Yes, all Irishmen are NOT drunks, and gays DONT wear pink socks, or single earrings

When you are enclosed in one type of an environment all your life, you cannot gain the insights that another culture has, the things they do, the thoughts they think, the things that influence them, the way they study, the way they work, the way the live, the products they buy, the ads they like and the media that they are exposed to.

But can you see the huge, huge arena in front of you? Can you see how much fun it would be to find out and know all this about a culture you aren’t completely aware of. It’s the thirst for knowledge literally that catapults someone into this kind of quest. Cultural diversity has got to be one of the biggest and most important lessons in the University of Intelligence and the School of Knowledge. Yet, it’s not everyone who values this.

The U.S. market is slowly and steadily opening its eyes to the amazingly fragmented market in front of them. The huge source of culture and diversity, which can reach out to more cultures!! People are slowly waking up to reach these new cultures.. Hispanic, African American, Irish, French, Asians, South Asians, British, Gays, Lesbians and Transsexuals.

Everytime I see an ad stereotyping a culture, it frustrates me to no ends, but it also placates me somewhere. Somewhere, my little heart flips and flops. Atleast these cultures are finally being acknowledged!! We’ll get it around to them being acknowledged right, right? Optimism never hurt anyone, let’s just see the bright side of it!!

This commercial, has raised all kinds of questions. Homophobic much? Stereotyped, derogatory, narrow-minded, cheap etc etc. Frankly, it always makes me smile. Just looking at how the supposedly straight men behave. Don’t get me wrong, I am one of the biggest gay rights supporter you’ll find around. But this commercial doesn’t mean to stereotype any community, it just shows how scared some people are!!

Also, this commercial was released about 8 to 9 years ago, so, I am guessing that a lot of Argentinians are quite less homophobic now.. or scared of being labeled effeminate, or such.

I am sure there are more dimensions to this. Feel free to point them out to me!!!

How awesome are we?

It amazes me how awesome the ad industry is. Do you realize that this industry churns out new ways of reaching the audience, new ways of attracting their attention, new ways of showcasing its creativity all the time. We combine the newest technology and blend our bit of ceativity into it. That’s how email blitzkrieg, twitter, social networking and online ads are born. New technology, harnessed by creativity.  And its not always just for profits.

Here’s one such stunning example. I love Public Service ads, they are normally very creative, subtle, but hard-hitting, and ofcourse, noble. And when these ads combine technology? I am instantly a fan. I hope to sometime in my life get the chance to be a part of an ad campaign like the one below.

Amnesty International - Domestic Abuse

Click on the pic above to see the zoomed picture, and do do do see the enlarged picture.. it’s worth the hassle of clicking your way through the interwebs..

An Unemployed Sigh..

So its been a while. And my situation has not changed. Unemplyed, grad student, fresh out of one of thebest schools in the country. Or so I like to think. Its not jsut me, U.S. Rankings too says were are the second best ad school, but those darned employers…. nevermind, I digress.

I did not blog for a while, because my mental road block would keep screaming in my head, “get a job, getajob, GETAJOB, GETAJOBGETAJOB” too a wild african jungle beat, everytime I tried to write more than 144 characters. Which is why I tweeted some. Not a lot, but some.

Now I apply to roughly, on an average, three places a day.  I get one reply every four months (I have been applying since the last 2 weeks, for statistics sake) and every one of those replies is a reject, or a “Sorry, we really like your qualifications, but are on a hiring freeze”. I wonder if there’s anything that can break this wall of ice for me. Anything at all?

My EAD card arrived yesterday. Which means I have precisely 3 months now to find a job, or else, quite simply put, eff off from this country. Not that I mind that, but really? what are my chances of getting a job in developing country if I can’t get one in a developed country. Le sigh.

Breaking down the recession and finding an opportunity in it

So, I’ve been thinking all this while I was away from blogging. Not like, thinking all the time, but thinking about what is affecting the industry the most at the moment, what is the most important thing on every media professionals mind right now. And yes, the obvious answer is the economic downturn.

And I have been thinking about this because it affects me directly. I have been hunting for jobs from quite sometime. Jobs, positions, internships. The works. But not getting one. Anywhere. How is that possible?

