All the world's a chess board

23rd February was a wonderful day. I played garden chess with my 16 month old daughter and my wife this morning. She loved being one of the pawns (and knocking over the other pawns). Chess to her was war on a board.

And using the analogies of aggression, advertising (the field I work in) is war.  Every agency's games are changing every day; with new people, new approaches, new tools, new innovations. 

How often have you come up with an idea that is absolutely brilliant, unique and never-seen-before? It makes you dream of fame and fortune, of awards and worldwide glory. But, before you know it, someone else makes it, PRs it all around the world and quite simply, checkmates you. You then need to restart your game.

How often have you created a brilliant idea but felt you hadn't promoted it enough to catch people's eyes? It gets acknowledged but never gets famous; while you curse your luck when another less-deserving idea gets shared by everyone in the region and across the world, wins lots of awards and acclaim; leaving you even more disheartened.

If the above two questions have any learnings for me, they are about:
1 / Be ahead of the game and make the move before someone else does
2 / Make sure your move is witnessed and observed by everyone who matters

The board has been set for quite a while now. And the pieces are moving really fast. It's time to make your move before others do. And you'd better make it count!

Intent is not enough; you have to MAKE it happen

Here's a fantastic war movie scene that has been show using 3 people and 1 camera and a few hundred dollars, over 4 days. 

Big ideas are possible. Only if we choose to make them happen. 

Check out this ingenious video to know how!

As Nike almost said, "Just get up, stop emailing and freakin' get it done". 

Intent is not enough. 

From a male planner: Pink is not a strategy

When asked, "How do we target our female consumers?”, I often reply, "We don't".

You don’t need a herPod, when the iPod suits her just fine. But brands like BIC who market pens made just ‘For Her’ (in stereotypical pink and purple colours) get skewered by the very audience they failed to identify. Brands need to look beyond gender, put aside the lens of research data and build their brands from the lens of the individual. Pink, is not a strategy.

So whether you’re a man discovering a woman’s complex, non-linear thinking pattern (like you attempt to everyday with your mother, partner, sister, friends, co-workers…) or a woman digging for insights she is naturally attuned to, the fundamental truth of consumer behavior prevails. In my humble, albeit male-skewed opinion, you don’t have to BE your audience as long as you UNDERSTAND your audience.

Uncovering a different kind of veil that's put on Saudi women

How often have we heard, “the Saudi woman experiences no independence or empowerment” or “the Saudi woman is a ‘captive’ without opinion or rights” or “the best job a Saudi woman does is that of a mother”?

Let’s uncover the veil of myths that we, as marketers, put on Saudi women.

If we step out of our conservative outlook, we’ll see them thrive. Saudi businesswomen possess more than 45 billion SR in savings and 8 billion SR in investments. Real estate investments amount to nearly 120 billion SR and women own 40% of family-run companies in the country. A few years back, we would have never imagined Saudi women to be a lawyers, singers, filmmakers, or basketball players. But, these are realities today.

Just like every other woman in the world, they can actually maintain their last name after marriage. And they too obtain all rights after divorce including child custody and alimony.

Every country has its restrictions. As long as women in Saudi Arabia thrive in the spirit of ‘empowerment’ that is pertinent to them, that’s all that should matter.

There are many more myths surrounding women in the country… and the truths too. And it is our job, as marketers, to find those truths about their lives and how we can help further the positive changes, in a culturally positive way. Because as Bob Dylan said, “…you better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone, for the times they are a-changing.”

The future of advertising

While entering the One Show Advertising and Design Awards this year, I chanced upon this quote by Kevin Swanepoel, President of The One Club:  "Over the past few years we have seen a trend increasing, agencies are also creating digital and physical products as well as services and software for brands. This trend, lead to the formation of [the Intellectual Property & Products] category."

The future of advertising is here. And we, as ad men and women, need to wake up.

Let's create real digital and physical products for our brands in our pitches, in our proactive work and in our everyday work. Let's get involved in their R&D.

It's about cars; not faster horses.

Backing yourself

Four years ago, Brian Acton was looking for a job.

His job at Yahoo, where he’d filled many engineering roles over 11 years, had come to an end.


He was networking with recruiters:



He met with Twitter. Twitter said no:


He met with Facebook. Facebook said no:

So he and Jan Koum, a colleague from Yahoo, set out to do their own thing.

Today, they sold that thing to Facebook for 19 billion dollars.

Never give up!

(Source: Techcrunch.com)

Being generous with development

I came across a quote on LinkedIn the other day about a conversation between a CFO and a great CEO. It went something like this... The CFO asks the CEO: "What happens if we invest in developing our people & then they leave us?" And the CEO replies: '"What happens if they don't?"

We live in such a competitive and selfish culture in today's world, that most of us refuse to be generous with the ones we mentor and lead. Looking at those around us who follow the company-hopping philosophy unashamedly, we have been programmed to believe that we live in a culture that punishes us for being nurturing towards our teams. Young talent loves trainings, loves travelling and meeting new minds from around the world, loves shining at these trainings; it's one of the best forms of motivation and employee retention. Contrary to what most believe.

How about we change the way we look at talent and create a culture that pushes each one of us to be thankful, loving and more generous to their needs for development and belonging. 

On passwords...

"Through 20 years of effort, we've successfully trained everyone to use passwords that are hard for humans to remember, but easy for computers to guess."

Source: https://xkcd.com/936/

How a space mission can inspire us about executing our ideas

India recently launched the Mangalyaan mission to Mars for $75 million (3/4ths the cost of the movie "Gravity"). 

NASA has also recently launched its own Mars mission, five years in the making for a cost of $671 million. 

Both have the same mission. The same equipment; with the cheaper one, in fact, focused more on innovation than the expensive one. And being a closet astronaut, it's functions seem more driven to yield amazing discoveries.

The article below delves into an interesting analogy when it comes to advertising - to big/complex ideas being made to happen with potentially the same result, in an inexpensive and more innovative manner. We often lose big/game-changing ideas, because they are simply too "expensive" or "tough to build".

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/science/For-India-even-a-trip-to-Mars-wont-break-the-bank/articleshow/30613861.cms?intenttarget=no

Worth a read and a remember!

The Garage / Rules every team should play by

Obsession vs. Perseverance

"Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success." - Swami Vivekananda

The finest trick of the devil is to persuade you that he does not exist (Charles Baudelaire)

We, the magicians who conjure up strategies for our brands, must learn as well as propagate the art of making what we do (everyday) nearly invisible - for that is when we really take form and get noticed.

A big paradox of good advertising, as someone once said, is that there's always a very smart and well-thought-out strategy behind genius ideas, but the awesome idea that everyone falls in love with, itself feels so spontaneous that you assume there is no strategy at all.