A click on your mouse can send an email, can take you anywhere on the internet, can shoot the enemy in your favourite FPS game, can download any song you wanna listen to or can get you a recipe in an instant, can probably change the lighting scheme of your room, but a click to get you through life .. bad times, arguments, suffering... be careful what you wish for ..
Adam Sandler just had to go through a long nightmare to learn his lesson in the movie 'Click', but i'm sure there have been times where you wish you could just get past that one sickness or just one argument or just a couple of months to get to your dream a lil faster... Hold on !! chill .. you will get past it .. that's life .. don't start leaving life behind, or even worse, don't keep life for later .. coz it's that every moment that you live, live it well, or not so well, suffer, curse someone, argue, and then make up for it, be an ass, or dream, feel good, celebrate happiness... that's life .. life's not just about getting it done with, its about living it...
How often do you see ambitious guys and girls, forget everything and work like there's no tommorrow.. and why ?? just so they can have a better life for themselves and their families... but just stop for a moment and rethink .. are you losing the good life that you could have had today for a better tommorrow, and before you know it, you're working for a better day after!! and in the process of doing so you fast forward your life and tend to miss out on those years of the life you were looking forward to and now it's gone... when you realise it's usually too late to go back all those years and re live those moments... there's no rewind button .. and you don't wanna be late for your own life..
so STOP !! look at the bigger picture.. rethink your motives... and start again but this time having thought a lil more about what you REALLY want !! don't keep clicking the next button for your life like in an installation .... think about it ..
P.S. : watch the movie .. its worth a watch .. :)
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Saturday, May 24, 2008
And God said...
"dixitque Deus fiat lux et facta est lux" - Let there be light, and there was light. But don't you think that he must have meant it for all the times that mankind spent in darkness. Coz for the other half of the day he had the SUN !!
And all this because of an interesting observation i made over the last few days. Be it a bright sunny morning or an even sunnier afternoon, people riding two wheelers have their lights on !! without even realizing it and unnecessarily wasting precious energy in the process. Its now become almost a daily ordeal for me to point it out to at least a couple of riders that they could do without the lights.
On contemplating a little i came up with a possible reason as to why this happens and i realised that whne these people get back home it's usually evening or night, implying they'll have the lights on theor two wheelers on. And they'll just be too tired to think of anything else so all they do is shut the engine and walk home. if only they'd shut the lights before they kill their engines they would never face such problems.
So all people who use two wheelers, or even people who drive cars for that matter, shut the lights, and then kill the engine. So let's give your light full attention, and not deprive it of what it deserves when the hot sun is around !!
And all this because of an interesting observation i made over the last few days. Be it a bright sunny morning or an even sunnier afternoon, people riding two wheelers have their lights on !! without even realizing it and unnecessarily wasting precious energy in the process. Its now become almost a daily ordeal for me to point it out to at least a couple of riders that they could do without the lights.
On contemplating a little i came up with a possible reason as to why this happens and i realised that whne these people get back home it's usually evening or night, implying they'll have the lights on theor two wheelers on. And they'll just be too tired to think of anything else so all they do is shut the engine and walk home. if only they'd shut the lights before they kill their engines they would never face such problems.
So all people who use two wheelers, or even people who drive cars for that matter, shut the lights, and then kill the engine. So let's give your light full attention, and not deprive it of what it deserves when the hot sun is around !!
Monday, May 12, 2008
The 'Mad Ad' World
A newbie is at a German coast guard radio station when the voice at the other end of an incoming message says “May day, May day!! Can you hear us?? We’re sinking...” The German at this end says “Hello, Zis is ze German Coast Guard”. The person at the other end, obviously with a panic stricken voice says, “We’re sinking, we’re sinking.” The German replies “What are you sinking about?” ‘Improve your English.’
That was just an ad for an English language school. Just to tell you what modern day advertising has become. The same ad a couple of decades ago would have highlighted the number of courses they offer for a variety of students and the experience they have or maybe a few alumni who have made it big after their course.