There are a lot of people getting laid off. Lot of unemployment out there. These unemployed people are all potential consumers. Now that they have all this free time, what are they doing? (Apart from hunting for new jobs) Now this is just my brain power at work, no proper research, no journal backing. But according to my guesstimation, most of the expert professionals who are, if at all, getting laid off, will be picked up someplace else. Maybe at a better position, maybe not. But so, they will have jobs. Lets rule out the extremely skilled work force here, and upper income brackets. This leaves us with a huge Mid-level income earning bracket of people, who are applying for jobs at home, and then getting out and getting involved in some other activity.

What are these activities? They obviously are not being hit that bad? They obviosuly are making their way through. They obviosuly should have scope for growth at this time, and scope to make more money, and hence hire skilled grad students like me.

So, here’s a break down of those areas that I think should not be hit that hard.

1. Newspapers. I know everyone is screaming blue murder about their extinction, but come on, when you are unemployed what is the first thing you do? Buy a newspaper. I know that purchasing a newspaper does not actually mean profits for a newspaper (I was a journalist in some birth), but it does mean more eyeballs on the paper, more frequency, more reach. So if companies put invest in print ads, awareness will be high. The minute these consumers get any kind of a job (I hear people are lining up to conduct the 2010 population polls), this awareness will have a lot of strength in their actions.

2. Gyms. Now that I have so much time on my hand, I should probably tone up my body/lose weight/get some muscle mass/get in shape. The list is endless. Statistics show that most of the people who lose a lot of weight, get toned, etc, are stay-at home people, people on a sabbatical, people between jobs, which translates to people currently unemployed!! So these gyms, should advertise more, to gain more awareness, to remind people that they now have time to look after their body, to at least feel good about their image. Also, being a Good Samaritan and offering a couple of free personal training sessions, to help people with tighter budgets, will get more patrons. Guaranteed.

3. Tourism. Know how many Americans don’t even know what the capital of this country is? Don’t know where on the globe NorthAmerica falls? Have not ventured out of their birth town ever? With more free time, people should be encouraged to know more about their culture. Get out of town, visit NYC if you live on its outskirts; Chicago, if you live anywhere in south Illinois; St. Louis, for people from Missouri; Seattle for people in North California

and Washington. My geography is a little rusty too, but I am sure there are lots of places for people to visit, to know more about, to learn about USA, to take their children to. If the governing agencies of the states start advertising how visiting monuments, historical national parks, natural sites and a wonderful way of educating children about the culture and history of USA, I am sure it will be a hit.

4. Gardening Supplies. Not sure if there are companies that specialize in gardening supplies, but hey, this is a biggie! Gardens are like people’s open houses. People love to dress them up, since it is out in the open, show it off to every random passer-by too. Also, due to budgets and cost-cuttings on shopping trips, people will turn more to home-grown produce. Which means more gardening supplies. It will sound like a small expense to overtake a larger, more recurring expense, but it works out in the favor for someone at least

5. Online Media. The obvious one. The only sector that has not crashed completely. The only industry which has actually offered my best friend a +100 K job (He took it, thank you very much). So, people are going to turn to the internet. They pay the monthly Comcast bill anyway right? Might as well watch TV online, shop online, surf websites only, HUNT FOR JOBS ONLINE!, watch youtube, blog, read blogs, read about other people getting laid off, start their own website (I am on this bandwagon right now). Online media should be booming. Internet traffic, if anyone does monitor it, should be escalating. What does this offer us? More scope for advertising. More eyeballs for the product you advertise. More places to advertise in, more blogs to sponsor, more interactive tools to offer, more banners, more annoying dancing ladies claiming an amazing insurance plan and yadda yadda.

6. Pets. I have statistics that actually prove how the pet industry defies economic downturn. Weird. I guess I can’t understand it since I dont own a pet, but apparently, pets are like people’s children. So people would rather cut back on spending on themselves than on their pets. So people continue to buy pet toys, pet products, pet beds, pet food, pet everything. This would explain the big budget Pedigree ad this superbowl.

7. Army. No one hears about army men and women being laid off now do they? But well, its an opportunity-less field, or so I think.

For now, these are all I can think of. Anyone have any more?

P.S – Now that I have compiled this, I should probably start applying furiously to ALL these industries, selling them a sales rep, marketing exec, ad person, to enhance their profits or something like that.

Twitter Rage

When I joined Twitter about 2 years ago, it wasn’t that big a rage. It was a natural follow up from my personal blog. My entire blog network. people who blogged around me, commented on my blog and I commented on their’s, were colloectively awed by the idea of a micro-blog.

Wow! some place where you can blog out your thoughts in 140 characters!

