In the past it was always the cola war between Pepsi and Coke. I never understood who finally won the battle and whose sales or saliency went up in the consumers mind. The trend continued in the cola space for quite some time but I have not off late noticed that kind of campaigns being released. May be both of them realized that it is sheer waste of money. Is there not a learning for other categories from this? But recently I happen to see Nestle trying a spoof on CDM, which is splashed across all channels in the electronic medium. Post the campaign, we saw more write ups on various portals on who is right and who is wrong and who is getting benefited.

January 29 is Newspaper Day. Then there is WORLD AMATEUR RADIO DAY(April 18), “NATIONAL PUBLIC RELATIONS DAY(April 21)”, WORLD BOOK AND COPYRIGHT DAY(April 23), “WORLE PRESS FREEDOM DAY(May 3)”, SPORTS JOURNALISTS DAY(July 2), WORLD PHOTOGRAPHY DAY(August 19), WORLD TELEVISION DAY (November 21) and other.

I landed in Cannes as a member of a jury eager to lend my experience to selecting the best among the best for the inaugural PR Lions. I returned humbled by the learning from the vast pool of creativity, enriched by the knowledge and thirst for more.

The world has changed – while changing further at an incredible pace. The idea can come from anywhere – advertising, PR, direct, promotions, you name it. And let’s stop cribbing about it not being a PR idea. The Idea wins. I also know that Creativity flows from the young and free. So from hereon you are the King of Rock – not MJ. So let’s see it floowww……Excellence in execution is key to success – using surround sound – digital, traditional media, email, event, grassroots, you name it. Traditional PR is alive but often not relevant, insufficient, does not reach audiences as quickly as digital does. Often digital leads, traditional media follows – almost always.

Twenty-two years back the Indian advertising was just maturing . We had some of the brightest brains from many management institutes, including the much reputed IIM’s attracting this industry, but that story has come to an end. No major reputed management schools invite advertising agencies for campus recruitment now. The reasons are many – starting [...]

I was fortunate to attend the awards ceremony of the Pink slip awards last year where creative awards were given to agency and companies for creative excellence in recruitment advertising. This is a new and interesting initiative from the Times Group to encourage both the clients and the advertising agency to produce great work in [...]