Tweedledum and Tweedledee?

Ok. That was a weak header, if you’ll forgive us. But then we’d be coining loco goop like ‘Flower Power’ and ‘Power Puff Girls’ to describe the winners this week just because they happen to be from the fairer sex.

So may we simply present Mallika and Aruna! They take the sword for design and copy respectively.

Coming back to the loco goop, do you think ‘cleverness’ works in advertising? Agreed that it’s a loaded question, like asking is the glass half empty or half full…

Perhaps you do recall this piece of student advertising for a travel agency with copy that ran thus: “Kiss your wife in places she’s never been kissed before”? Dear readers, what do you think of that line? What do you think of the idea?

· Half empty
· Half full
· *!$##!
· Wow!

Mo's Wakaow! II

"Creativity
is an act of
open
disobedience
against
the norms.

Creativity
is an act of
courage."

Chris Bailey

Fifteen!

The sword this fifteenth week, goes to Sampath.

Hey, we’re fifteen weeks old. Now, where should that reasonably put us in terms of learning and growth? Where should that put us in terms of enthusiasm and levels of personal involvement?

Perhaps the copywriters can answer that. There’s been no submission from them this week. They might also tell us how they’ve perfected the craft of selective submission, if it isn’t a secret.

The First TEASE

Here’s food for thought.

“Fledgling musicians can take heart as cutting an album has become much easier now.”

That’s a piece of news in a prominent Indian daily that continues:

“…anyone with a PC at home can create music. A single guy can create entire albums with just loops downloaded from the Internet.”

Don’t believe that you and I can make music with ease? That even your nephew or niece can do it too? You only need to visit this website once to be convinced otherwise. Of course you’ll find lots of trash there, lots of mediocre creative expressions. But every now and then you’d find a gem. You’ll find a rising star who rises above mediocrity.

In our extremely competitive profession, that is our biggest challenge – Rising Above Mediocrity.

We can choose to be a wallflower and do run-of-the-mill work or be that rising star. Age has nothing to do with it. But attitude, enthusiasm and modesty have everything to do with it.

On that score we present our first TEASE (our fledgling TEASE). And our first winner. If you remember, the topic for our first TEASE was “Shitty advertising made that hole in the ozone layer”. Here’s Chella’s interpretation.

Psst! We’d like feed back on this one from all our readers, if at all.

Sputter! Sputter!

Ugh... that was a nasty stillness wasn't it? We mean the snuffing out of our blogging rights (read right to speech) without explanation and making us wonder if we were suddenly in Afghanistan? Like the trusted engines had suddenly died down without explanation and we were on a downward spiral…

Or didn't you notice?

In any case, we'd like you to know that posts will appear here routinely like before. Only, do bear with us as we put things together in the meantime.

In case of emergency: Hey Whipple, Squeeze This!

Why Advertising Sucks: In case of emergency: Hey Whipple, Squeeze this

Push!

Ok. So we’re shy of ‘The Next Level’. Or maybe we can’t imagine ourselves there right now. Or maybe we’re just cynical. Or maybe we didn’t have breakfast. But the fact remains that somehow ‘The Next Level’ seems to be a destination far far away.

Could it be because we aren’t sure of our performance thus far? Not sure of the jury that passed these judgments? Is it because we feel that a home win is ‘no great shakes’? All the better, then. Because it simply means we’re growing. Yet that leaves us shy of the next level. What’s keeping us back?

“Think like an athlete. Without risk, there is no genius. Go big or go home. No guts, no glory. Failure is not in losing, failure is not trying. The team that makes the most mistakes is the team that wins. These are more than just sports clichés.”

That bit is from an interview by one of the biggies in advertising.

And that’s Sampath there with the sword for the week. The copywriters weren’t around. Now there’s another shy bunch.

What was that again? Think like an athlete…

New look. New vocals.

Check out this dude in turtles and a new hair do. What ever happened to the wild look? And what's happened to the voice? Apparently Tiny Jo's caught laryngitis and lost his rumble. (Ugh...we couldn't resist that, what we mean is that his sound box is on mute. Some mean ‘wormie-germies’ are taking a well-deserved break there. Must be their equivalent of visiting far far away and doing the rowdy bit.) So he came to office on Monday, all quite and composed.

Get well soon Jo.

Wallpaper

Do you recall who said, "Life is too precious to be passing through to retirement"? Make a good guess. And if at all you want to download this pathetically art directed wallpaper on to your computer, you only have to click on the image for an enlargement. (Do you think you’d like to send in your version of this wallpaper?)

Savoir-faire!

Already camera savvy, wouldn't you say? That's Chella's little bundle of joy, Krithika.

It’s A Split!

It’s for the first time that we have Visualisers sharing the sword. No copy submissions this time.

Mallika and Rags will decide among themselves who will keep the sword and for what length of time, before it rolls again next week.

(Psst! Rags, here’s a quick tip: Be gallant.)

And Moving On...

Three months of the Monday Morning Meeting and we're ready for more. (Is that a good sign? Perhaps.)

So we've come up with TEASE.

It would work like this. Each month we'll be given themes or random thoughts, or let's simply call them ‘teases’, that we'll have to interpret creatively. That could be in the form of a poster. A mailer. A press ad. A T-shirt. A mug. A simple drawing, a painting… anything. Even a poem or graffiti. Sounds like fun, ugh?

So, this month's tease:

“Shitty Advertising Made That Hole In The Ozone Layer”

Ha! How well we know, don't we? Remember all those times when you've been in front of TV just when a shitty ad came on and people looked pointedly at you, like you had done the crappy piece yourself, only because you work in advertising?

So we're going to tease ourselves, or rather the industry we work in, to begin with this new monthly exercise. Catch the best TEASE every month, right here.