Some Test I Took, The Results Not Out

1. Name an ad on TV you hate, say why and then do your version.

The Cello Express Pen ad where the Chairman of a board (corporate jargon and fundae thrown around forces me to assume this) goes ballistic, prances on the table like Mick Jagger. Hohum, old man takes his coat off, threatens to do away with his trousers and yay, we’re all queuing up to buy the pen. I mean who wouldn’t want a pen that makes people dance and strip. The jumping Jack antic apparently was to play along with the “Express” tag of the pen. Words that best describe the ad, insipid and avoidable.

The “Express” tag line can be used in far more innovative ways as the word packs more punch than what a pelvic thrust can deliver.

The earlier Reynolds adverts focused on the utility that is a pen, used primarily as writing tool. An advert for a pen must focus on this aspect unless of course the alternative uses can actually help in selling the pen.

Using the idea ‘Express’ a strong identifiable campaign can be created. To add a personal touch you can expand the tag line to “Express Yourself”

AD 1- Woman at the table of a ‘posh’ restaurant. (You can call it a 5 star, I wouldn’t know) Going thru the menu and crossing the ‘Ts’ and dotting the ‘Is’. Checking for grammatical errors and putting the commas in their place. You can have dialogues or just ambient sound (because it’s a ‘posh’ restaurant you can have piped music, “Clear or sparkling”).

The same idea can be explored with a person walking around the city correcting signboards, handing out the right spelling to shopkeepers. All written with the Cello pen.

Tag Line- Express Yourself

AD 2- This is the standard ‘bold’ ad. People will wonder why sex is being used to sell a pen. Response to people “Imagine”. Anyway here’s the pitch:

Couple in bed, man using “Cello Pen” to draw on the woman’s naked/semi-naked body. He draws, writes poetry etc. The woman can act like this is the best thing ever.

Tag Line- Express Yourself

AD 3- Provocative ads that create controversies for social reasons always grab the eyeballs. Ok enough of home grown gyan. The pitch starts here:

Boy walks off with a classmate’s pen (Cello Pen). The classmate shouts out “Pen Chor” as the teacher walks by.

Tag Line- Express Yourself

2. Write a hoarding campaign for adoption

Initially I wanted to work out something different and avoid using the image of a child. The cliché however seems to stick. Every campaign for something like adoption will invoke a sense of deja-vu. You can experiment with style and concept but the ultimate insight, as you call it, would remain the same. We must consider adoption as an option, is the message.

For this campaign we can explore multiple options. One could tug at your heart strings, the other could be cute as hell and yet another could be provocative.

Campaign 1

Message: Do it because you can

Image 1: Shots of baby feet, while they are asleep (alternatively we can us palms as well, as they are all curled up and cute), with name tags. Only one tag can be read (preferably the cutest palm or feet) and it reads John Doe or XXX, for a normal audience.

Tag Line: It Doesn’t Have To Be Like This

Image 2: A cute as hell baby crawling across a busy street and in immediate danger of being run over.

Tag Line: It Doesn’t Have To Be Like This

Image 3: A knobbed, long nailed hand reaching out to grab a scared looking kid. (All shadowed and Frank Miller style)

Tag Line: It Doesn’t Have To Be Like This

The above campaign can have a number of other images each showing an impending danger to a child left alone.

Campaign 2

Message: It’s happening all around you.

Here each billboard will be divided into two halves. One half will show the mother/father and kid frolicking/playing. The other half gives a mug shot of the two. For this particular campaign we can use images from the animal kingdom. The Great Dane and tiger/leopard cubs are well known. We can also use a cow and an elephant calf. In addition we use the image of an Indian parent with a Mongoloid baby and other such combinations.

Tag Line: Birds and the Bees do it; even the educated fleas do it.

Campaign 3

Message: It is the best choice

Image: Supermarket with a large number of cute babies on the shelf to pick from. A not very good looking but benevolent couple or a poor couple making a choice.

(The ugly couple funda is a provocative concept that is used to drive home the point that it’s a choice for everyone)

Image: A family portrait, with the entire family having an obvious deformity except the adopted child who is now a stellar young fella.

Tag Line: A little bit of variety always helps

The last campaign is deliberately provocative.

3. Make a story out of the following in about 250 words

Mermaid, silicon chip, saree, candle, Africa

“This one cannot hold a candle to the earlier one,” he remarked. “Hell this one can’t hold a thing,” said the fisherman, “she has no arms. Whoever saw a mermaid without arms?”

The rough seas and low catch made the fishermen irritable, more so if you were a laid off dotcom employee. If you are wondering how a dotcom boomer takes to phishing then all you need to do is give me your credit card details, number et al and I’d tell you.

The two fishermen sat down in their high speed trawler and called out to RSVP. Ramadorai Shankerpeetam Velapalli Poghai or RSVP was the programming whiz who lost his job because of his brilliance. He programmed a programme to programme programmes. It was an open source application and was available for free. Needless to say the entire programming fraternity got laid off. RSVP went into hiding. He worked as a freelance deckhand, no ESOPs but the pay was better than what a freelance programmer got. The job also gave him a glimpse of the mermaids who swam by the boat. The mermaids never felt threatened by these software junkies, in that respect they were like any other woman. In other respects too they were a chip off the odd silicon blockheads.

RSVP saw the ragged state of his shipmates. He felt like going up to them an apologizing, “Saree, is such a difficult word to say,” he said to himself. But the thought didn’t stick with him too long; rationalizing was the key to survival for any Indian living outside his country. “We’re in the same boat anyway, and it’s not like they’re starving in Africa or anything” he thought.

“Yep?” he asked them.

4. Write 100 words convincing someone to give up smoking

My sister lost her baby last week, my mother has a growth in her uterus, let’s hope it’s benign. Both my uncles succumbed to lung cancer last year; my father is in the final stages of his. My youngest cousin gets bouts of asthma and wheezes his lungs out. The noise disgusts me but his swollen face and bloodshot repulses me even more. The older one, she can’t see him look like a puffer fish, she was born blind. My aunt, she’s dead, had a stroke. We’re a family of orphans. I can only think, can’t move, can’t write, can’t talk, and can’t do anything without help. They say God helps those who can’t take care of themselves. Who helps you when your parents were buttheads? What a drag.

5. Write a radio spot based on the TV commercial you wrote

The scratching noises that’s made while writing and the dialogues between the steward and the customer.