Finally the much awaited Convocation!

Being a postgraduate isn’t something great but the feeling about making it great is what convocation does to you. From day one I joined the course I had decided I would never attend my convocation. Coz I always had this pre notion of convocation being rather boring and pseudos attending it and wearing those black robe and that funny looking black hat. I couldn’t even imagine myself attending one of its kinds and for the same reason I didn’t haunt my graduation day too.

As days passed and this so-called course was about to accomplish the whole feeling of being away from those so-called friends or classmates was sulking into me. So convocation was one of the reasons to catch up with all those good memories and those friends who shared a year with you.

But trust me all those reasoning was so kiddish when I think now about the wonderful feeling I had when I was brought into the room filled with biggies from the industry as well as those proud parents scattered around. Seated in chairs waiting for their proud son or daughter to make that grand entry to that beautiful room with those finest robes and funny looking hat, which now was a part of being proud to be graduated.

The moment I entered the room I could hear applause and all eyes hooked on to me as if a princess was walking down the aisle and everybody eagerly looking up top her. Oh trust me what a marvelous feeling that was. My eyes filled with tears, khushi ke assoon the…. The whole portrait of tossing your hat up high and all the proud hats were flying and gently resting down on the ground was worth lifetime. Well my parents who didn’t want to make it for the convocation thinking they would make fool of themselves if other parents didn’t turn up.

The best of food being served to the proud students and parents. Variety of desserts that would make you have second opinion skipping the main course. But finally it was a thankful event. Coz they could experience their daughter being convocated and looking pretty in that robe and hat proudly standing tall with the certificate which read Certificate for Post Graduate Program in Advertising & Media Management.



Have a Gr8 Day!

Divs

31st Dec 06…. Partying hard till 7am…Goooaaaa…

We all love holidaying with our friends.

The background is filled with clear blue sea, clear blue sky. Everything’s seems so blue and green. One of the most beautiful place ever in India where firangs are an added advantage to that state. After the ST bus journey from an alien place to our own land.

No its not the place where I have been living all my years or it isn’t my hometown but much closer to those places, close to my heart. The place so called is GOA. I blink twice and pinch myself just to make my self-feel that I am really back to this place where I always have a great time. It’s a feeling of being oneself that Goa gives you. It’s called the Freedom to be. Overtime I visit Goa it makes me realize that Goa never stops persuading me.

Goa is the place for which I have been visiting for 3 consecutive years from now. But still cants get enough of it. Every year I find Goa much more closer to my heart. The name itself gives a smile on my face and there’s a charm on my face as though I am in love. Yes I am in love with this exquisite place.

The planning for new years was happening since a month back. Though I still cannot figure out why is that we celebrate New Year coming in a big way and make ourselves happy. Or is it that we just need reason to party. Well in our case be it new years or just another outing if its Goa its supposed to be good 5 days of rocking time.

After that 8 hours of train travelling through the kokan belt where you can watch and feel the green lush trees, dam, creeks, the way nature has its own charm. In fact this year we had decided we wont go to Goa as every year exploring the same city makes life boring. So we taught why not explore other places in the kokan belt.

So we randomly chose a place called Malvan & Sindhudurg which was some 4-hrs drive away from Goa. So my friends gave me a whole picture of the plan some 3 days before we hit this place. I am was so excited when I heard that we are going to live in a forest, go trekking, splash ourselves at this beautiful waterfall and virgin beaches which was unexplored. I was already thrilled and was jumping out in excitement.

So it was 30th Dec and by the 27th of Dec I was already in New Year celebration mood. I woke myself early morns by 4.30 all charged up to get set and board the train by 5.45am. Never in my life have I been awake by 4.30 in the morning to study during those school days when u have your board exams. Anyway exams were never that exciting as trips are. We were a group of 15 in fact a bunch of crazy people. The train journey was fab rite from irritating the canteen crew in the train to the passengers who were travelling with us, yelling our hearts out when the train passes the tunnel. And how can we spare the people who were trying to grab some sleep.

Finally we reached a station named Kudal. As we stepped out of the train with our luggage all excited. There I see 2 of my friends carrying some 6 bottles of Mineral water that they flicked from the train. That was kind off a tribute we paid to our Indian Railways. It was hell of a journey in this city where we were searching for a place to crash down. But all in vain being the 30th Dec all places were booked, even the bathrooms for that matter.

