Copywriting and the power of creativity

REPRODUCED FROM THE COMMITS CHRONICLE, NO. 62 (March 22, 2011)

Commits alumnus Ajay Kurpad (Class of 2011) joined Saatchi&Saatchi Focus in Bangalore as a copywriter last November. And he already has some sterling campaigns to his credit. The most recent? Something he did for Bosch, the technology and services company. Here Ajay explains how he went about his task:

AJAY KURPAD

THE BRIEF
Every year, during the first quarter of business, Bosch organises an event called ‘Proteam’ for its employees from all over the country. This three-day affair, which the company hosts in recognition of the employees' hard work, is usually conducted in lavish style at a spectacular location. This year was no different. Like every year there was a theme around which the whole event would revolve.

THE TASK
The theme of Proteam 2011 was "Superheroes". So, as part of the creatives, we at Saatchi were asked to design "standees". These standees are posters which are mounted on stands and placed at crucial points around the venue where they get maximum visibility. The standees had to link the Bosch Automotive Aftermarket products to Superheroes.

THE PROCESS
Step 1: The first step was to find the best superheroes to fit each product. This involved hours of work and research in the world of Marvel and DC. Finally we chose Flash, The Human Torch, Iceman, Black Bolt, Wolverine, Aquaman, The Green Lantern, Black Lightning, Jean Grey, Mr Fantastic, and Spiderman. At the end of it, it took me a superhuman effort to actually like any superhero any more. But all said and done, we did a good job. We then put everything together as a PPT presentation and sent it to Bosch. Fortunately, the company approved it in the first go.

Step 2: The copy had to substantially prove why a certain product was like a particular superhero. That was not hard, though. All I had to do was link the superpower to the product’s USP. This is where the use of flowery language and a talent for beating-round-the-bush came in handy.

In the meantime, P.P. Mani, my art director went about scouting for images of all the shortlisted superheroes. Then, with the power of Photoshop and Illustrator, he made them even more macho.

Step 3: With idea in place, copy in hand, and images ready, we started the linking process. Initially we thought of just following standard procedure of juxtaposing the product and the superhero. However, the art director decided to take it to the next level. He thought of incorporating the product in such a way that it would look more visually appealing.

The end result:

The Flash, one of 11 superheroes used in the campaign.

Each artwork was 8 ft x 4 ft and was displayed along the corridors of The Leela, Kovalam, during the event. People were actually posing next to them and clicking photos. As you can imagine, a lot depended on the art and my art director — who has been with Saatchi for almost 17 years — got it spot on. Eventually, I ended up managing most of the campaign, except for the film, for which I just about made some contributions at the script level.

• ALSO READ: "What creative advertising really means".

How to impress your boss, wow your colleagues, and get everyone to like you

We all want to be liked. Especially at work, which is where we spend most of our productive waking hours, interacting with our colleagues and bosses and clients.

But what can we do right that will get everyone to like us? And what are we doing wrong that causes people around us to not like us?

My advice to my students, when they start out in the industry, is to first get their peers and their bosses to warm up to them. I tell them they can do this by making intelligent conversation, by asking questions, by being assertive in a nice way, by showing an active interest in what's happening around them, by being lively. Of course, I am taking for granted that they are also good workers.

Now here's Jeff Haden writing in Inc. magazine about how you can make a good impression and how you can get people to genuinely like you. Haden has compiled a list of things that highly likeable people do and suggests you learn from them.

Haden says remarkably likeable people...

...lose the power pose (see picture below and read up about it in Haden's column)

...embrace the power of touch

...whip out their social jiu-jitsu

...whip out something genuine

...ask for nothing

..."close" genuinely

Read this highly relevant article in its entirety here: "6 Habits of Remarkably Likable People".

LOSING THE POWER POSE: BILL CLINTON GREETING NELSON MANDELA.

• Inc. styles itself as a magazine for entrepreneurs and business owners, but there is lots of interesting stuff on the website that will also appeal to people who are neither. Check out, for example, "9 Daily Habits That Will Make You Happier" and "10 Things Extraordinary People Say Every Day". And, also, "6 Things Really Productive People Do" — this last piece is a must-read, I feel, for the many young people I know who find time-management to be their biggest problem.

