Why are you into Advertising?
One strong reason could be that it’s not rocket science.
Because I hated Physics even though I took science stream to please my parents, neighbours and pretty girls who thought arts stream was a waste bin for rejected rouges.
Somewhere I think God silently guides you to where you want to go.
And then coming from a defense back ground, I didn’t want to wear uniforms, bother about haircuts, and salute somebody only because of seniority and rather than out of respect or the persons’ merit.
From the very beginning I knew what I was good at and more importantly, what I was not good at.
Once I even asked my mathematics teacher where we would be using calculus in real life and all she said was, it’s in the syllabus, so just pay attention.
I used to sketch and paint well; I used to write poems from a very young age and was very active on stage as well. So the only place I thought where I could utilize all my talents without sacrificing or compromising on another talent would be advertising.
And I am one of those few lucky people who get paid for having fun with my hobbies.
I eat, drink, make merry and money.
And believe me, it’s been a wonderful journey so far.
Did you attend school for fine art or design or Communications??
I was not fortunate enough to get into an Art College, even though I tried my luck 3 times .
For Chandigarh College of Art. Three years in a row but didn’t get beyond shortlist.
Then I used my writer’s card to get an entry into the world of advertising.
And kept painting to keep the hobby alive.
But then life teaches you so many wonderful lessons, and if you are an honest student, you can excel on your own, and without having a certificate from an institution.
Tell us about your most recent campaign?
The last campaign that I did for McCann was for PSI, Population Services International for EDP (Early Detection Of Pregnancy) which went on air last week.
It’s all about empowering women and giving them the right to live their life on their own terms without compromising on their freedom. It’s about how life can still be in their control even after they miss a chance in life.
Were there any particular role models for you when you grew up?
There were not one but many. From Sunil Gavaskar, Ian Bothom, Vivian Richards, Steffi Graff, Martina Navratilova, Amitabh Bachhan, Imran khan, Rajani and Lalitaji(The TV Stars), Alyque Padamsee, Michel Jackson, Mohammad Ali, Maradona, Carl Lewis, Satyajit Ray,Spielberg, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Mohanlal, PT Usha to Safdar Hashmi to name a few.
Role models are ones who you look up to and motivate you through their perseverance, performance and personality.
You would not want to be what they are but you love them for their passion and dedication towards their goal.
Who was the most influential personality on your career in Advertising???
I would like to specially mention Raghu Bhat, whom I met in the beginning of my career some 16 years back in Delhi Clarion. He has been a friend, philosopher and guide throughout.
I also worked with Raghu–Manish at McCann, Mumbai.
Then Kaustav Niyogi (Kosty), from McCann Delhi under whom I worked for 2 years,
and of course Prasoon Joshi who is an institution in himself, with whom I worked for 7 years.
Where do you get your inspiration from???
Inspiration comes in many forms, from many directions.
Your eyes, your nose, your ears are all receivers. You have to keep them alert every time.
Nature, Culture, Religion, Life, Art, People, Silence, Organism, Space they all inspire me.
Advertising should be a product of everything that you are surrounded with.
A reflection of the society. A projection of insights.
An exaggeration of beautiful thoughts.
Do you have any kind of a program to nurture and train young talent?
The best way to nurture and train young talent is to guide them on a daily basis, while you are still working with them.
Because nurturing cannot be a 4 day program. The lessons from a workshop end where they take place if it is not carried back to the cubicles and cabins.
And whoever come to be for any guidance or help, I extend my whole hearted cooperation.
I want to meet them like the good people I met during my struggling days rather than like people who found faults and discouraged me.
Tell us something about the McCann Environment.
Rich and Lively. It was a privilege to work under the leadership of Prasoon Joshi. The environment was always brimming with brilliant ideas with young and energetic team around. Out there, there was a thin line between strategic and creative thinking and everyone worked as a team rather than different departments.
Tell us about your biggest challenge as the Creative Director.
To assemble and build a team that is more like a family.
To motivate them, inspire them, console them and nurture them like a gardener.
To make sure that there is no scope for mediocrity, and not to tolerate indiscipline.
Give the freedom to make mistakes so that what you finally arrive at is a piece of gem.
To decipher a brief and explain it to the team in the most sensible and uncomplicated manner so that they can focus their mind to come up with the right solution rather than getting trapped in the web of jargons.
Then guide them in ideation to execution.
To identify the right spark and then convert it to a bushfire.
Tell us about your 1st job as a Creative Director in advertising.
It’s very tough thing because when you are working on so many brands at the same time , there are no firsts…as they don’t happen in a chronological manner. But I remember my major work as a Creative Director was on Onida, where we decided to bid goodbye to the Devil that was associated with the brand for around 20 years and repositioned the brand.