Blogging is all about opinionating, thinking and airing out your thoughts. And in the process it includes links. Blogging was orignally defined as a tool to pass around links and interesting tid-bits of information to the people who take the effort to reach a place where it is posted. Hence blog-rolls. And all those tab clouds, category clouds, etc etc. (I know this because I did a class project on the origins of blogging once, and some parts of it stuck on to me).

So then twitter. Blog in a sentence. Post links with very very very short explanations. The link does all the talking and opinionating. Challenging and fun. As would be expected, media slowly woke up to the potential that is twitter. Suddenly, businesses use twitter to publicize events, promotions, new products and everything under the sun with their name on it.

Movie publicists use twitter to give out sneak-peeks of the release. And gossipy information about the cast for publicity’s sake. At least this is done in India, if it hasn’t started here, Movie PR people, here is your chance and idea. I know of celebrities who twitter. What good would it do to them? They get a huge fan following, who, by following tweets become more loyal to said celebrity. When this personalities film is released, you can bet on your life that the fan following will definitely catch that flick, dissect it, talk about it, and there you have your word-of-mouth advertising. THE MOST STRONG AND EFFECTIVE ADVERTISING.

Media Post carries an article on this now.

I am pretty sure this is gonna catch on. Those businesses that are not aware of this, will become aware, and hopefully will start to capitalize this market. You have a very selective, narrow target base in fornt of you here. Educated, Yuppies, people who want to know more, who are interested in information, probably upper middle class. And if they do follow you, they will be loyal, they will get direct access to your promotions, it will interactive, they will have a say in what you are doing and will love that power.

Don’t you just love the new media scope?

Dinku Ad

Sometimes, there are ads that don’t particularly relate to the product, but the concept, the sheer brilliance of the idea, just leaves a mark in your mind.

I saw this ad about four years ago. Today, when anyone asks me about my favorite ad, this is the first one that pops into my mind. It’s a pity that this is an Indian ad, because obviously that means that a lot of people who now-a-days ask me this question have never seen this ad.

So this ad is basically in English, which mean no need for translation, yay! The names that are mentioned in the course of the ad are mythological names of Monsters, hence the laughter that follows. Dinku, is a very, to put it best, frivolous and funny name for an Indian. The beauty of this ad is in its copy, the way the dialogues have been worded to actually make it a very real conversation between Yuppies (Young Urban Professionals) who have just had a baby and are chilling with their friends. And then the conversation infuses very believable and subtle humor. Brilliance.

For those of you who have nothered to read this post, here’s the ad.

Tell me what you think about the ad..

Delhi 6, a letter to the director

Mr. Rakeysh OmPrakash Mehra,

What happened? Are you ok? Fever, hallucinations, impartial vision? No? Then WHAT HAPPENED?

You rope in an awesome cast (Abhishek Bachchan, Waheeda Rahman, Rishi Kapoor, Vijay Raaz, Om Puri, and a host of Mumbai theatre actors which are the best among the lot of actors in the country), you pick awesome locations as the focal point of the story (Old Delhi, and a bits and peices of New York), you have amazing talent (NO dont deny it, Aks and Rang De Basanti proved it to us) and then you mess it all up? ALL up?

Why did you take two-thirds of the movie to get to ONE point? Why did you waste the amazing talent you had at hand? Why did you just assume that two people can fall in love over one meeting of Rat Poison???? And that we, the public would buy it?

You had some genius strokes in the movie, I could see that. The montaging of scenes, the interspersing with the Ram Leela, and the songs. You did shoot the songs in the beginning of the film, put all your love of the film into it and then lose interest din’t you? Shame on you.

So please explain to me, what did Bittu and Roshan fall in love over? Rat Poison (Sorry for the repetition), skirts pulled down below the waist, a black tee shirt shining away like shiny disco balls, or her calling him Burger-chaap? What did the people in the movie get agitated over, the afore mentioned shiny disco balls again? and pray what, WHAT were you getting at all with your kaala bandar hoopla?

C’mon.. tell us – What happened to you? Someone suggested that you were trying to convert your black money into white with this film, but even that can’t make sense. Something happened to you, pray tell us what.

Disappointedly yours,
Pragni

Attacking me

I go through all my old posts where I have written about experiencing blasts, floods and other calamities in Mumbai, and I come back to what I have been feeling since I woke up yesterday morning. Sickw ith worry, but a very different kind of sick. A very different kind of worry.

