Copy That!

Are we getting better at the game? Must be because it was difficult, for only the second time since the Monday Morning Meeting, to decide a winner among the visualisers. So we have two winners. Sampath and Rags.

And Our Lady took the sword for Copy. Before we forget... Aruna had a point to make about submissions, which elevates this whole exercise. Yup, ELEVATES.

Her point is that she never makes a submission if she aint pleased with her work for the week. Point taken Aruna. That was brave of you. Now that's a pointer for each one.

Submit only when you feel you honestly have done work that is substantially good, i.e., better than your earlier submissions. Remember, this whole meeting is about you. It's about bringing out the best in you. So make sure you put your 'best foot forward' at every Monday Morning Meeting.

Mo's Wakaow! III

Controversy

isn't the worst thing

that could happen

to a company.

In many ways,

it is the very thing

a company might need

to define itself as a brand.

Standing for something.

Style. Integrity. Design.

User-friendliness.

Something.

brandbuilder blog

Should We Watch MTV?

How would you represent vertigo? You know that feeling of spinning round and being unable to balance. How would you express it graphically? Give it a little thought before you watch this vedio and see if your idea compares.

Do you think we should see more of MTV? Or start watching the channel maybe?

PS: The video is of poor quality. Probably a TV capture, but it's the idea...

Mylapore or Tirumailai?

You want to go to this place you haven’t been to before. You know how to get there and you are on your way. But when you reach there. Ugh! You aren’t sure. There is no sign outside the precinct of the blessed place to tell you that you have arrived.

Instead you have a verbose billboard or whatever gobbledygook, that goes:

You are at the end of your journey. And you are about to begin a new one. A journey filled with the unexpected, a journey you’d wish would never end. Another step more and you will be in The Land Of Adventure.

You roll your eyes, and stop a passer by to ask if you are in the place you think you are in. And there’s your catch. Online, you don’t have passers by to guide you if you land up on a gobbledygook link, unless you are on a ‘fun’ website that easily lends itself to it.

Or do you think otherwise? Let’s debate. Pros and cons. We might learn a new thing or two. Send in your opinion as comments.

But not before you consider this. If you’ve ever commuted on the Flying Train here in Chennai, you might have noticed this. First timers, especially those from outside Tamil Nadu, heading to Mylapore usually don’t alight at the station on arrival. They’ll peek out their windows, they’ll wait for the train to move on, but they won’t alight unless someone tells them it’s where they get off. Know why?

The name board at the station reads Tirumailai!

TEASE II

The winner is Rags for his squiggle. And the runner up is Arshad for his ‘currency’. But it's the verdict you must listen to.

"No dum!"

That's to put it in our local lingo. Nobody went all out. Your work could have been a star on the viral circuit worldwide if only you would have executed your piece well. Why didn't you go the whole hog?

If it's drama, bring out the best of drama.
If it's fun, bring on a laugh riot
If it's exaggeration, slap on the weirdest, funniest, ugliest...

A viral is all about superlatives. It's theater on the Internet. And that wasn't there in any of the virals in full measure. What were you afraid of?

That said, it was a good effort from all. The enthusiasm that went into it... the things we learnt while we reviewed the pieces at the Mo Meeting... This TEASE was worth it. Next time, let's go all out! No half measures. No slack detailing. And most important, no fear.

PS: Click on images to enlarge.

Tiny Things Matter

For a change we have a fresh photograph and no sword on display. Chella took the sword this time for design. And Tiny Jo got back to action this week after a long spell when he'd lost his voice. (Many wagged that it was a good thing though...sic!)

This week saw a lot of effort on the part of the Visualisers. Both Arshad and Yuvaraj did some pretty interesting work, though they could have taken care of the little detailing. It's all about making a creative piece look as close to reality or going the opposite spectrum and making it as close to fantasy as possible. That includes getting the colour and perspective right.

But when it's half way through it shows that it's half way through.

It's a good thing to go all out and take care of the little detailing, the tiny things. That's what makes all the difference. If you don't believe it, try it on the piece you are working on now. Next week the sword will be yours.

And remember you've got Tiny Jo for competition. Remember that layout you saw this morning?

Kya Bolti Tu?

Rags! From now on the swords you get will be far in between. That's a promise. We'll make sure that you will really have to fight for that sword. Because from now on you will have to Raise The Bar further.

What say you Rags? Are you up to the new challenge?

Never Again!

For the first time the Monday Morning Meeting didn't happen. Lots of work was the stated reason. And then the 'lots of work' bit turned out to be for nothing, because what followed was rework after rework. Reminded most of us about that Scott Adams joke about advertising. (If you haven't seen it yet, click on the post dated Monday, August 07, 2006 titled E-Mailing Material.)

That graphic you see above is what Chella has to say. : ) Well put, ugh?

Can v/s Can’t

"Roger Federer does not think about being the best player in the world. Rather he thinks how he can be the best that he can be and how to keep improving." - Vijay Amritraj

Ugh... is there a lesson in there for all of us? We're trying to be the best of the best too. And we haven't gotten very far. Perhaps because most of us think we've bitten off way more than we can honestly chew. Or because we think this ‘best of the best’ thing is really only a platitude mouthed by every agency a million times over, with nothing to show for - zilch.

Now that again is a matter of perspective isn’t it? The half empty or half full thing? So now lets look at what Amritraj had to say, from the other side – from the half full side.

"Rather he thinks how he can be the best that he can be and how to keep improving."

Rather.

déjà vu...

Do you recall that bit in X-Men about the slow pace of evolution and then about evolution taking a big leap every once in a while? In quite similar fashion, someone's taken a big leap, quite a big leap if we may say so.

Yuvraj takes the sword for the very first time. Last time he'd given away the sword to Rags. This time it happened in reverse. Proud father. Proud winner. (We did mention that he's a father now, didn't we?)

And here's a leap on a very different note, that's getting fairly repetitive. The copywriters have proved themselves leaps ahead of the visualisers when it comes to indifference. They haven't made a submission this week as well. Calls for pulling up socks and so forth, doesn’t it?

Last but not least, as much as we keep talking about leaps... collectively, we seem to have hit a plateau. RAISING THE BAR isn't about one creative jump, about one single leap. Oh no! It's about telling ourselves:

"Now that I have done this, I know I can do more, do better...and I must do it."

RAISING THE BAR isn't a full stop. It's a series of victorious commas, each more intoxicating than the other. Better. Better. Better. That should be our heartbeat. Better. Better. Better.

E-Mailing Material

Scott Adams on advertising. You'll like his take. Click on the title to take you to the page. (The title above that says E-Mailing Material... see it there?)

Rags Again...

Yuvraj, you see there handing the sword over to Rags, became a father last week. He won't share his baby's photograph until the naming ceremony.

Congrats Rags!

There was a difference to this weeks awards. It was held only among the contestants, who decided the winner.