The Death of the Ad Executive

I've been hearing this word a lot ever since the Internet: democratization. Be it democratization (it's a mouthful...must shorten) of marketing, democing of sales management, democing of writing and publishing, democing of movie-making, democing of music, democing of software development and sales, democing of commodity sales, democing of purchasing, democing of having romantic affairs, democing of finding desi grooms and brides, democing of analysis, democing of real estate stuff, democing of living second lives and it goes on. Damn. The dam has burst the contours that previously protected large companies and/or individuals with great resources or talents - today, anyone who can go online and with mediocre talents can go all the way. But we already know all this. What got me going with this article is in fact the democing of advertising.

My wife works for a behemoth (with 300+ products) that spends more on advertising and marketing than on making its products (tsk, tsk). We excitedly watchout for ads that she worked on to go live on TV. These ads have mega budgets and take many months to take shape. Some ads are cool and some not (and such times make TV watching porcupinish - "Is it really not good?"...I respond, "um...it's alright"..."Why isn't it good?"..."Oh it's good...just that her face looks too powdered"..."Really? Oh!"..."No, actually, it's pretty good...I'm tired now and may be my assessment is skewed"...and so it goes and I feel like thwacking the heads of those ad people). But all this is going to change - more or less. Check out Spotrunner - that's clearly touched new ground with its service - perfect for small/ local businesses - something that'll stick a rod into the smooth wheels of big company advertising. Spotrunner is simple! It takes less than a minute to sign-up (seems mandatory in the new web) but you don't need to unless you want to create a campaign. You can browse through the hundreds of ready-made 30-second ads for various industries, pick the one you want (most are for $500 and are smart) and they'll customize it for you in 2 days, then you pick the zip-codes and TV shows where you want your ad to run and you launch (a popular one will cost you around $30,000)! Even if you don't launch on TV, you can always use the online ad (and you will - $410M was spent on online video ads last year and is the fastest growing ad category). Simple. Brilliant.

Mundaneness of existence

Watching a sub-10 year old girl dump the load on her head in a loud thud and staring at it in disgust with her hands on her hips - caught my attention. On the footpath were pieces of broken wood - parts of mismatched, discolored chairs, tables and such. She had tried to tie them together using a pink ribbon, which had given away. The girl wore a bright embroidered red-gold dress that seemed to be an integral part of her - perhaps first worn for some festive occassion but now ragged, wrinkled and even torn here and there. In the din of Mumbai's traffic and piercing afternoon sun, her bony frame kept gazing incoherently at the dead pieces of wood. She wiped her face- perhaps angry, sweaty tears, tied the pieces again with the pink ribbon, took help from a passerby to put the load back on her head and walked on with determination to the other end of the street - may be, where she was supposed to deliver the wood. I looked on at her feeble, dark figure and confused eyes as she walked past me completely unaware of my existence. My fleeting thoughts on the mundaneness of existence (including my own in trying to procure a bank document) were abruptly interrupted when I saw my accountant Bhavesh step out of the Maharashtra Mercantile Co-operative Bank (am surprised I even remember the full name). He went in to complete a process called franking on two sets of forms - one a bank guarantee for the Customs department and the other a "counter guarantee" from us to the bank that was providing us with their own guarantee (confusing? yes, me too). A few many-minutes before, we were at another bank that was providing us with the document we needed.

I'm of course flabbergasted by the incomprehensible processes of the governments - in India or elsewhere. After pushing it away long enough, I had finally decided to complete STPI and customs-bonding registration for our company - this would allow us to go tax-free for awhile. For the first part of the process, there were 26 forms that we submitted - some in triplicate(!). When it came to the second part, I had had enough paperwork for a whole year and called on some consultants to help us out. However, I still had to complete the task of procuring a bank guarantee. So I called our bank ICICI (a successful private bank) and one of their people insanely suggested a 50%-of-the-guaranteed amount as fees (I'm sure incorrectly), a fixed-deposit for the amount and 10 days to process a single paper! Tsk...tsk...I searched for nationalized banks that I learnt would complete the process over-the-counter. When I went to the State Bank of India, the # 1 government bank, the official talked to me (describing various reasons for saying "No")without once taking his eyes off the file he was stamping. After 3 more false starts, I ended up at the government-operated United Bank of India.