Finally managed to get this amazing house which was close to a beach and had a beautiful view. This place was a typical village where houses were of mud and bricks, cattle’s outside their house. You can call it more of animals than people in the city. So we spent a day at this place because even a day further would have been a pain. It was a complete village atmosphere with all so dull and stand still life.

By midnight all of us were already shaking to the music that we could hear being played in Goa in those beaches and that rave party happening at some rocking place. So we packed our bags the very next morning and hit to Goa. I guess Goa was calling hard. In fact should say Goa was shouting. We reached Goa by evening of the new yrs eve. Struggled hard to find a place to fit ourselves. Unwinded ourselves and soon it was time for dinner and our tummy started giving us signs of hunger. So we went to this amazing place called Mum’s Kitchen where we were served authentic Goan food with a bill of 6 grants for a dinner, which was a shock @ 12 midnight, where the whole world greeted each other New Year wishes.

One could say Goa was the most priced and expensive Man that day. Everything in the city was priced double and the very next day after new years all was back to normal. On the new years eve we attended a party happening at Marriot Goa. A pool side party that was going on till 3 am and then we hit to the pub where we danced till we dropped till morning 7am. Oh what a night wherein I danced as if nobody’s watching and enjoyed myself to the core.

The next day it was time to explore places in Goa and the major part being shopping and getting our body painted with tattoo. The serenity that the beaches have a feeling of peace and calm though people floating around you. It’s about loosing yourself to Goa and its fun. So we shopped till we were all broke and got rocking tattoos done. You can say I am a shopping freak but I guess all women are. So I am no different. Fine I am trying to act like one. But if you go to see people like me are helping the citizens to come with more shops and malls. So I managed to flirt with some firangs too.

Finally it was time to say goodbye to Goa and its people. But somewhere I knew I would be back here the next year. So I stand up and walk past the aisle feeling departed from my love but a feeling of being together with him will always be there. I kiss him Goodbye and promise him to be back soon.

Have a gr8 Day!

Divs

There are Upsss and there are ……

It’s a corporate life where I am sitting at my hutch and staring at my desktop for whole 12 or more hours, some times reviewing e-mails from clients, orkutting or frankly chatting with friends. My space where I sit are portrait of close friends or you could say piece of people with whom I shared my vitality and where at every point of time my life changed.

An orchid bouquet that is being lying on my desk for past 25 days, still I do not feel like discarding it for the simple reason, that each day I think my life gets exhausted the way this flower gets. A bottle filled with water reminding me that my body needs water to survive.

Speakers through which I could loosen my mind. But where’s the bloody time for music, when 12 hours I am running round the whole office to get my work done from different people.

A list of all extensions of various people in the agency, which reminds me, what a big organization, I am working in. A telephone line where I can make calls to my clients, receive their calls with all those abuses, or calls for some corrections in their ad.

I could see all faces hooked on to their respective comps and people typing shamelessly to glory, whatever work they think is important, or making calls to their clients and noting the changes which needs to be incorporated.

Oh what a place have I got, where I could just roll out from my seat and there I could see the whole ceaseless sea, where the sun rising and setting at its best, where the boats or ships seem tiny from far and the water seems crystal-clear blue.

It looks all so pretty from here.

"Making the transition from college to work is often more traumatic than entering college and leaving home for the first time.

Its 11 pm in the evening and I am still at work wondering why the hell am I here in office, when I am supposed to be partying hard, on a Friday night with my friends. Is this the life I wished for where I am working hard for no reason, where I hear swears from my parents when I reach home after a long day at work? And my mom still on shock mode where she imagined all wildest things ever she could think till I reached home which would happen to her dear daughter.

It’s all that I have been doing for those peanuts you call or those big monies which gives me all those little pleasures I could buy from them. Its my work or my client that keeps me so occupied that I hardly know when diwali was on and how it passed off. Except for the fact that I hogged on to those yummy sweets and lit diyas all over my dwelling to make it feel like diwali.

The agency where the studio department always gives you a tough time or you could say they are an add on with those burgers to test your frustration level after your client has already chewed your brains and your energy level has been exhausted.

Sometimes I wonder right from when my day starts where I have a journey to make in a so-called local train to my workplace. A journey which takes me exactly an hour and half right from the rick journey from my home to the station and from there a train which drops me till the dead end station of Mumbai and from there again a bus journey or a cab to my office.