• Speaking of time-management, here's a pertinent post by author and former Wall Street Journal coulmnist Alexandra Levit: "5 Work Habits to Break Today", including "being 10 minutes late for everything".

Rajdeep Sardesai and Sagarika Ghose, interviewed together for Mint's "Love Issue 2013"...

...and a lovely interview it is, too!

Here, in an excerpt from the interview, is a delightful exchange between the couple:

Rajdeep and Sagarika met for the first time in 1986 in Jamshedpur, now in Jharkhand, where they had gone for an interview with Russi Mody, former chairman of Tata Steel, for The Rhodes Scholarships.

“She got it. I did not. I am still trying to get back,” says Rajdeep.

Sagarika says: “In those days, Rajdeep was extremely laid-back; in fact, he was so laid-back that he was horizontal. I remember when the results were being announced he was sleeping somewhere up there in his room.” Rajdeep tries to defend himself but ends up muttering while Sagarika ploughs on: “I remember thinking to myself ‘Does this guy really care about the scholarship?’”

But now, Sagarika says, “Rajdeep is a workaholic, a newsaholic, a journoaholic. Thank God he is not an alcoholic.” Sagarika feels that as editor-in-chief, Rajdeep should not be taking so many decisions. “He is obsessed with what’s on the ticker, the top bands. This way the people who are doing the work are not empowered because they keep trying to second-guess him. In fact, my team is obsessed with Rajdeep. I delegate much more and believe if you empower people, things run on their own and you get fresher ideas.”

Rajdeep interjects: “I have a resolution — to leave office by 6pm on Friday. I have left office early for the last few Fridays.”

POWER COUPLE: Sagarika and Rajdeep photographed for Mint by Priyanka Parashar

Read the feature by Seema Chowdhry in its entirety here: "Airing both sides".

What is a writer's work worth?

That is the question posed in a thought-provoking column by senior journalist Kelly McBride on Poynter. She wrote her piece after freelance journalist Nate Thayer wrote on his blog about how The Atlantic magazine tried to get him to write for free.

McBride says the internet has totally messed up a simple pay scale. She explains:

Back in the day, freelancers got paid roughly by the word. Sometimes it was as low as 10 cents a word. Everyone was shooting for $1 a word, and some people got more than that. Hotshots might get $10,000-$20,000 for a fabulous magazine piece. There was a lot of variation, but there was also a standard rate that people were shooting for.

Now, trying to pin down how much a writer should be paid is an impossible task. It’s simply unknowable.

Read the column in its entirety here: "Most everyone gets asked to write for free, only some people say yes".

And read the blog post that started the whole debate here: "A Day in the Life of a Freelance Journalist—2013".

How do you make sure you’re writing right?

Here are seven helpful tips provided by Mark Nichol, editor of the Daily Writing Tips blog:

• Look up the definition of an unfamiliar word and be sure you understand the meaning before you use it.
• Search a thesaurus or a synonym finder for the precise meaning, taking care to notice the different connotations of similar words.
• Keep your writing clear and coherent, and avoid pretentious or overly formal language.
• Select the strongest nouns and verbs before you select adjectives and adverbs.
• Seek opportunities to use repetition for rhetorical effect while, at the same time, you watch for careless redundancy.
• Read your draft aloud to help you refine grammar and usage. If something doesn’t sound right to you, it probably doesn’t read right to your audience, either.
• Ask someone else to read your writing and critique it.

Read the post in its entirety here: "7 Tips for Editing to Improve Usage".

Also read Mark Nichol's recent post: "Does Good Writing Matter?"

• ADDITIONAL READING:

"10 Tips about Basic Writing Competency"

"Want To Be Taken Seriously? Become a Better Writer" 

"Want To Be Taken Seriously? Become a Better Writer"

The number of poorly written emails, resumes and blog posts I come across each month is both staggering and saddening. Their grammar is awful. There are dozens of misspellings. Language is much wordier or more complex than necessary. Some things I read literally make no sense at all to me.

