Guess who collects money while my advertising speaks!

It’s nice to work on ads. But it’s definitely nice to see your work being displayed, I mean the good work ;), the kind you can boast about.

SIA Art Jeweller: Launch ad created by yours truly

You see it in newspapers, magazines, websites, direct mailers, leaflets, kiosks, posters, standees, banners, hoardings and television (not yet for me though L), and you love to hear it on the radio! All this while your client makes a great deal of money and while you get your monthly cheque that almost appears like a big zero after the taxing tax and all the possible deductions!

But guess who else did I see collect money in one of my works. One fine day, I was in a hurry, as usual, to reach office. My rickshaw stopped and I could see the regular beggars trying their ‘selling’ skills. Among them was a tiny tot, a 3-year old girl clad in a ‘must-have-been-pretty’ frock, who was looking into a polythene bag and checking how much coins has she earned yet.

The bag was the one we designed for one of our good clients. While it clearly advertised the logo and the positioning line created by us and did the sufficient ‘visibility’ magic for the client, it sure did some magic for the girl who could ‘make’ some money in it. For once, I felt somehow, somewhere, something that I worked on is remotely (very remotely) of good ‘monetary’ use to someone.

What's with the football?

I never understood one thing about football (apart from the rules of the game). How can people watch some 22 players kicking a football for it to eventually enter some rectangular net? And all this for over a good (boring) 90 minutes. Okay, I can understand about the players, they are busy defending / hitting the football, and so they do not get bored. But the spectators… where do they get all the patience from. I always feel like a patient if I watch the game for over 5 minutes.

I mean cricket is fine, someone is scoring a run or taking a wicket or getting caught or whatever, almost at every ball (that too I find bearable for a one-day match, test matches are still unbearable for me). But soccer!!!

But things changed a bit recently. Thanks to my being in advertising. Got a brief for an ad that had to do stuff related to soccer. Now what… soccer-ignorant Annu had to do some basic research to understand the basic fundas! So I went to the FIFA site. Edgar, Ravi and Chintu, like some football experts, explained me the basics. I discovered some unknown-to-me facts. Like the yellow, red and green cards. Like the historical goals. Like there are millions of soccer-crazy people. Like 36 countries are participating in the World Cup and people are trying really hard to get a hotel booking. Man… people do have great deal of patience.

And now, I am getting impatient to watch a match or two and see if I can be more patient in life. Who knows tomorrow I will become a soccer fan too, who knows I won’t. In any case, advertising helped me learn something new, once again.