Sunday, August 31, 2008

To Ad it All Up/ A Summery II/ Thirty Days of Torture/ Internship at an ad agency

There are two kinds of posts: Those you cant for the LOVE OF GOD think up a title for, and those that you have too many for. This is one of the latter.

Let me just mention before I start this post, that one of the purposes of this blog is for me to have a record of all the things I've done. This is so that I can go over it all when Im 74, force my grandkids to read it at gunpoint, and lament weakly over how I didnt do it all better.
However, over these past few months, it has managed to most magnificently fail this very same purpose. As I have mentioned earlier, huge portions of the summer and the misery that was this June have gone completely undocumented.
So what will follow now, is an attempt to rectify this gross inadequacy, through the means of a few small and easy, albeit sporadic steps.

Beginning with the internship, which happened in April-May. It seems like a hundred years ago. Really.

Best parts:
The work. Frankly, I ended up with quite a big portfolio. Which will come in very useful, I daresay, should I choose to take up media in the future. However, since that looks highly unlikely at the moment, woo hoo.

Hark! Here is an example of the work I did:


They gave us a creative brief, telling us the details of the project. I came up with the idea, copy (that's ad lingo for "the words") and had to search for the image (Shutterstock, how I grew to dislike the sight of your webpage during these thirty days). The layout our Creative Director did. I did come up with several less cliche ideas, but this was the one they said "worked best". So okay. There you go.

Then there was the ad shoot mentioned earlier. (I'll never forget what an absolute doll Oshmunch was then). What the hell. I shall put up the pictures even though they embarrass the hell outta me.















Yes, so there was that.
Then there was the Other MM sitting two cubicles behind me. Thank god for our chats and conversation (which we interspersed with small amounts of work). Dunno how I'd have survived without her there. And Osh amusing me with her Circle incidents. I think I was exceedingly rude, poor chap. Bah, but if you have that thin a skin, I cant help you.

Coming up with ideas, I really liked. That was clearly what I was best at. (I was NOT adept at searching for images, which I'd to do a lot of, and found quite frankly, torturous.)
Ideas, I liked. In fact, I shall gloat a little and paste a little note the boss sent around. :)
(Give me a break, it was like the high point of my internship.)

A note from Shenoy
Dear all of you who gave it their best lines for the Infosys faces campaign,
finally six lines have been shortlisted for presentation to the client. And the only ones that made it to the final list are all three from Madhu, and three from me.

Good show Madhu!

And guys, think about why yours didn't make it through. Maybe you were either too busy/overloaded with regular work or just didn't think things through/persist with it enough. Or both.

yours truly,
The 'i-have-infosys-coming-out-of-
my-ears' face of TG Shenoy
*gloats a little more*

People were nice too, some of em. Liked Artsy and Wildlifebuff the best. Oh my god, Oshmunch and I came up with nick/codenames for all of them, to use in our conversations. :D I cannot remember any of them now. Oh wait, Pedophile! And Egg!

We communicated via gtalk, all of us. Osh and I have had a hundred chats at least in those thirty days. We were sitting what, 15 ft away from each other? :D
Osh: Im borrrrrred as hell... what u doing?
MM: Staring at screen. 11.45 we'll go off for lunch ok?
Osh: Godforsaken office.
MM: Egg alert! Egg Alert! Switch window!

The internship had its several thousand frustrating moments also. I remember coming here and reading the bit I'd written in the April Update... and wanting to literally throw up.
Some of my more mundane jobs included editing a Gormless-Lady-type Word Document to make it presentable to the public for an employee newsletter for this company.
Some of the more delectable excerpts from this word docu describing an office party (please read each word carefully):

Sweets were distributed to sweeten the day.

Finally, all too soon, it was time to leave but we look forward to this wonderful experience again, and you people don’t get envious because for that night we were surely the lucky one.

It damn near killed me. I cannot stand Gormless-Lady-Type English. Especially written Gormless-Lady-Type English. Aaaargh. Almost died that day.

To ad it all up, there was good, there was bad, there was ugly. And here are some pics of the workplace.

9 comments:

Unknown said...

It should be punishable by law, punning so often in a single piece of writing! :P

And what happened... till this post you had this whole thing going where your identity was 'mysteriously' obscured in every post, here you go and put an end to all that.

Sweets were distributed to sweeten the day. :D And this was at the ad agency which is supposed to come up with snazzy captions and stuff?

La said...

:D you know your posts are the best to read? you really need to post more often.

MM said...

@PS: Eh it got old. This ad agency came up with ridiculously boring company magazines as well as snazzy captions.

@La: I will goose. :) Thanks. You have no idea how sleepy I am now.

Nil said...

MM I should so read your blog when I'm feeling blah!!
Wow I cannot believe the things your doing! Its just so grown up...:)And you sound so good at it!


And you look so good in that picture!
Is this the time that the photographer asked you to model???:D
I cannot believe you think this is embarrassing...
I totally didn't recognize you a first!! You look all professional...

oh oh, I better go comment on la's blog now she's gonna kill me when she see this comment!! ;p

Shenoy said...

well...if only more of the rest of the world were as honest.
glad you had a good time.
And good luck with the grandkids!

PS: can't help but ask. what was my nick/codename?
you know what they say, curiosity killed the bekku.

MM said...

Mr Shenoy on my blog! *dies*

Nickname cannot be revealed.
Like you said, curiosity killed the Schrodinger's bekku, and we can't have that-
would totally mess with the nature of the universe and all no.

Really looking forward to your lecture!
Wont it feel nice to be back in Christ! :D

Shenoy said...

yeah right!

and don't worry about the air going out of the cosmic cycle, or the bad natured universe. just reveal (flair optional)

MM said...

Now too much suspense has been created and revealing will fall flat- phoooos.

But ok. I will reveal with flair. Yours was one of the few names that wasnt appalling to the senses, so you must take joy in that fact. :) It is:

*drumroll*

Om





Yes, Om.
Short, sweet, but with a depth of meaning.
(Well, not really, it was only on account of the Om you wore around neck.)

Little uncreative no, for aspiring copywriters? What to do.

Shenoy said...

hahaha....reminds me of the times the art directors come up with some random squiggles and colours when asked for a quick logo and then us writers sit and write long drawn explanations about the colours and the symbolsm of the lines, etc. etc.....so on that point you score. you'll be a writer yet.