Do you think brands whose advertising wins awards, do well in the market?
Of course, they do. Because the jury who decides the awards, are the same people who would have spent their entire life creating big brands and they probably won’t go wrong. They look at the merit of the idea and not just the execution.
In fact it’s the brand that does well in the market win awards.
Obviously, it also varies from awards to awards. There are effectiveness awards, creative awards and media awards. And every award has its own criteria.
I would say a brand doing well in the market by itself is an award.
What advice do you have for aspiring creative professionals??
Advertising is a serious business, and it is great fun if you understand the seriousness involved. It’s a 24/7 job. If you are not addicted, passionate, ready to meet deadlines as if you’re meeting your lover, love working under pressure as if playing angry birds sitting on your pot, if you can’t take rejections in your stride and bounce back, you should stay away.
Not every piece of work you come up with will end up as landmark campaign. Many will go straight to the bins and very few see the light of the day. So, think that every time you fall in love in the day, it might just end up as a one night stand.
So enjoy those few moments before getting dumped.
Learn to enjoy the journey and you will realize that it takes many short journeys before you arrive at the destination.
Would you like to tell us something about your upcoming campaigns?
Right now I’m on a sabbatical. Just finished working on a script for a feature film and it’ll go on floor in September. It’s a romantic comedy
Who would you like to take out for dinner?
I would have liked to take Mother Teresa out for dinner. She would have taught me how much to consume without wasting food while there are lakhs of children going to bed empty stomach every night. A dinner over an enlightening conversation.
But that would be after I have had lunch with Penelope Cruz
What’s on your iPod?
For me music is freedom. And I can enjoy music only if it is mixed with pure air, float in the fragrance of my surroundings, and blend with the ambience before touching my soul. I don’t like it trapped in a wire and getting stuffed into my ears.
My iPod Touch is for my daughter to play games. To keep her away from the imported Chinese cartoon characters.
Mac or PC??
It’s what I do with them makes a Mac or a PC, what they are. Content is king and they are just electronic slaves. I’m happy with either or neither. I need them when I want them.
Anil started his advertising career close to 18 years ago and has worked with agencies such as Leo Burnett, Enterprise Nexus, Ambience Publicis, SSC&B Lintas and Percept Hakuhodo. Along the way, he has helped build brands such as Canon, Panasonic, Pantaloon, Taj Hotels, FedEx, Killer Jeans, Westside, Raymond, Siyaram, The Times Of India, Femina, The Economic Times, Brand Equity, Indiatimes.com, Pierre Cardin, Thums Up, Lakme, Vicks, Nerolac Paints, Park Avenue, to name a few. Anil’s work has been featured in several award shows and advertising festivals. His work for The Times Of India was the first Indian campaign to have won the Campaign of the Year award at the Asia Pacific Adfest; the campaign also picked up the same award at the Abby Awards. His work for Vladivar Vodka and Georgia Gullini clothing was showcased in the international Archive magazine. At SSC&B, Anil’s creative work helped the agency win the ‘Most improved agency of the year’ title, moving up from Rank 52 to Rank 18 in less than a year, within the Lowe network. As Bombay Creative Head at Percept, his work helped the agency garner more than 40 awards over a span of 2 years. Anil has been a member of the jury at the New York Festivals, Goafest and the Outdoor Advertising Awards. Anil regularly contributes articles to FHM magazine and is also working on his first fiction novel.
Why are you into advertising?
When I was a kid, my father owned an ad agency. Back then, there were no computers and he used to manually cut typefaces printed on bromides. He used to cut it very carefully, with a pair of scissors set the type for each ad with his own hands. As a teenager, I couldn’t help but get fascinated by the whole process. Often, I used to help him source typefaces from Letraset and various international magazines and I think that exposed me to the wonder of advertising; unknowingly, it helped me find beauty in typography, writing and art. Thanks to him, I could tell a Bodoni from a Futura, while I was still in school. In retrospect, this went a long way in defining the future. As it turned out, a few years later, my father got a job and so we had to move out and I found myself in Bombay and that marked the turning point of my life. I remember, a long, long time ago, while I was still wet behind the ears, I visited the CAG exhibition where I happened to see the Mauritius Tourism campaign and an electric sort of feeling ran through my spine and that was when I decided, I should be in advertising.
Did you attend school for fine art or design or Communications?
I did a Copywriting Course from AAAI and yes, I even graduated from the Mohammed Khan School of Advertising.
With your busy schedule as an ECD, do you have enough time left to indulge in Creative?