I am not there. The journalist in me is disgusted by the fact that I am not present in Mumbai, where it’s all happening, to be able to talk about it first hand, to be able to report it in whatever way. The friend in me is busy finding out if everyone I know is safe, including Mr.Pilot’s dad who works in the ATS. The Mumbaitte in me is horribly upset by the fact that I am not in the city at this moment. To be a part of the pulse of this city. Someone said its about moving on, its not. Its about being a part of that city inspite of being away from it. And I dont feel like a part right now.

Yes this is a selfish post. I am done talking about the resilience of Mumbai, the never-say-die spirit, the efficient police and the useless politicians. Everyone knows this, everyone has the same opinions and feelings about this. Including me. Where my opinions differ is at the fact that I am not there. I want to be there. I want to be a part of the collective worry.

I dont know what to make of the “Make India secure for Muslims” crap. Are they really that stupid to think that gunning down five-star hotels and blasting the commercial capital of the country will make people love Muslims? Do they think this is what it takes to make Indians as a whole protect the Islamic community? Seriously? Shouldn’t these terrorists have my Logic professor from College sitting with them when they make their strategies?

Someone else said that they are doing this for publicity, which would mean that through their publicity they want to either get respect or fear. Try contempt? If theu believe in either of these then they need my Communications professor from post-grad sitting next to them when they make their strategies.

My best friend works in a news channel, another very dear friend works for an online news website, and an ex-classmate is out there live reporting this. My best friend, sne, is working a 24 hour shift, I called her when she was reaching her workplace in the morning, worried whether she reached safely or not. And she emailed me back saying, “I can’t believe you of all people asked me why I came to work today.” And thats when I realized, love crosses all lines of ethics and whatnot. As a journalist, I know that you work inspite of all the mess around, but as a friend, you hate that fact, and battle it too, when its a friends safety on line.

I watch live TV for the first time since I left the country now. I never felt the need to. But suddenly, it has been streaming on my laptop since a friend passed that link to me after I complained about the bad cyber news state of the Indian media. It has been streaming all night, and the minute since I woke up. Terror Strikes Mumbai Again, Breaking News, Gunshots and Blasts All Over Mumbai, Mumbai Under Seige, havve been flashing in my brain even when I am away from the screen.

“Everyone in Mumbai – msg me NOW!!” says my gtalk status message, every now and then, other friends in other parts of the world, buzz me online to ask me if everyone I know is ok. Some times the same question is asked thrice within the span of the last 24 hours between the same people. Everyone has the same answer too, “A few close calls, but all ok.” This sounds exactly like what I heard on July 12th 2006. Everyone had closecalls. I did too. Everyone did. After a few more days, the stories of a friend’s friend’s father being a victim came in. This time, I’m hoping that will not happen. This time, I am pretty sure, no one I know, directly or indirectly, will be a victim. Close calls.

These are the different levels of my understanding this attack. These are the different levels of the attack for me.

Demons, the real ones..

*The post before the last one*

Normally her demons arose in the night. They turned the normally flippant, brilliantly blunt and straight answering girl into a blubbering, confused and sobbing girl. The world knew her as a very arrogant and collected person. She bounced back from all her problems and issues didn’t she?
She did, but at night, when she was alone, sitting in the dumpyard behind her apartment complex, she wasn’t all that brave. She could not even introduce herself to her demons. That part of her which she was unaware about. Which she had not been introduced to. Which she had not met. That part of her she dint know about.

She needed to see a shrink. She was sure of that. There could not be two parts to her. A demon that made her eyes tear up randomly. That made her begin every night with hours of crying. The part of her she knew, would not, could not let the world see her crying. Would not accept to the world that it was her weakness, her sign of indignity. Her fall.

Except, now, that demon had become so powerful that it came out in the day too. When she was around people, in front of them. She tried to supress it with silences, with blankly staring away into nothingness just so that her eyes would not well up with tears. Because one roll down her cheeks was never enough, it was a saga. Sometimes it would start in the class, sometimes while having dinner, sometimes while doing her laundry and sometimes when she was stretched out on the couch witnessing a happy moment. And she was slipping away into being powerless.

Her skin was behaving like it was over-exposed, her eyes looked like she was drugged. Her body frequently burned up to a fever. Was everything alwasy never good enough? or was it just that she wanted too damn much. That there were two parts to her, the demon and her. Together, they wanted a lot. Needed a lot. Expected to get a lot.

Which is why she started on back-to-back episodes of Scrubs.

alone

“Go,” he said. And sent her off. All alone to face her demons.