Glorified Peons??!! The challenge is tough…

Every account manager has come across this phrase at some point or the other. There are times it feels really thankless but you got to work towards making the difference I believe, and that’s what differentiates you and prevents you from being called a glorified peon.

Unlike a person in the creative department whose nature of work naturally gives his image an edge, the profile of account managers especially at junior levels is such that people automatically tend to refer to you as peons, unless you add that big extra bit to your work.
So, it’s the profile not me…(That makes me feel better).

I hate it most when people refer to Account Management as Servicing. It makes me feel like an A.C. servicing guy who visits us to find out if all’s working fine.

Question is how do you add that extra bit to all accounts? Not all clients are interested in proactive presentations which have often been referred to as gyan. End of the day a client is happy with more and more and more options of layouts. There are times they don’t even want the explanation with the creatives we present. Although they have a strong logic there, that they don’t present explanations and rationales to our consumers when they view an ad.

So what more? When I come across ads or news articles of competition then at best I scan them and pass it on to my senior. I am often confused does the client appreciate receiving a scanned copy of what competition is up to. Wouldn’t he think I know my category the best and I do keep a track of what’s happening… Confusion again!

I always wonder why aren’t there awards for the best account manager of the year, award for the most patient account manager of the year, award for the most organized account manager of the year and the like…Or do they exist?

That one boat ride...

Growing up outside Kolkata, I have never really been exposed to the Bengali culture completely. Off late, strangely I find myself quite fascinated with folk songs, baul and the like. I pine for a boat ride at dawn.

A time when most of us are fast asleep. The shutters are down. All you hear are the birds and may be the cycle bell of a newspaper or a milk vendor. It’s a lovely sight when you get to see the day break. That’s when I wish for a boat ride.

The boat rider will be gentle while asking me to make myself comfortable and address me as didimuni. (Unlike the grumpy cab or auto drivers, I start my day with). He will ask me, didmuni theek kore dhorey boshechen toh? (Didimuni, hope you are holding on). From a distant I wish to hear a placid and a faint baul song. (Quite like an old Bengali film).

The Baul song will talk about how we all think of the uncertainties in our life, not get answers to the same and move on expecting the desirable. It will talk about the positive energy and how there are good things, good people, good deeds still happening in this big bad world. (don't know if there's a song like this. If I were a lyricist, would write a song like this).

The boat will sail closer to the hanging branches of trees full of chirping birds on them. I wish to listen to it while I am sailing through. It will be almost like sailing though the ups and downs of my life in that one boat ride.

Stayin' Alive

I believe there are 2 kinds of bloggers -
The habitual ones, the other (very few I suppose) are those who blog only when there’s something that has probably made some difference to their daily life, needless to say I belong to the latter.

Life has got so numb that most of the things around us tend to go unnoticed. But guess to keep our souls alive, we really need to condition ourselves in a way where our surroundings touch us in some way. Else the numbness is fast spreading and each of us will end up cocooned in our own mind space.

It feels nice to observe things happening around, the smaller bits building our daily lives. It’s a breath of fresh air in our overcrowded clustered minds.

The Shinchan in her

Chit chats in office are my favourite. It gives me the zeal to get back to my workstation.

The other day a friend of mine came to me and we actually started with discussing one of our brands. A dummy was kept aside that reminded her of how as a kid in school she was taught to make a drum (dhaak).

Then she went onto telling me a series of incidents from her childhood. Frankly I found them hilarious. Her family members would literally tear their hair when my friend would go around the house beating the drum she made herself. (…it’s like literally beating her own drum!)

She observed exactly how her grandfather would lie on the bed for a nap in the afternoon. She would go and stick a chewing gum exactly at that position. When her grandfather would get up in the evening he actually would get up with the entire bed cover stuck onto him.

Sitting next to him watching TV she would suddenly pour chilled water on her grandfather’s lap from a bottle she had been holding on for some time.

The most hilarious thing I found was when she said as a kid she was quite short and she found the cows in her backyard quite scary when she stood in front of them. Once when she was up to her usual mischief her mother picked her up and put her in the tub from which a cow eats. Finding a kid in the tub instead of his usual food the cow found it quite strange which got it closer to her. She said it was a horrifying experience for her to see the cow’s head bending towards her with its jaws moving up and down.

Listening to her I now miss being a naughty kid. It’s fun being mischievous I am sure. it's fun being a Shinchan at heart!

Always on a lookout

Off late I was getting a headache every evening. After procrastinating for long I finally decided to visit the doc. With every lens the doc slipped into the frame for checking I confused him more and more with what my actual reading was.
I got so fed up with it that I started mugging up the letters they would ask me to look from at a distance and read. The doc would call his assistant and shout at her as to how every time she is giving a different reading to the doc. So I finally decided to cooperate and the doc told me I have cylindrical power.
I got my glasses in less than a week. But hated wearing them and had already decided to take contact lens. The doc said I would have to go for rigid and not soft lens due to the kind of power I have.
He said I have to come for regular sittings for trials with the lens. There I met this lady who taught me the tricks of the trade.
We got talking every evening. I had to leave office early every day. During the trials my phone would surely ring at least once. One day she asked me so where do you work?
The moment I said for an ad agency she enquired if there’s a vacancy for her. I was quite surprised thinking why would an eye specialist want to shift to an ad agency? Her expressions said it all.
I wondered the frustration was so high that an eye specialist was ready to move onto an ad agency or is it the love for the industry?