The train journey being the most exciting part of the day where I struggle hard to get into the ladies compartment which is worse than??? I don’t know what. Actually cannot compare or nothing can be worse than a train journey. All I can see around me are women who are yapping to glory be it about their husbands, boyfriends, or their in-laws or bitching about other women bumping into her out of no choice of the jammed train. Out in that crowded train you can see women selling goods where an ant also cannot pass. Its morning, past 8 and you can see women shopping for clothes, kitchen stuffs, accessories etc.

Therefore corporate life is all about spending a huge amount of your so called precious life at work trying to earn those big bucks and slogging your ass to glory. "I am not trying to dig a canal and live in our cabin in the woods, I want to be connected to the world, but on my own terms."



Have a gr8 winter....

Divs

Welcome to the Hotel California….

On a dark desert highway
Cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of colitas
Rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance
I saw a shimmering light

It’s a place of scenic beauty. To put it the right way it can be called walking in the clouds. Situated in an apt location away from admits pollution, car honking loud, people surrounded all across. It’s a place where the sun kisses you and wishes goodmorning, where you hear birds chirping early morn and the nature at its best. It’s a perfect place to live and spend your life. But tat was all soon a dream. It’s a place where you can rightly say it “This could be Heaven or this could be Hell” depends on the way you take it.

It’s a place where 16 odd people with different background, culture, past and future had met. Few carried their past and some wanted to live with their present. It was right then to be a part of them or is right now to be away from them is still a question unanswered to myself.

We shared our lives, be it love life, family life or some other kind of life if at all there exist. It was truly like a journey traveled with strangers but at the final destination there were mixed emotions of being bonded, rift and love for each other.

A course rightly called Post graduate program in Media Management, where in the course offers you a king like treatment, be it from the college with a swimming pool, squash court, tennis court, gym facility, pick up and drop facility from our hostel to our college, be it the exotic food for lunch and the evening snacks.

Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year
You can find it here

Classrooms, which are as big as a conference room with professional arrangements, made. That’s why I guess our course director always said “ Guys behave like Professional’s, you are gonna be the future media managers”. Was it a rule or a norm I do not know but all our problems were always heard but never solved. We had to solve our own problems by forgetting them or trying hard to solve them.

It was a class of ego, discrimination, passion about media, lovely couples, talented artist, economist, BMM’s and not to forget the future managers. It was a blend of all. Our lives for a year was to be bonded with each other, be it with choice or without.

Our so called hostel which was more of a resort was the only place where in all showed their true colors, right from yelling, shouting, fighting, back bitching, smoking, boozing, hogging, going for long walks etc.

Mirrors on the ceiling
Pink champagne on ice
And she said
We are all just prisoners here
Of our own device

So a year of being together I managed to make good friends who at some point of time were good but then they were the ones with true colors of dark. All were good people in their own little ways. Caring at times, loving at times and real bad most of the times. But we all lived it and I guess that’s what life teaches us to deal with all kinds of people whether you like them or you don’t.

Last thing I remember
I was running for the door
I had to find the passage back to the place I was before
Relax said the nightman
We are programmed to receive
You can check out any time you like
But you can never leave

So welcome to the hotel California, such a lovely place, such a lovely face.....

Have a GR8 Winter!!

Divs

The wait is over!

It is an industry of alchemists.

On my first day of work I’m sitting there thinking, ‘What have I done?’

Then I gaze outside from where I have been given a place to sit. And what I see is big huge tall buildings with big brands flashing their logo all around. I say it to myself welcome to the world of advertising honey! A desktop to work and a chair to sit. Rest all other things don’t belong to the place. A place full of betas and betas and papers. I could see a perfect corporate picture hanging on the softboard in which I tired hard guessing people but all seemed aliens to me.

The sentiments seem vague, and absolutely alien. But its all part of the beginning.

It was absolutely a feeling which young people will have when they come and visit the agency. "You can see in their eyes this feeling of, 'God.' This isn't wonderland, but we've taken away a lot of the things that are wrong about agencies, a lot of the emperors new clothes."

The walls and shelves of most agencies are abundantly bric-a-bracked with the trophies they've bagged at industry award shows.

