Look what we are doing to our folks

We the people in advertising never pause to think about the way our words are changing behaviour and conversations in the world around us. And I am not talking about what we do for our clients. That can be debated. I am referring to things we do and say to our own people and change the way they have been looking at the world since centuries.

I too realised this pretty late. Only recently I was talking to a friend whose agency was about to get into a pitch. He looked lost as he stood by the chaiwalla next to his office as he peered into an unseen future.

“So, how many nights?”

He shrugged, and with the same movement dropped the ash off his cigarette.

“Her agency is pitching too. Against ours.”

She — his wife — works for another agency. He is a designer, she in client servicing. One look at them together and you know they married for love. Of opening their own agency. It was a match Sir Martin Sorrel would have approved of. But this could get messy. Pitching against one another. What if one spoke in their sleep and gave out the big idea? Or that they hadn’t cracked it yet? No wonder he looked more worried than just a pitch would make you.

“No wonder you look more worried than just a pitch would make you. What if you guys screamed out the idea in a moment of ecstasy.”

He looked at me like someone employed by an agency looks at a freelancer. It wasn’t the Monday-morning look of envy. It wasn’t the salary-day smirk. It was the disdain reserved for one who has forgotten.

“Like we will go home to sleep.”

He was right there. So why worry?

“Because we have a 2-year old at home.”

Now I was worried too. How many of us have come from smaller towns to set up homes here with no help from home? We have to may our own EMIs and look after our own children. Every time we come up with insights on urban working couples who live without support, and push it to clients trying to sell home delivery apps and quick-fry meals, we forget that most of us fit the bill and we should have long back started pushing our clients into launching baby-sitting services. Too late for these two.

“So what’s the plan?”

“I have called my mother over.”

“And told her what?”

“That we both have a pitch, obviously. I just hope her train doesn’t get delayed because of the fog.”

And that is when it hit me. He comes from a small town south or north of Kolkata. (He is a designer, remember?) I met his mother and father at his wedding party hosted for the newly married couple’s friends who couldn’t or wouldn’t make it to the local function at his place where you reached by taking a train that on paper covered the distance in 26 hours but could take anything over 30. And then you had to take a bus for another five hours. So they had come here instead, and looked completely out of place. They looked the happiest when they were leaving. And now they were called to the city again, and they were told it was because of a pitch.

A pitch. Say that to someone who doesn’t know you or anyone in advertising. Say it out loud 50 kilometres away from the metros. Try throwing it at your doctor as your reason for stress. Seriously, who gets what a pitch is?

And here we are, a small town, simple lady in her late 60s being told to come over for a pitch. And this wasn’t the first time. So I imagined a conversation between her and her elder sister in law on their way to the fish market. I tried imagining it in Bengali, but I just about got the accent right and little else. So I let them talk in Hindi.

Elder sister in law: Suna hai kal Dilli ja rahi ho?

Mother: Haan didi. Billu ka phone aaya. Ticket bhi book kara diya.

ESIL: Koi khushkhabri hai kay?

M: Wo to baad mein pata lagega?

ESIL: Baad mein? Matlab?

M: Abhi to pitch hai. Jeetey ya haarey to baad mein batatey hain na.

ESIL: Oh ho! Suna hai raat bhar kaam hota hai pitch mein to! Par bahu to hogi na bacchey ke saath?

M: Uska bhi hai. Ghar pe to lartey hi hain, ab daftar bhi lara raha hai aapas mein.

ESIL: Par pichley saal bhi to gayi thi tum?

M: Ek haftey ke liyey gayi thi. Sasuron ne doosra round bhi kara diya. Mahina lag gaya. Teen baar to ticket cancel karani pari. Aur dhanda bhi nahi mila.

ESIL: Ye to sabki kahani hai. Wo bijli daftar waley ki bahu bhi yahi kaam karti hai. Suna hai ek pitch to teen mahiney chali. Client travel bara kartey hain inkey!

M (shrugging her shoulders): Bekaar! Milta to kuch hai nahi. Issey acha to ghar par night lagatey. Kam se kam Munni ko ek bhai ya behen hi mil jaata.

Related posts:

Future is always full of unknowns, hopes and anxieties but it is more than ever closer…and disruptive. When Gil Press published an article on Forbes in 2015 attempting to predict 3 reasons why future…

According to the World Health Organization, approximately one billion people on the planet are malnourished. Every day ~16,000 children die from hunger-related causes. Poor nutrition and calorie…

Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a field of study that focuses on the interaction between computers and human language. It encompasses various techniques and methodologies to enable computers to…