Hasta La Creative!

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Dharmesh Shah is a Creative Director at Draft FCB Ulka, Bangalore

Why are you into Advertising?
I am a trained diamond grader, have learnt jewelery manufacturing, tried selling/marketing diamond jewelery. I joined a science college to become an engineer. I don’t think I can do anything else.

Did you attend school for fine art or design or Communications?
No. I did my b.Com from Bhavan’s Andheri- Mumbai. Then a one year course in advertising by Noorul Islam.

Were there any particular role models for you when you grew up?
Kapil Dev.

Who was the most influential personality on your career in Advertising?
Can’t name one. I read a lot about David Ogilvy and Bill Bernbach before I joined Advertising. In my career though, Chax has been a big influence. 

Where do you get your inspiration from?
Everything. I am big copycat. Everyday life gives you so much to use.

Tell us something about the work environment at Draft Bangalore.
I have never seen anyone really do work here. Yet we end up doing a lot of work. I wonder how.

How do you think Advertising should move into a new age with severely segmented media, short attention spans and declining print and TV viewership amongst the young?
We have to move from loud and in-your-face to subtle and less intrusive. Media segmentation is one problem. Larger concern is people hate advertising. When I was growing up advertising was fun to watch, sing along, remember and talk about…if we can achieve that again…tv, print, internet or outdoor is just means to reach. If people like us they will hear and see us.

Do you have any kind of a program to nurture and train young talent? 
Yes we do. We have Star One. It is the only program in the industry today that inducts creative as well as account management and media trainees in the a real way. It is a two month process that teaches you what colleges and management institutes do not.

What do you think of the state of Print advertising right now. At least here in India, the released work is most often too sad? Why do you think it has lost the shine? Why are the younger lot more interested in TV? 
I think I have partly answered this above. It will take a while before print gets better. I do not like the way our industry, especially the seniors around look at the decline of print and sort of blame it on youngsters. The fact is we live in a country where we are selling to a major illiterate population or people who do not read even if they are literate. Kids grow up watching television and make their choices based on what they see. Written content in general is poor. I hate reading the newspaper for the sheer bad quality of news and journalism. So why will I read ads or rather where will I read ads. Also visuals stories reach more people irrespective of language/region. So we all watch tv. So there are more tv ads.  So why complain?

More and more young people are web savvy and want to work on the internet or on more entrepreneurial ventures. Has that affected the quality of people advertising has been getting?
To a certain extent this is perception. The numbers really are not that large. More people talk internet than actually living it. Also internet/web is really restricted to FB or youtube. How many of us use internet beyond that? The entrepreneurial ventures yes, but for every one online venture that succeeds…how many fail to even take off?

Do you think brands whose advertising wins awards, do well in the market?
No always.

What advice do you have for aspiring creative professionals? 
Know what you are good at and what you want. Do not join advertising because you want to become a lyricist in Bollywood and need a job to sustain while you struggle. Or you want to become an artist but no one would buy your stuff.

What is your dream project?
Where the client is willing to use common sense and not common knowledge.Where ideas are need not be restricted to certain individuals’ sensibilities. Powerful ideas are judged by powerful minds.

Mac or PC?
PC.

Who would you like to take out for dinner?
My wife.

What’s on your iPod?
Sa Trincha, AR Rahman, Amit Trivedi, Gregorian Chants, Bhimsen Joshi, KishoriAmonkar, Anoushka and Ravi Shankar and a lot of fusion stuff from Talvin Singh, Zakiretc

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