I follow a hands-on approach to work. I believe it’s the only way to stay focused on the creative output and the only way to keep your work fresh and contemporary. I’d be restless if I didn’t do at least an ad a week.
Were there any particular role models for you when you grew up?
I’ve had no role models but I’ve certainly had the good fortune of meeting and working with a whole lot of wonderful and incredibly talented people. Some of them include Mohammed Khan, Rajiv Agarwal, Sharmeen Mitha, Arun Kale, Agnello Dias, Ajay Chandwani, Elsie Nanji, K V Sridhar, Prashant Godbole, Zarvan Patel, Anand Halve and Vikram Gaikwad, among many others. Since I spent years working with these people, it’s quite obvious that they’ve had an impact on my work.
Who was the most influential personality on your career in Advertising?
Mohammed Khan. Without a doubt, he’s still the greatest Creative Director India has ever had. He’s easily the most honest, the most stylish, the most awe-inspiring and the most passionate advertising person I have ever met. I wish life had a rewind button and I could simply go back to the years I spent in Enterprise. Why can’t we have more creative directors like him?
Where do you get your inspiration from?
Arty museums, seedy bars, twitter, wikipedia, coffee shops, wherever I can get it from.
Tell us something about the work environment at Percept.
Percept has had a unique culture and a unique way of working. Since I had moved to Percept with my earlier boss, Ajay Chandwani, I found it a lot easier to bring in a creative culture, so to speak. We had a lot of fun producing some good work, some of which went on to win prestigious awards at Goafest, New York Festivals, Graphis and Montreux. It was quite exciting being part of the transformation, since it was the first time Percept had won so many awards.
Do you have any kind of a program to nurture and train young talent?
Percept does have knowledge sharing sessions every weekend, wherein renowned professionals are invited from the industry to share their knowledge and help train young talent.
What about new and young film makers/photographers? Do you consciously keep looking for newer talent and try someone completely new?
It depends on the nature of the project and the skill-sets required to execute the job. Obviously, the creative output is sacrosanct and if someone younger can bring more value to the table, I’ll be open to it.
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? Is it because TV creative (after the script of course) is outsourced to a production house?
I think it’s really sad to see print and particularly, writing for print, die in this country. It’s equally sad to see the younger lot ignoring print completely. There was a time when we used to fight among each other to work on a print campaign, but quite apparently, all that is now history. I think it’s bullshit when they say people don’t have the time to read, I think the real reason is that quite evidently, most writers are not writing any more and most planners and juries are not supporting writing any more. A premier Indian newspaper supplement once carried an article titled ‘The Death of Copy’. Ironically, the article was over 600 words in length. The article contradicted the very premise it was based on; that people don’t read any more. Last I checked, newspapers were still on the stands, blogs are gaining more importance and we see more and more bookstores than ever. The fact is, when you write copy that is relevant and intriguing, people will read it; when you have fun writing an ad, someone out there will have fun reading it.
About 12 years ago, all IIM and other B-School grads had advertising as their first choice of career option. Today it does not even feature in the list. How does that reflect in the quality of non-creatives in the industry? Is that one reason why the current print work sucks?
Great advertising is born out of a collaboration between a business insight and a disruptive idea. Obviously, it would be horribly wrong to have one without the other; that would most definitely affect the quality of any creative work and not just print alone. Now, more than ever, this industry needs as many bright thinkers as it can get.
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?
On the contrary, it’s helped push the envelope. It’s always good to have young, web savvy creative talent around, considering it’s common knowledge that the internet will gain even more ground as a medium, in the days to come. It’s also refreshing to see so many creative people start out independently. I firmly believe the next big creative revolution will be digitized and more often than not, the big ideas will come from
independent creative hotshops. Traditional advertising and beliefs will undergo a massive transformation and it will be exciting to witness a paradigm shift.
Do you think brands whose advertising wins awards do well in the market?
Without a doubt. According to The Gunn Report, more than 70% of the brands which win awards go on not just meet, but exceed sales targets. Advertising which wins awards obviously stands head and shoulders above the ones which don’t, and therefore gets noticed better and therefore, results in sales. It’s quite simple, really.
What advice do you have for aspiring creative professionals?
Stay hungry. Stay foolish. Never, ever waste money on an expensive portfolio case;
all your employer cares about is what’s inside.
What is your dream project?
To work on a campaign for Volkswagen.
Mac or PC?
Mac. Dead argument, innit?
Who would you like to take out for dinner?
Salman Rushdie. He’s got to be the most fascinating man on earth.
What’s on your iPod?
Jack Johnson, Pearl Jam, One Republic, The Fray, GMS and good ole’ Pink Floyd.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