DAVE KERPEN

I can imagine my students thinking, "There goes RP Sir, riding his favourite hobby horse again." But those thoughts up there have been expressed by an American CEO, no less, who is also a New York Times best-selling author and keynote speaker.

Dave Kerpen's post on why you should become a better writer if you want to be taken seriously first came to my notice when I checked my LinkedIn account the other day. In the same way his arguments resonated with me, they appear to have struck a chord with many others because this post, as of today, has been tweeted about by more than 3,000 people, shared on LinkedIn by more than 18,000 users, and has attracted more than 8,000 "likes".

Kerpen does not talk down to his readers, as is obvious from a point he makes in his post:

It's not just you who must become a better writer — it’s all of us. I'll be the first to admit, I too have had to learn to become a better writer.

Kerpen then elaborates on the methods he used to become a better writer over the past several years. Here are the bullet points:

• Practice, practice, practice.
• Say it out loud.
• Make it more concise.
• Work on your headlines.
• Read.

You can see for yourself what he has to say about each of the first four points here. Since I consider "good" reading to be essential for good writing, here's Kerpen's last point in full:

Besides practicing writing, the number one way to improve your writing skills is to read great work. I read at least one book per month, at least 20 articles per week, and countless tweets, Facebook posts and emails per day. I know we all have limited time, but truly the best way to become a better writer is to become a better reader [emphasis mine].

I now "follow" Dave Kerpen on LinkedIn. You may want to do the same.

PS: You may also want to read Kerpen's views on how your attitude at work is everything.  Check out this highly relevant post, too: "Best Advice: Always Show Your Friendship First".

• Photo courtesy: Dave Kerpen

ADDITIONAL READING:

1. If you want to be a versatile writer, here's some practical advice

2. "The five traits of a successful writer"

3. Here's how to make time to read 

4. If you don't read, you can't write  

5. In one quote, the essence of writing 

• EXTERNAL READING: Simon Kuper, writing in the Financial Times, argues that texts, blogs, e-mails, and Facebook posts are affecting other kinds of writing — mostly for the good. Read his column here: "How social media improved writing". I am obliged to Apar Dham (Class of 2011) for the alert. Apar wrote in an e-mail to me today: "Some food for thought at the beginning of the week? I remember you always cringing at the language youngsters use for texting, Twitter, Facebook, etc. So I thought that this article might make for some interesting reading." It sure did, Apar!

• EXTERNAL READING: Daily Writing Tips editor Mark Nichol on "Does Good Writing Matter?" 

Why we should applaud Amish (and ignore what purists say about his writing skills?)

I admire Amish (who prefers to go by one name) and Chetan Bhagat. Not for the quality of the writing in their books, but for writing books that have got young people reading them and enjoying them and starting conversations about them.

Just today I met five young women who had come to Bangalore from Coimbatore to write the Commits entrance exam — in the essay section of the test, all of them chose to write about either The Immortals of Meluha or The Secret of the Nagas, the phenomenally popular books that form part of Amish's Shiva trilogy. Each student is now looking forward to reading the final installment, The Oath of the Vayuputras, which Commits alumnus Harish Agarwal (Class of 2004) has already read and proclaimed, on Facebook, to be a must-read. "What an awesome one-night stand it was," he wrote earlier today.

Amish, who was also in the news recently for receiving an advance of Rs. 5 crore for his next series, may not score a lot of points with purists or with those who prefer their books to be a little more, let's say, literary. But he has created, along with Chetan Bhagat, a new market for fiction and fully deserves his success.

GOD IS IN THE DETAILS: AMISH IS AT THE TOP OF HIS GAME TODAY.

Tehelka last month published a long interview-based feature on Amish; he is also the subject of the cover story in Mint Lounge today.

Here is Sunaina Kumar writing in Tehelka about Amish's readership:

Amish found a gap between the scholarly versions of the epics, the middlebrow (Devdutt Pattanaik) and the square (Ashok Banker), writing in cliffhangers, making up plot details, including battle scenes, a tender love story, and a hero who seems to have walked right out of American popular culture. Amish’s racy, slangy prose is not above the sort of jarring scene in which Shiva says things like, “Dammit Sati! I can’t figure it out.”

