Thursday, June 14, 2007

Out of the box..

Imagine you're in Airport. While you're waiting for ur flight, u notice a kiosk selling cookies. U buy a box, put them in ur travelling bag n search for a seat so u can sit down and enjoy your cookies. Finally you find a seat next to a gentleman. You reach down into your travelling bag and pull out your box of cookies.As you do so, you notice that the gentleman starts watching you intensely.He stares as you open the box and his eyes follow. Just then he reaches over and takes one of your cookies from the box, and eats it! gosh....

You are little surprised at this. Not only does he take one cookie, but he alternates with you.Now, what's ur immediate impression of this guy?
Crazy?
Greedy?

You both continue eating the cookies until there's just one left. To your surprise, the man reaches over and takes it. But then he does something unexpected. He breaks it in half, and gives half to u. After he's finished he gets up, and without a word, he leaves.

You think to urself, "Did this really happen?"........

You're left sitting there dumbfounded and still hungry. So yuu go back to the kiosk and buy another box of cookies. You then return to your seat and begin opening your new box of cookies. when suddenly you glance down into your traveling bag. Sitting there in your bag is your original box of cookies.......still unopened.......gosh again !!! Only then you realize that when you reached down earlier, you had reached into the other man's bag, and grabbed his box of cookies by mistake.

Now what do you think of the man? Generous? Tolerant? You've just experienced a profound paradigm shift. You're seeing things from a new point of view. Is it time to change your point of view?

Now, think of this story as it relates to ur life, in advertising and otherwise..... Seeing things from a new point of view can be very enlightening.Think outside the box. Don't settle for the status quo......Be open to suggestions. Things may not be what they seem. Unless and until, one realizes about the fact and external factors.......

Every Point has THREE Sides; Your Side, My Side and The Right Side.To understand either the Other's Side or the Right Side, one needs to leave His Side...........

The trainees at PQRST agency were a happy lot.... after the first lecture on the first day of their intensive training session...... they found that advertising was REALLY REALLY an exiting place to be in... most of them new and fresh faces which the PQRST HR team ( ya folks... thats right...HR for Human resources) had handpicked from various B Schools... for those who had been lamenting of the lack of talents and the industry's apathy to the whole issue of attracting talents and nurturing and retaining them, its more than good news.... it is happening... back to PQRST and the new recruits..... they were a happy lot.... session after session, they were made to hear ,talk, think, work,sleep, draw ,assume and drop dead and flat.... it was cool, and cozy.... but for some ,they missed the informal and trendy air that they expected to breathe in and live in, much different from the tie and 'sir' culture that their B schools told them and tortured them with..... It took some time for many to sink it in their heads that no two ad agencies ( unlike the products they sell) are the same..... there is an inbuilt differentation, mostly inherited from the culture of the founding father or fathers( most agencies have many fathers, however dirty it may sound like)... Now I guess that explains why agency guys behave the way they do.... the pun is intended ofcourse.... and that differentation makes it different enough to be different from each other inspite of the multitude of simliarities that could make them same ,all the same, everyone, just pretending to be different like the brands of products that each one help the marketer to "market".....

After a week, but, a trainee mails me this story:

Yesterday for the first time, I attended a shoot for a corporate campaign of one of our clients. The theme was of a family comprising Father, Mother and a Girl child. ....Male and Female models were from Mumbai and Kid from Chennai. At 9:00 a.m the stage was set for the first shot, Mother exercising and kid has to crawl below mother, now the real challenge starts. Kid (2 years old) is no mood for shoot. We tried our level best to make her crawl, Both father and mother of the kid stood near camera and called her, but she was as adamant and still as a statue. Then father put some Cadburys 'Gems' and asked her to take it, she came this time but it was not a nice shot. This activity of shooting the child went on till 12:00. Then we decide to bring her elder brother who was 4 years old. When he came there was some change in the kid's mood. But we had to change the whole script and was forced to include male kid too.

She almost made the entire crew dance for her tune. At the end we somehow finished the shoot. The biggest learning of the day was that its an Herculean task to shoot with kids.

Truly he said, "We were feeling that making an advertising
meant client parties, negotiations, the bidding drama and a fabulous shoot. But its so surprising, it was 'expecting the unsusual'.. it was not being stylish..it was to become down to earth.. to look for surprises.. above all it was the realisation thatbeing in advertising is not a mere childs play....."

Out of the box ofcourse one has to think, but many times the question is,' where is the box'?


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