I wish I had made these

?I am a sucker for insightful advertising. I believe content was, is and will always be king,? says Anand Karir, senior creative director, DDB Mudra Mumbai. ?If an ad can manage to present a beautiful insight in an interesting way, it invariably makes it to my favorites list.?

His first favourite ad is the very first ?Daag acche hai!? brother and sister Surf commercial. ?I think it captured the most brilliant human insight. As a child, I have punished the staircase, the road, the dining table and various things to stop my younger siblings from crying, each time they were hurt. It works like magic. The team at Lowe, along with Abhinay, could recreate that magic pretty well.?

Another ad that he wishes he had created is the Mentos classroom ad. ?A brilliant observation by the person who wrote it. Even the way it sums up – ?Dimaag ki batti jala de!? – is crisp and memorable. That?s another good thing about insightful communication, it needs no explanation and long product windows. It speaks for itself. Incidentally, both these ads are supposed to be adaptations of foreign ads that were equally popular in their local markets. But then, this only proves the strength of a powerful insight; it?s universal and easily relatable,? he says.

Thank god, it isn?t me

?Well, these days the box is full of ads that I am happy I didn?t do. But there these two ads that deserve a special mention,? he says. The first one is the JK Cement ad where a woman in a bikini walks out of the sea. Says Karir, ?At first I thought I saw an edit but later I got to know that what I saw was all that was there to it. What was the connect between the woman and the cement? I still haven?t been able to fathom. So I concluded, perhaps, there was an agency-client happy time session in progress when someone from the client side suggested this idea and the agency approved it. Because I refuse to agree there can be an agency that thinks like this.?

The second ad is the Garnier ?chip chip? ad with Priyanka Chopra. ?I find it ?cheap cheap?. The concept is plain Jane. So in the absence of an idea, you try to cover up with execution and eventually end up with an ad that has bad costume, bad look and perhaps the worst choreography ever,? he says. ?To top it all, Chopra?s swinging to that juvenile choreography takes the cake, the baker and the bakery. While everything about this ad tried so hard to be cool, in reality nothing could be,? he says.

My first ad

Karir’s first ad was an ?emotional? ad for Anchor Roma Switches where the father has just come back from abroad and is eager to see his newborn baby. ?Back then I was a copywriter with Art Advertising. This was my first film and also my first chance to work with a foreign director. In 2002, that used to be a big thing,? he says.

?One evening, the vice president of the agency called me and said, ?the client thinks we should have a jingle in the ad and wants us to brief Jaaved Akhtar to write the same?. It was my first ad and I was not willing to share the credit with anyone. Not even Mr. Akhtar,? he remembers. So he instantly said to his VP, ?Give me till tomorrow morning; if I can?t give you a nice jingle, you can brief whoever you want to. Main Jaaved Akhtar ke lyrics Shoaib Akhtar ke speed se likhunga. (I will pen Jaaved Akhtar’s lyrics at Shoaib Akhtar’s speed).? Next evening a jingle was presented to the client as Mr. Akhtar’s, ?Dil ye chahe, koi aaye, Zindagi Khoobsurat banaye went the lines and the client loved it. I guess, only after it got recorded in Late Ustad Sultan Khan Sahab?s voice did we give away the real story to the client. Well, I don?t think he minded it because he loved the jingle and was sure it would be loved by most people. Also, he never had to bear Mr. Akhtar?s fees,? adds Karir.

After completing his post-graduate diploma in advertising from XIC in 1999, Anand Karir joined Quadrant Communications as a copy trainee. He quit Quadrant to join CDAC to learn various design softwares. He then returned to advertising joining Deadline Communications as a copywriter. A year later, he got a chance to get into Art Advertising. From there, he moved to Draft-FCB Ulka as a copy supervisor. He joined Tribal DDB in 2007 to work with his friend Karl Gomes. ?Here I learnt more about this new and exciting medium (digital) that was slowly growing on me. Simultaneously, I started a mainline division in Tribal DDB to keep my mainstream interests alive.? After heading Tribal for three years, he moved within the Mudra Group to DDB Mudra to focus on his mainline career again.