Moreover, in the 1950s, when the television quickly became the hottest consumer property - no home could be without one. And so where the sets went, the advertisers followed, spilling fantasies about better living. Ever since, the consumer only got richer, with more money to spend, but smarter as well, knowing pretty we’ll what not to spend on. He was no more the guy who would buy an expensive watch just coz an attractive sales person was selling it or just coz his tennis idol wore the same brand on TV.
Ads were no more just about highlighting your product or your campaign. They were about grabbing your audience’s attention and hitting straight where it got the audience thinking, set off a long lasting relationship with the consumer, made a bond for life, touched that chord of the consumer’s life, and got him emotionally attached to the ad as if the characters in the ad were his own family. As if it was you who came home on the night of karva chauth and took your wife by her hand, drove her to a beach and showed her the moon through the sunroof of your elegant Chevrolet Optra. And all of this within a crisp 45 seconds or at best, a minute and a half. The whole objective of advertising was now the audience and not the product being advertised. As Toyota very aptly put it “we don’t fit you in any other car, we build the car around you”!!
Another thing that still remains and I hope will always remain with the institution of advertising is creativity. The beautiful mix of humor, fantasy, wordplay, out-of-the-box thinking AND keeping it simple at the same time requires some real creative genius don’t you think???? A man waiting in the elevator whole day, getting tired but still holding on already has the sympathy of everyone watching when he finally meets a cute girl he’s never seen before. Everyone’s happy. “you will meet your soul mate in the elevator today”. Vodafone horoscope alerts@ Rs 30 per month.
Advertising and creativity go beyond television too. Picture this. 3M, the popular brand, makes glass so strong that they make compartments of it, fill them up with real currency and fix them up at a bus stop. People tried their luck with golf clubs, hockey sticks, baseball bats and what not. To gain nothing but a little sweat, of course. Brandvertising!!
The latest trend in advertising is creating social awareness about issues, or get across social messages or inspiring the audience more than selling their product. Two kids start fighting on the street on a mutual agreement; literally getting their hands dirty, just to distract their dad’s who’re involved in some stupid quarrel. Daag acche hain. Surf Excel. Or a citizen starts asking questions about a politicians qualification or workex before he decides who to vote for. Or “How about we name bad roads after the contractors that built them” Babu Lal marg. Estd 6th dec 2007... Don’t just wake up every morning. Awaken. Tata Tea. Not sure how fruitful it is in selling more of your tea or soap but sure its waking India up.
But advertising is not always good and right. Creativity can be misused. Surrogate advertising. Advertising for alcohol and liqueur isn’t allowed. So advertise for packaged mineral water, or music cds or excellence awards under the same brand name while we all know you’re trying to sell either scotch or vodka or rum.
Being blatantly misused as well these days is Sleaze. Why else would you need barely clad women to convince you to buy the latest version of your minty fresh toothpaste. According to psychologists, advertisers want you to feel a certain way about their product, create mental associations, and want you to feel the same way about the toothpaste and the girl. Sleaze is exploited everyday in advertising. As someone rightly put it - ‘Advertising is the art of making whole lies out of half truths.’
Advertising has begun to have negative impacts on people as well especially children. Parents complain "In general, my child refuses to eat anything that hasn't danced on TV." Or the misconception that fair implies beautiful, has led many a youngster into depression coz he/she is dark. I mean what the hell happened to “Tall dark and handsome, or the dusky beauty every guy craved for”????? Which world are we living in, Dear who’s who of the advertising world.
So, all that matters in the end is whether they’ve managed to create a lasting impression on you that lasts beyond the ad, till you get to the store to buy the product or even longer. Good or bad, they couldn’t care less. If you buy the product, or even give it a second thought, they’ve done their job and they’ve done it well. Love it, hate it, like it, loath it, but you just can’t ignore it.
