedule. Goldwyn came to the set and wondered what Ford was going to do to get back on schedule....

Ford asked, "Sam, how many pages a day do you expect me to shoot?"

"About five, I suppose," answered Goldwyn.

John Ford picked up the script, ripped five pages out and said, "Okay. .....Now we're back on schedule.....
***************************************************************

The heroine came late as usual for the shoot and the crew sat there waiting, with no complaints, and even if they had, with no one to hear, it was pointless.... The shoot was for the German Detergent powder TRIL which has Endura 007 ( Now don’t ask me what is that... no questions in stories...) and the heroine, half clad ( again no questions please... she is half clad, regardless of the fact that she is not going to bathe with the detergent but to wash, still have to be half clad and wet, as she is the heroine and was bought to Mumbai all the way from Chennai, (with the client paying through the nose..) will dip dip and dip a dirty cloth into a bucket of water made black and the cloth when lifted will shine – white and sparkling…

Ram was in his humorous best and hence was ok with the fact that the heroine was getting late .Even otherwise it wouldn’t have made much of a difference since Guru was away at the airport to pick up the heroine who was flying from Chennai . She would come, then check into her hotel room and then later come for the shoot. The location was in one corner of the city, the hotel in another area and the airport in some other place.. Mumbai traffic will derail all the plans and the heroine missed the first flight and was taking another flight that could accommodate her, her big mother and her personal make up women who also doubled up as her secretary and chief motivator.

Ram had his mobile singing loud…

Yes Guru tell me… he said

Ram ….. The flight is late… Guru shouted from the other end…. Air traffic congestion….

Not again… said Ram … and when man..? hello hello….

Guru went off air as suddenly as he came and Ram sat there thinking of the expenses that are going to mount up.

Green pepper productions were in charge of the shoot and production works.Ram had chosen them after various faux pas that he had done in the past with various production houses some his choice or the agencies, some the client’s persistence.

Tril had no such insistence except for the director who was of their choice and was a good choice one had to admit...

The phone rang again

Ram Ram…. She has come… shouted Guru..,,, what a beauty ram…. Drop dead gorgeous my gawd….

Shut up you asshole… blurted Ram ….and stop drooling.. come fast…

Come where?... asked Guru… she will go to her hotel now and then come.. You know what she asked me my name… I even told her that before she goes I need to take a pic with her…. and you know what ..she agreed… she even said MY Pleasure…. Ha ha ha … can you believe it?

LORD….. cried Ram…. I can’t believe this … you are true… I can't believe this.. why the hell am I tolerating you….

Ok ok… I know you are jealous…now wait ok…..don’t keep calling… we are going to the hotel and will be busy in chatting … TATA… said Guru as he disconnected the phone…

But… hey… Ram desperately hoped that the guy other side still was there…

All humour had evaporated… Ram stood there burning in the hot sun !!!

To be continued..............>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The Fun Gun !!!

A woman gets on a bus with her baby. The bus driver says: “That's the ugliest baby that I've ever seen. Ugh!” The woman goes to the rear of the bus and sits down, fuming. She says to a man next to her: “The driver just insulted me!”

The man says: “You go right up there and tell him off...give him what he deserves.. How dare he insults women..... – go ahead, I'll hold your monkey for you.” 

Happy weekend folks... !

Leo Burnett - Musically creative !!!

When a brand hunts for talent it becomes imperative that it appeals to the talent so much that he/she decides to jump in... and when an ad agency is the hunter in question, there opens a wide vista of creative scope... particularly when the agency is looking for creatives....Here in this ad by Leo , we see a musician arranging a table full of awards that Leo Burnett has won and fine tunes them to a perfect note using an iPhone app … Its  a self promo for  Leo-Budapest and is targeted at new creatives seeking employment... 

We are kinda musical agency ...and we need more instruments..... If you are interested to get some for us..... is what is said and how rightly and beautifully said !!!

If I were in Budapest, I would have applied with no shame even though I am nowhere and in no ways a creative.... Kudos for the idea which is simple, and execution which is brilliant  !

Credits & Description:

Advertising Agency: Leo Burnett Budapest, Hungary
Creative Director: Vilmos Farkas
Art Director: Miklos Voros
Copywriter: Mate Nagy
Director of Photography: Andras Szoke
Director: Peter Marton
Published: February 2011

Onida Mobiles - socially responsible !!!

"If you're on the phone, you're not watching the road.".....Loud an clear message ..aint it? ....The secret of great advertising is in its simplicity ... !

Credits & Description:

Advertising Agency: McCann Worldgroup, Mumbai, India
National Creative Director: Prasoon Joshi
Executive Creative Directors: Rahul Mathew, Akshay Kapnadak.
Creative Directors: Kapil Tammal, O.R. Radhakrishnan
Art Directors: Kapil Tammal, Pramod Chavan.
Copywriter: Rahul Mathew
Photographer: Loh lin shan, Michael Loh
Digital Retouching : ImageRom, Malaysia
Published: 2010

The Fun Gun !!!

A lady dies and goes to heaven.

She's chatting it up with St. Peter at the Pearly Gates when all of a
sudden she hears the most awful, blood curdling screams.

Don't worry about that,' says St. Peter, 'It's only someone having the
holes drilled into her shoulder blades for the wings.'

The lady looks a little uncomfortable but carries on with the
conversation. A few minutes later, there are more blood curdling
screams.

'Oh my Goodness,' says the lady, 'now what is happening?'

'Not to worry,' says St. Peter, 'She's just having her head drilled to
fit the halo.'

'I can't do this,' says the lady, 'I'm going to hell.'

'You can't go to that nasty place,' says St. Peter. 'You'll be raped
and taken advantage of.'

'Maybe so,' says the lady, but I've already got the holes for that.....