Later Kumar discusses his writing:

[In] the hands of a more able craftsman, the narrative would have soared. There are ideas in Amish’s novels — new concepts, action underpinned by philosophy, relatively radical notions of a caste-less society (he has dropped Tripathi, his caste-based surname) in which women lead from the front, and a clever twist to the good-versus-evil debate. Many of his ideas deserve to be expressed better. It is Amish’s writing that lets down his storytelling, his ideas. For instance, his characters talk in a peculiar, pedestrian English, mixing generous helpings of slang with words like “gargantuan” and “plethora”. Or they talk in all caps that end in a blur of exclamation points.

Amish’s answer to critics, Kumar says, is that he writes in a style that does not talk down to a vast majority of Indians:

“I write the way I think ya… I believe in one thing ki boss I am gonna be who I am. Some people will like it, some people will not, that’s cool, but I am clear I am not going to change.”

How can you not want to know more about this unassuming millionaire author? Read the feature in its entirety here: "The Pied Piper of Meluha".

Now here's Mayank Austen Soofi writing in Mint Lounge after speaking to the author himself and also to readers and publishers in an attempt to understand the reasons for Amish's remarkable popularity:

Some novelists at least have moved into the category of fast-moving consumer goods.

And here are some relevant quotes from the article:

• “The series gives me a different take on Shiva, and Amish’s writing is wonderfully colloquial. His Shiva uses everyday words like ‘dammit’ and ‘bloody’!” — Vanita Ganesh, a college student in Gurgaon, who has already finished reading all 565 pages of The Oath of the Vayuputras

• “Amish’s story is beautifully crafted and written in the language of the common man, and that’s why everyone is reading him.” — Amish's literary agent Anuj Bahri, the owner of the landmark Bahri Sons Booksellers in Khan Market, New Delhi

• “His books don’t interest me much, neither the content nor the style.... I like to be challenged and surprised by the books I read. Buying them is an effort to know more about spaces, places, ideas and people which/whom I know little about. We are anyway surrounded by the mundane, and too much of our own language.” — Arpita Das, publisher of the Delhi-based Yoda Press

 Read Soofi's piece in its entirety here: "The sound of money".

• Photo courtesy: Kalpak Pathak/Hindustan Times

PS: I have ordered The Shiva Trilogy from Flipkart to see for myself what the hoo-ha is all about. Afterwards, all three books will be placed in the Commits library for the reading pleasure of our students.

UPDATE (March 24, 2013): Commitscion Ankita Sengupta (Class of 2013), who now works with Deccan Herald in Bangalore, interviewed Amish for the newspaper's website when he visited the city earlier this week. You can watch it on YouTube:

9 a.m. to 11 p.m., a typical workday for one of India's best-known TV journalists

Shereen Bhan has been a CNBC anchor for more than a dozen years now and she has a host of journalistic achievements to her credit. In an interview with Rediff.com, Bhan has discussed a few aspects of life as a television journalist, which TV hopefuls will find enlightening. (This interview was conducted in 2007. No matter. Given the fierce competition among our news channels and the consequent unrelenting pressure on television journalists, what she has to say is even more applicable today.)

If you're not extremely ambitious and if you're not willing to work extremely hard, any other skills you have may prove to be unhelpful in the rush-hour-at-all-times world of television news. Given below are excerpts from the interview, chosen especially to give television journalism aspirants an insight into what it means to work with one of India's top TV news organisations.

What is a typical workday like?
My day start at 9 am and wraps at 11 pm — so it is long! Mornings are spent with reporters as I head the bureau. Some days I have interviews and events. Afternoons are spent editing scripts and planning. Later, 8 pm to 10.30 pm is time spent in the studio for CNN-IBN and CNBC.

You are one of the most recognised faces of Indian news today, what do you credit for your success?
Hard work, commitment and perseverance. I have very rarely said no. I have worked for almost every channel on Network 18. CNBC, Awaaz, CNN-IBN, South Asia World. I have tried to be as versatile as possible. So business, politics, feature programming, I have done it all. I have also stayed away from positioning myself only as an anchor. I have always produced my shows and I will continue to do so. I have also tried to be a nurturing team leader and take people along, which help our shows look better.