My empty letter box

Running down the staircase to check if Grandparents sent a letter or if a friend has sent few words for me is something I miss so much. Agreed that the internet is faster, better & makes more sense. But somewhere deep down I miss receiving those handwritten letters from my close ones.

A mail in my inbox, a sms or a scrap somehow still doesn't touch me the way a handwritten letter did. I miss the personal touch in them. You almost feel the person's presence while reading through the lines.

Modern things have the good & bad both. Guess getting nostalgic about receiving letters is not something we even have the time to sit back & think 'coz the positives of the internet & the telecom is so high that probably this is too small a think to even make us think about.

But I still miss the inland letters & the postcards...

The poet comes alive...

Hai talaash mujhe uss ek sunahre pal ki,
Jise ho mujhme yakeen ki hai mujhme bhi woh baat
Ki sirf katein hee nhi par phul bhi ban sakte hain humsafar mere
Hai talaash mujhe uss ek sunahre pal ki…

Too much... everywhere!!!

Be it a shopping mall, a metro station, a food court everywhere there is an intrusion to your mental space. It’s tougher to get rid of mental intrusion than the physical one.

The other day I was quite shocked to hear the same kind of ‘noise’, (yes I would rather call it noise than music) in a reputed bookstore. This place, even a couple of years back was a place where even if your decibels were a little higher than the normal would attract unpleasant looks.

For many of us, shopping is a therapy but with so much intrusion it no longer remains a therapy but it ends up adding to the stress.

A little away from what I was talking about is the sales people, one more kind of intrusion, with due respect.

You don’t even stand for a while at a section & there they come with all the mugged up details of the ranges on offer. I won’t deny the information is useful, when asked for, not otherwise.

I have often noticed shoppers in malls who tend to get intimidated when approached by sales people. They actually move away from the section. There are some who get more than irritated.

The other issue is language. Language is supposed to remove barriers but in most cases it is actually creating one. Who says if you are in Calcutta & walking in to a Pantaloons or a South City, you have to communicate with the employees in these stores in English? They are your fellow Kolkatans & would definitely follow the language you communicate in.

Shopping is supposed to be entertaining & for some a necessity. So why make it a task? Use language to communicate, use language where necessary, and use language to bridge gaps not to create gaps…

Not so addy

My alltime favourite Bollywood dialogues -

Kanoon ke haath bahut lambe hoten hain...
Kanoon jasbaton pe nhi, sabooton pe chalta hai...
Yeh din dekhne ke liye tumhe paal pos kar bara kiya tha...
Kalmuhee, karamjai ghar ka sara kam para hua hai aur tu baith baith kar muft ki roteeyan tor rahi hai...
Yeh sunne ke pehle mere kaan kyon nhi phat gaye, yeh dharti mujhe kyon nhi nigal lee, yeh aasmaa
Beta tu mere burhape ka laathi hai
Gin gin ke, chun chun ke mein badla loongi
Mera bhi din ayega ekdin shyam laal

Up above the world so high...

LG captured this long time back when they spoke about their picture clarity. A LG viewing kid could see the clouds forming an elephant whilst other kids couldn't.
It's so true. I am sure each one of us had this experience at some point. There's a similar thing that I do a lot. That's when you see water marks on the walls. Does that sound familiar?

Top 5 in the Print world

PRINT

Brand: The Leela Galleria
Agency: Bates 141
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Agency: Deepak Advertising Agency
Category: Apparel | Fashion and Lifestyle

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Source: Agency FAQ

Check out the Top 5 ads in TV

TV

Brand: Sony Bravia
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Agency: Contract
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Find out if your Brand is aging?

The 5-point checklist

1. Your visual identity is out-of-date
Every successful brand keeps its visual identity fresh, sometimes with changes that are so subtle they can hardly be noticed. Make sure that the visual identity of your brand looks current and contemporary.

2. Your product is not keeping pace
Is your product keeping pace with the market? Technology, design, packaging, even terms and conditions - they all play a role. Are you innovating in all these areas?

3. Your customer base is aging
Sometimes customers grow old with a brand. This is a good thing, but you must also continue to attract new customers to the brand. Do you understand the dynamics of your customer base? What secrets lie under your sales figures?

4. Your positioning is losing relevance
Where are you in the mind of the consumer, and how does that align with market trends? Is your positioning ahead of the market, gaining relevance as the marketplace moves towards it? Or are you behind the market, losing relevance as your market powers ahead of you?

5. Your touch points are not aligned with the market
Still supporting a costly retail network when you could be online? Still advertising in print and TV when you should be using digital channels? Still placing your product in movies, when your target market is spending more time gaming? You need to constantly align your touchpoints with the changing marketplace. Otherwise your brand won't be reaching your market, it will be somewhere else, and it will fade and die.

Source: Agency FAQ