Copywriters and art directors routinely use the sorcery of slogans and images to turn toothpaste into a sexual lure athletic shoes into a totem of hipness. Yet despite its ability to revamp the base metal of human insecurity into gold on behalf of others, the advertising industry has been stuck with an absolutely no image of its own.

The department so called for which I was hired, is one in which you act like a mediator between the agency and the client who is called client-servicing executive. But it’s more like a football match where you being the football and the client being on one team and the creative on other side to hit you hard.

The job of an account executive goes well beyond picking up the phone and making a cold call. You need to understand the client's wants and needs. You need to assess what your agency has to offer. You also need to assess if the personalities of your people and the client fit. And most of all, you need to work at building a trusting relationship.

Finally you live here in this agency work hard and party harder. Where all those little things like you’re first day at work, looking for friends around and sharing your lunch with colleagues. Well and how about that first client meeting of yours. The first meeting is like the first date. If you talk about yourself the entire time, she won't call you back."

Let them take the time to get to know you before you pop the big question or you might scare them away.

So I guess in the beginning the omens are in dark.

Have a Gr8 Day!!!

Divs

Understanding about Media Buying.....

A campaign is successful only if it has a path breaking message to communicate which is time lined and easy to eyes and mind, we understand it’s surely an intrusion to a viewer but it’s our source for survival.

A creative turns out to be an effective campaign if it is backed by an effective media plan, and the backbone of every media plan is the deals done by the agency with the respective media.

Media Buying is a specialized skill, which requires knowledge of your target clients, consumer behavior, the media, and the criteria used to measure the value of TV, Print and radio programming.

A media buyer has many dimensions to his job, he is responsible to scrutinize a media plan made by the planner and give him options to optimize the plan. At times he will suggest the planner to change some programs or channel for a better output. He is well aware of the programs and the channels that are performing better than the rest. If he sees that the program is dropping its rating points then he may suggest reiterating the plan and suggesting the planner with alternatives best suitable to the plan.

A media buyer should have an eagle’s eye and keep a track of the upcoming properties and innovations so that the client gets the first advantages and helps hold the account. He is the one who takes care that the spots are run on time and if any make good has to happen. He keeps a track of all the campaigns and periodicals done on daily basis and submits reports and validations to the client.A media buyer should know enough about the key buying criteria to be in control and make the purchase decisions based on the proposals. A media buyer should present with a media plan laying out what types of media are being bought, how many people they are expected to reach, how often they are expected to reach this audience and the cost of each element of the plan. One should evaluate the plan.
A media buyers use their leverage and experience to negotiate media time and space at well below the published costs or "rack rate." They may also negotiate for bonus weight. One should evaluate the results of these negotiations to see how close the firm is holding to the plan and to make suggestions for value-added possibilities.

The most important aspect and the key thumb rule are to maintain a good relationship with the media houses.
After the launch of the campaign is complete, media buyer or advertising firm should provide with a post-buy analysis that shows how close they came to meeting or exceeding the objectives of the media plan.
Finally you can't have good advertising without a good client and you can't keep a good client without good advertising.

Media Planning - What I think

Media planning requires matching the target audience to the appropriate media. Once the target audience is identified, selection is made based on the profiles of various media that is available, while also evaluating cost.

It’s the decisions made by advertisers which determine what media to use for an advertising campaign and to make the most effective use of each medium, within the limits of the media budget. It is also the series of decisions involved in the delivery of an advertising message to prospective purchasers or users of a product or service.

A very traditional approach to start your media plan would be to define a target group in terms of demographics. The most common demographic variables are those that are related to age, sex and socio-economic class.

Today the consumers are being exposed to numerous messages of varied types of products and services available. Each of these products or service claims to be the best option/choice for the consumer. He is being bombarded with these messages at every step, every place he/she goes.

Thus, an advertiser essentially needs to know whether the information delivered by him has reached the target audience or not. He needs to find out if the message was understood and retained by the consumer. Recall by the consumer is of utmost importance. In addition to recall a marketer needs to understand the consumer’s perception and change in behavior caused by the communication of the product/service or by the competitors.

But the scope of media planning is more than just understanding the consumer. In every aspect related to advertising, brand management and marketing one needs to understand the Core Target Audience to plan the communication accordingly. Media planning is one step in the entire advertising process. It is not only important to have the best creative layout, the most appropriate message or the most monies invested. It’s all futile if not delivered to the right people at the right time.