works...or maybe not...

Monday, 1 October 2012

#2 - By Default

It is no secret that I don't see myself in this country for longer than a few more months.
If it was, then it sure as hell isn't anymore.
The reason is simple enough.

I don't like how things work here.
Too much mediocrity.
However, I'd like it if you didn't assume that I think that I am above mediocre.
I am not. As a matter of fact, since I am presently part of the system where people are happy with their little worlds and are satisfied way too easily, I feel that I am mediocre too ... By default of course.

So coming back to my core point, mediocrity has taken over advertising in Kolkata.
We have copywriters screwing over art directors, we have art directors quoting amounts lesser than what his employer is quoting to the agencies' client and stealing that client away from the agency, we have scamming and scheming servicing execs ... In short we show all the signs we need to show to tell people, "Hey! Don't worry. We are morons, and we will stay morons as long as this entire structure doesn't collapse."

Here people don't believe in the new.
They'd rather do what others did.
And god forbid, someone tried being fresh in his approach towards anything ... "No Anish. This feels too unfamiliar. Remember what Levis did in 1998 ..."

Bullshit.

Some of you might be feeling a little anxious by now. Waiting for that chance to tell me, "Change it if you think it's not right."
I laugh at you.
I can't even get my boss to understand that new doesn't necessarily mean something someone else did that worked.
That makes it not-new.
By default. Of course.

Tuesday, 11 September 2012

#1 - Introduction

Remember those rock concerts?

Where the band comes on stage and there is this huge roar from the crowd and the band goes straightaway into a song... and then they introduce themselves?
Yeah, this is something like that. Just a little late... that's all.

Truth be told, I didn't have this idea before.

As a matter of fact, I just got this idea and like most egotistic copywriters in the world, I felt that any idea that comes to my head would be a complete waste if I didn't put it out there.
And hence, here it is.

I am Anish Bhattacharya.
The Copywriter of all the below ads/campaigns, the visualizer of most of the below ads/campaigns and the art director of a few of the below ads/campaigns.

A copywriter struggling to make his presence felt in the small, biased world of advertising.

Based out of Kolkata (by now you are probably feeling sorry for me and that little voice in your head is going,"This chap has absolutely nothing going for him"), I work for this ad agency called Response.
I used to work at InnerCircle... worked there for the best part of my career (A year and 2 months) before applying at Response and getting in.

I'd like to believe I am a lucky man.

I have come to know a few men and women from advertising, and the most common story is the struggle most of them had to go through to get into advertising.
I on the other hand, got the first job I applied for as a copywriter even before I knew what copywriting was.
And then when I thought it was time to move on, I applied at Response, presented my portfolio which is mostly what you see below (add to these a few odd scripts i had written) and I was in.

Somehow, when (with the sole intention to impress) I ask people to look at my blog, they expect to find blog posts (such as these).
Especially because I am a paid writer in a rather unforgiving city. But I always thought, that my thoughts were mainly for myself, people extremely close to me and the clients for whom I get paid.

But hey, I am that bored right now.
Bored enough to change my blog-philosophies, thereby lessening my boredom.

I guess that was rather selfish. But again, I am no Neil French.
You don't give a tiny rats ass about any of what I have written in the past, any of what I just wrote here or about any of what I will subsequently write. Unless of course, I win a few international awards and you get to tell people that you went to school with me, or you were my friend, or you are my friend.

Lets not get ahead of ourselves here.

Work first. Awards will come.

Maybe awards will help my boredom because this, my first blog post, sure as hell didn't.