The famous adman shut the One Show Annual, Vol 21. And sighed. That was his big year. Two pencils from 6 shortlists. That year, he and his art partner were on every agency's radar. +
He could effortlessly churn out copy that made his agency's key number famous. He was a natural with classic headline formats. 'Contrary to popular belief...', 'Think of it as...', 'Warning:....', 'How I..., 'The secret of..' +
He could keep an entire art department busy as he whipped up clever copy. Nescafe, he was called, by the Account Director. Instant Copy. +
His phone pinged. A Whatsapp share of a crazy tik tok post. It was a parody of yesterday's news by an insanely talented mimic. He couldn't help laughing aloud. Even as he suppressed a twinge of envy.+
The famous adman was grappling with a brief that was ticking away in his inbox for a week. 'Can we do a crazy tik tok thing for our brand during the lockdown?' +
So he did what he always did. Studied the masters. He downloaded the confounded app. And followed the doyens. Tawdry teenagers, cocky comics, boneless breakdancers, saucy singers... +
To them the world was a brief. Every news item. Every movie. Every celebrity faux pas. Every event. And the deadline was always - faster than that girl from Guntur or that aunty from Aurangabad. +
The famous adman thought, I can do this. I learnt from Tom McElligott, David Abbott, Christopher D'Rozario, and Indra Sinha. I can do Nazma Aapi. +
But he couldn't. In his mind, he composed the headline 'Contrary to popular belief, some things are too late to learn'. He could write the next 343 words easily. He could see the copy set in Goudy, or maybe Palatino. +
But... he couldn't think of one silly 15 second tik tok post that would make his brand manager chuckle. Let alone a whole series of them. +
He stared blankly at his iPhone X. Somewhere far away, a young woman picked up her Redmi 5, and set it up to shoot her latest post. A spoof of 'chhuo na chhuo na mujhe'.
ANTHE.
ANTHE.