Now that is a real answer....... have fun folks... blast the week end.. !

Karbonn Mobile - Loud Nonsense !!!

After Akki spell off into that moronic laughter in that pest off an ad of Micromax, no other ad could piss me off this much as the new Karbonn ad …

KARBONN MOBILE - Loud music from seeflyingsaucer on Vimeo.

I can’t believe that this stuff is a creation from Ogilvy – the power house of creative brilliance. This is crap and pure nonsense conceived and produced by people who seem to have flushed their commonsense in the loo… and worse is the kind of Media spends that they are affording to spread the MESSAGE among the TG.

Why does a client require Ogilvy to churn out such an Ad? What is the message? What is the Idea all about?

Are they indeed advertising or trying to form a hate club?

Discredits: -

CLIENT: KARBONN MOBILE
AGENCY: O&M MUMBAI
CREATIVE: RAJIV RAO, NISHANT GOYAL
DIRECTOR: PUSHPENDRA MISRA
PRODUCTION HOUSE: FLYING SAUCER

Look at Me.. Look at Me... Please Look at Me.!!!

.The business of advertising is funny...(of course ,made so with the funny people that we have in abundance) it is about some how getting the attention of the mass and the crass, some how means some how...just make sure that the OTS happens, make sure that the brand and its message pass through and across the eyeballs and if possible the brains that are connected to the eyeballs...and on ground earth, where they fight out the war of clutter among all the dust and din and the sweat and blood and the corpses and the confusion, just a few survive and those who do, fall into the insecurity of the victor, and is always in a hurry to get new and become new.....

Just like the average models who do not think they are too skinny.....just like actors do not find themselves handsome enough.... just like the stars who claim not to know what all the fuss is about. Our crazy obsession with the perfected surface has become so absolute that everybody ends up having to work off some obscure psychic debt...

In our industry though, its proving to be for the good. Unless you become insecure and reinvent to be new and to be seen, advertising will not serve its very basic purpose and will not have the fun it was born along with....

This ad came in Business line some years back and in a lecture I used it as a good example of advertising strategy.. ..... I still use it to show that the right creative strategy married to the right media strategy makes a wonderful offspring named good advertising strategy... and this is a proof..Done by MC Saatchi for Jet airways ( in a category ,which in India, is suddenly cluttered and looking worse than a corpse ladden battle ground),it stood out and so well and did blend with the media, and with a graceful ease delivered the message.

and this, which struck me, is from an in flight magazine of Jet airways is an extension of the above idea but executed with charm and creativity... just see it..

The first one is a Dutch gate-fold, and when you open the fold comes the space, which is the selling point... Brilliant in conception but what is more heartening is the successful coming together of the creatives and the media !!!

The Fun Gun!!!

Another great creation by : BBH London for the now popular ( thanks to this granny ad) st johns eye care centre...

No reviews, just fun.. Have a great time folks...

Acme fitness - fun & fitness !

I have been an ardent animation& cartoon enthusiast ever since I got some sense of my own… While in advertising too animation could seize my imagination and keep me there. But then my school of thought remained mine and not many joined it.... but then that was THEN...

Over the decades but this amazingly varied and vibrant medium has progressed from an inconsequential tool aimed at engaging children tired after school (and on dull Sunday mornings) into a  source of power that has connected civilizations, enthralled scores and generations of people of all economic levels . ( I still watch a Tom & Jerry show over any other show ,given a choice !)

My beloved Industry still keeps a taboo over using of animation as an execution strategy and it still remains a under utilised tool reserved for cereal commercials and some (very few)other segments of the children’s market. This is not said forgetting the great mascots that advertising has produced (Captain Crunch, Tony the Tiger and The Jolly Green Giant, The Simpsons (Domino Pizza, MasterCard etc), Wallace and Gromit (Renault Kangaroo)…not to forget our own gattu of Asian paints and the omnipresent Zoo Zoo …. the list is endless. But then they were all mascots and very rarely became an execution platform…

Now at this juncture is what I saw this ad from ACME fitness which is direct, funny (just because it uses animation) and hitting the target right there at the weakest touch point…

Animation, with a fine dosage of humour and a compelling theme can give a brand and its agency inestimable creative and communicative powers .....It can bring to life images and ideas that can reach the TG and make waves. It could be used to say stuff which couldn’t be that easily said otherwise- exercise improves ‘performance’ said using any other execution platform would have been sexist, animation saved it…

 

To sum up, ACME is in the right path of advertising and if the platform is maintained and new variants of the same idea brought up, the brand is here to make waves in its category !!!

Kudos to Salt Chennai ( the creators - little is known about the guys though) and Mediaedge:cia for the right piece of work... !!!

Ritz & Beat - selling life !!!

‘How many moments have you lived’ is the question asked here and it makes one ponder.. I liked the ad for the simple fact that after a long time here is a car ad that shows the small and happily family in their car, enjoying their world…since mid December it’s going the rounds and is contributing immensely to the sales of Ritz which is a good car and hence this simple and beautiful ad looks so believable and real.

‘Plan ahead’ is what the Chevy beat has to say in this ad which looks like the mirror image of the Ritz one. Life and its living moments is the theme in both and hence the similarity, may be. That is ,seeing it from the view point of a simple family man, who bought his new car just a month back (not a Ritz or a Beat to make a confession!).

Such communication makes a lot of difference. Buyers when deciding to buy a car – choosing between A brand and B brand, may not take an ad seriously for information. This is because ads are the purest form of commercial sources of information. But a good ad, such as these can help the brand in climbing the ladder of recall and taking to brand into the buyers consideration set. If an ad does at least that, its purpose is done.

The review of Ritz and Beat as Cars is better left to the auto experts but the ads are striking, positive, simple and sweet!!!

Cheers!!!