As I entered the bank, my nostrils tingled with the smell of dust and long-accumulated paper. Unable to find a helpdesk, I walked into a room that announced itself as "Manager" on its glass wall. The man behind the desk in that room adjusted his grey hair that seemed about 50 years old - looked on at me from the top part of his black rimmed glasses. I quickly explained...we need a bank guarantee from you and I'm willing to deposit money for the same amount. As I spoke I wasn't sure if he was listening as he was busy pulling out one draw after another. Then he dusted off a large file and pulled out a printed form - that I saw was photocopied with disinterest (you know the type where the printed matter navigates from one corner of the page to the other in an awkward slant). "This is counter guarantee", he said. "If you give this counter guarantee, we'll give you bank guarantee. Go outside - fill application form to open the account. Put money for fixed deposit. If you give a check, it'll take many days to clear." And then he gave me another long list of things that were required.

I returned the next day with all the completed forms, stamps ("round stamp", "director stamp") and a blue-ink stamp pad. He examined my forms, made corrections using a red pen and wanted me to stamp-out all pages and all areas where there were blanks. "But why? It doesn't make sense!", I wanted to ask. But swallowed my unsaid words and began the task of stamping the papers with the "round stamp" and "director stamp" and signing them and initialing them. The moments passed quickly when I imagined myself to be the principle character in Kurosawa's Ikiru who works at a public office for 40 years and stamps files all day. I finally did get the document we needed - stamped and signed by the bank manager - which I'm sure no one will ever read. It'll accumulate in the mounds of files in the Custom's office in Mumbai. May be it'll get washed out in one of the monsoon rains and no one will notice it anyways. Either way - the hours I spent, my accountant spent, the consultants spent, the manager spent, the government spent - it will all really not matter. I'm unable to clearly draw a link between this time spent and its utility.

I'm still trying to think what is it that I wanted to write when I began writing this story. Why did I think of the girl in the red-gold dress? Do I see parallels in what she did to that of the bank manager or to that of the bank itself or to what I did in the hours leading up to the point when I noticed her drop her load in frustration. Am I thinking of the mundaneness of the girl's existence - she was taking broken pieces of chair from one block to the other. I was shuttling between my office and the banks to deliver a meaningless piece of paper. I couldn't stand the few minutes of stamping, signing, accumulating paperwork and to think that the manager and his staff did that for an entire life-time! It's not clear what I'm thinking. Perhaps I don't want it to be too clear and I don't want to give myself unconvincing answers to unclear questions. However, only one phrase irritatingly plays a ping-pong in my head: the mundaneness of existence.

I Think, I Game

As a kid I saw a Telugu movie called Maya Bazaar (literally, Magic Market). In the movie, Ghatotkacha, the son of Bheema (one of the Pandava protagonists) - depicted as a good demon with friendly black whiskers creates ruckus at a Kaurava wedding using his magic. In a memorable scene, which I rewound many times after the advent of the VCR (my dad importing the VCR was the most eagerly awaited occassion for my movie-crazed family), Ghatotkacha eats the entire wedding meal in a matter of minutes. He does that by a simple improvisation - he expands to 10-times his size so the quantity of food becomes small. For example, if he were to eat a laddoo that would normally fit his palm - at 10x he would simply think and the now mini-laddoos would zip right into his mouth one after the other. Pure magic. Watch it!

I was reminded of Ghatotkacha's talents to think and create action a few minutes back when I read this.

Communication between man and machine has always been limited to conscious interaction, with non-conscious communication -- expression, intuition, perception -- reserved solely for the human realm. At Emotiv, we believe that future communication between man and machine will not only be limited to the conscious communication that exists today, but non-conscious communication will play a significant part.

No, this isn't from a science fiction discourse. Emotiv is also not an Asimov character - it's a company with roots in Australia that's building - among other things - headset that'll control a computer. The above notes are its own description of what it does. Their first foray is into gaming - so future Second Life players will be able to simply think to watch their avatars do all the action. The headset has sensors much like an ECG machine without the gel and sits snugly on one's (where-else) head. Emotiv calls this Project Epoc and aims to replace existing gaming consoles and click-controlled games with mind-controlled ones. It can detect facial expressions, measure discreet emotional states and detect your conscious thoughts and put it to action even before you are conscious of it. Pure magic? We'll have to wait and watch but I'm excited.