That one needs to be outgoing for a career in television goes without saying. What are the other personality traits you think an aspiring TV journalist needs?
The ability to handle pressure is a must. It is a tough job, both physically and mentally taxing. You have to be on your feet for long hours and mentally alert every second. Operating in a live environment means reacting to news as it breaks, making sense of it in a few seconds and adding value in a couple of minutes.

Good communication skills, comprehensive knowledge of current affairs, writing are important as well.

What advice would you have for aspiring TV journalists?
Don't do it for the glamour. There is nothing glamorous about it. A large chunk of a TV journalist's job is donkey's work. Standing around for hours to get a 20-second sound bite is about perseverance not glamour.

Be prepared to say goodbye to your social life and get ready to be on call 24x7. Ignite a fire inside you, not just to do big stories and interviews but also to do good quality work, that's fair and honest consistently.

What do you think is the most common mistake newcomers make? What advice do you have to give them in this regard?
Wanting to taste success without doing the time — you have to be patient. You have to get your hands dirty. Don't box yourself into roles and responsibilities. Learn to multi-task. Learn to work in a team. TV is all about teamwork.

You can read the full interview here: "You have to react to news as it breaks: Shereen Bhan".

• Also read: Commits alumna Faye D'Souza (Class of 2004) on what it takes to be a news anchor.

Is it "Charles's book"? Should that be "Charles' book"?

I prefer "Charles's book". So do Strunk and White.

And so does Poynter guru Roy Peter Clark, whose post on the subject I re-discovered when I was going through old e-mails.

Clark is a superlative journalist who writes with felicity and fluency. And he's extremely well-read to boot. Read the post I'm referring to, as well as his other columns on the Poynter website, to better appreciate what I'm talking about.

But to return to "Charles's book" vs "Charles' book". Here's an excerpt from Clark's post:

Professor Strunk tells us to add apostrophe plus s no matter the final consonant in the noun and cites as examples “Charles’s friend” and “Burns’s poems.”

This makes great sense to me because it echoes the way we would speak the word aloud. So it puzzles me that the “Associated Press Stylebook,” an influential work for journalists, argues that a simple apostrophe suffices after proper nouns ending in s, as in Agnes’ book and Jules’ seat. I don’t know about you, but when I read those aloud, the missing s hurts my ears, and on the page it hurts my eyes. I would say Agnes’s book and Jules’s seat.

Read the post in its entirety here and you will no longer wonder about the so-called extra s in Bridget Jones's Diary.

Why everyone should think before communicating through social media

Ilya Pozin, a contributor to the "Entrepreneurs" section on the Forbes website, has posed two important questions in a recent post:

On sites like Twitter and Facebook, do all old-school means of social etiquette get thrown out the window? Or do most people not even know what classifies as proper social etiquette to begin with?

In turn, he lists 12 questions that he says you must ask yourself before you hit "post" on Facebook:

Should I target a specific audience with this message?

Will anyone really care about this content besides me?

Will I offend anyone with this content? If so, who? Does it matter?

Is this appropriate for a social portal, or would it best be communicated another way?

How many times have I already posted something today? (More than three can be excessive.)

Did I spell check?

Will I be okay with absolutely anyone seeing this?

Is this post too vague? Will everyone understand what I’m saying?

Am I using this as an emotional dumping ground? If so, why? Is a different outlet better for these purposes?

Am I using too many abbreviations in this post and starting to sound like a teenager?

Is this reactive communication or is it well thought-out?

Is this really something I want to share, or is it just me venting?

Read Ilya Pozin's post in its entirety here: "Social Media Etiquette: 12-Step Checklist".

• Thank you, Rigved Sarkar (Class of 2010), for the alert.

ADDITIONAL READING:

"Facebook: Boon or bane?"

"Are you revealing more than you should on Facebook?"

"How you interact with people on any platform on the Web and what you say about issues is an indication of the kind of person you are"