That was just an ad for an English language school. Just to tell you what modern day advertising has become. The same ad a couple of decades ago would have highlighted the number of courses they offer for a variety of students and the experience they have or maybe a few alumni who have made it big after their course.
Moreover, in the 1950s, when the television quickly became the hottest consumer property - no home could be without one. And so where the sets went, the advertisers followed, spilling fantasies about better living. Ever since, the consumer only got richer, with more money to spend, but smarter as well, knowing pretty we’ll what not to spend on. He was no more the guy who would buy an expensive watch just coz an attractive sales person was selling it or just coz his tennis idol wore the same brand on TV.
Ads were no more just about highlighting your product or your campaign. They were about grabbing your audience’s attention and hitting straight where it got the audience thinking, set off a long lasting relationship with the consumer, made a bond for life, touched that chord of the consumer’s life, and got him emotionally attached to the ad as if the characters in the ad were his own family. As if it was you who came home on the night of karva chauth and took your wife by her hand, drove her to a beach and showed her the moon through the sunroof of your elegant Chevrolet Optra. And all of this within a crisp 45 seconds or at best, a minute and a half. The whole objective of advertising was now the audience and not the product being advertised. As Toyota very aptly put it “we don’t fit you in any other car, we build the car around you”!!
Another thing that still remains and I hope will always remain with the institution of advertising is creativity. The beautiful mix of humor, fantasy, wordplay, out-of-the-box thinking AND keeping it simple at the same time requires some real creative genius don’t you think???? A man waiting in the elevator whole day, getting tired but still holding on already has the sympathy of everyone watching when he finally meets a cute girl he’s never seen before. Everyone’s happy. “you will meet your soul mate in the elevator today”. Vodafone horoscope alerts@ Rs 30 per month.
Advertising and creativity go beyond television too. Picture this. 3M, the popular brand, makes glass so strong that they make compartments of it, fill them up with real currency and fix them up at a bus stop. People tried their luck with golf clubs, hockey sticks, baseball bats and what not. To gain nothing but a little sweat, of course. Brandvertising!!
The latest trend in advertising is creating social awareness about issues, or get across social messages or inspiring the audience more than selling their product. Two kids start fighting on the street on a mutual agreement; literally getting their hands dirty, just to distract their dad’s who’re involved in some stupid quarrel. Daag acche hain. Surf Excel. Or a citizen starts asking questions about a politicians qualification or workex before he decides who to vote for. Or “How about we name bad roads after the contractors that built them” Babu Lal marg. Estd 6th dec 2007... Don’t just wake up every morning. Awaken. Tata Tea. Not sure how fruitful it is in selling more of your tea or soap but sure its waking India up.
But advertising is not always good and right. Creativity can be misused. Surrogate advertising. Advertising for alcohol and liqueur isn’t allowed. So advertise for packaged mineral water, or music cds or excellence awards under the same brand name while we all know you’re trying to sell either scotch or vodka or rum.
Being blatantly misused as well these days is Sleaze. Why else would you need barely clad women to convince you to buy the latest version of your minty fresh toothpaste. According to psychologists, advertisers want you to feel a certain way about their product, create mental associations, and want you to feel the same way about the toothpaste and the girl. Sleaze is exploited everyday in advertising. As someone rightly put it - ‘Advertising is the art of making whole lies out of half truths.’
Advertising has begun to have negative impacts on people as well especially children. Parents complain "In general, my child refuses to eat anything that hasn't danced on TV." Or the misconception that fair implies beautiful, has led many a youngster into depression coz he/she is dark. I mean what the hell happened to “Tall dark and handsome, or the dusky beauty every guy craved for”????? Which world are we living in, Dear who’s who of the advertising world.
So, all that matters in the end is whether they’ve managed to create a lasting impression on you that lasts beyond the ad, till you get to the store to buy the product or even longer. Good or bad, they couldn’t care less. If you buy the product, or even give it a second thought, they’ve done their job and they’ve done it well. Love it, hate it, like it, loath it, but you just can’t ignore it.
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