Interview with B.Haridas - Member Grand Jury 2013 (NYF Blog)
1. How did you get interested in advertising and was it your first choice as a career path?
Love for typography got me into advertising. From the age of 12 I used to work as a sign board painter (yes, those days we used to hand paint sign boards for shops etc.) while doing that for a living I developed great love for typography. So I joined an art school to pursue this interest, but the one and only art school in my state didn’t offer specialisation in typography, so i joined Applied Art discipline which prepared students more towards art-direction and I ended up in advertising. But even today nothing gives me more joy than setting a beautifully written line in a beautiful type.
2. What is your favorite all-time creative campaign for an iconic brand?
Benetton work by Oliviero Toscani. It is a slap in the face for traditional advertising.
Economist work over the years. It is pure craft, beautifully written lines set in a beautiful type.
Apple Mac vs Pc films. They are fun but based on truth.
3. What keeps you sane and on top of your game?
Some really nice people whom you meet while you work; it gives a feeling that if these sensible and lovely people are still playing the game then there must be something nice about the game, maybe I have not been able to see it.
4. In your opinion, what qualities does a campaign need to earn an award?
Integrity is what I am looking for. I am looking for work in which strategy, idea and craft come together in an inseparable way - it is a sure winner.
5. How do you stay aware of the creative work emanating from offices around the globe?
I don’t. Nowadays I think there is no need for me to know about the creative work coming from agencies around the globe. Two reasons- One: When you stay out of touch with the advertising world it will keep you fresh, so when you have a problem to solve, you find solutions from within the problem. Otherwise we tend to look for parallels from other campaigns which are developed in a totally different context. Two: If it is a question of inspiration, one should better look outside of advertising for inspiration. Movies, Books, Fine Art, Performing Arts, etc. from around the world are a better source of inspiration for me than advertising.
6. What challenges do you see advertising agencies facing in the next few years?
How to stay away from becoming intrusive to people’s lives with our advertising messages will be the biggest challenge for all of us. With the opening up of digital media we know more about our customers than ever before. We know exactly who they are, where they are right now, what they are watching, what they are eating etc., and then we have these beautiful tools to engage the customer in all these places. But the challenge is that we should learn to use these tools with grace. If we use these tools with restraint it will not only be better for the brands to have a long term respectful relationship with the consumers but also for the betterment of humanity in general. In short advertising should be shown its place again.
Living and working in India, I would say one thing Indian advertising agencies can do is to get more involved with the client’s product development/product improvement process if you want to make a significant difference. Because there are no great products to work on, most of the times you are lying, covering up or exaggerating. I wish we got to work on more great products so that we could bring integrity to our work, but unfortunately it is not the case. The only way out of it for the agencies is to involve with the client in product development or product improvements (in case of existing brands.) Funny side of it is that now many agencies focus on creating dialogue in social media about the products. It is dangerous when you have an average product and a false promise. Bernbach’s line "A great ad campaign will make a bad product fail faster. It will get more people to know it's bad." is never more true than now in the time of social media where your customers have the same tools you have and they can make you or break you.
But if you are the type of agency which doesn’t care for integrity in your work then you don’t have to worry, we can always invent new tools and methods to manipulate people’s opinion, i am sure you already working on it.