The thunder years

Old JWT hand Sunil Gupta offers fascinating insights into the mad ad world in this irreverent memoir of advertising in India.

There are very few books on Indian advertising — or rather, very few interesting books on Indian advertising. That is, till now. Sunil Gupta’s Living on the Adge in Jhande Wala Thompson finally puts that state of affairs to rest. It is a funny, unconventional and yet hard-hitting book.

Gupta started off in the ad world as a trainee with HTA, now JWT — J Walter Thompson, not “Jhande Wala Thompson”! This is the story of his own journey in advertising. Beginning with the early days — of his own career as well as Indian advertising — Gupta writes about the whole industry and its many components, from office boys and copy writers to creative heads and CEOs.

While a large part of the book focuses on his personal journey, he also describes in detail how the advertising industry actually works.

The book is divided in three parts, titled “The Wonder Years”, “The Thunder Years” and “The Blunder Years”. The most fascinating bits are in the first part. “The Wonder Years” gives the reader great insights into how ad agencies used to function in a world before PowerPoint presentations, Excel sheets and Photoshop. It describes working in trying conditions, including cramped office space and undependable electricity. Despite all these difficulties, Gupta makes clear just how much fun it was to work at an ad agency in those days.

For a poster campaign for one brand, for instance, the tag line decided upon was “The Energy Fuel for Life” But it actually went as “The Energy Fuel for Liee”. Gupta did some memorable campaigns, such as for Boost (“Boost is the secret of my energy!”) and Pepsi (“Nothing official about it”).

Gupta also tells of how going for client meetings out of town used to be a big headache. His tales from working on campaigns for Hero Cycles, which was based out of Ludhiana, make for an excellent read.

The book is as much about Gupta as it is about advertising. He tells us how, when he first went to Calcutta as the regional general manager of HTA, he discovered a whole new world. His stint in Calcutta is covered in “The Thunder Years”, and reveals just how different advertising in each of India’s four metros can be. Gupta describes being taken aback by the whole bhadralok and di-da culture in the Calcutta office, by how elaborate the plans used to be for regular dinner parties, or by how totally different the client’s perspective itself could be.

Gupta doesn’t mince his words when it comes to company-agency relationships during the 1980s, or the infighting and political games that agencies were plagued with. In the same vein, he doesn’t shy away from giving credit to the various people who shaped his own rise at HTA. He is a rare phenomenon in an industry in which job hopping is common — he stuck with HTA for more than 23 years.

The funniest thing about Gupta’s writing is the parallels he chooses when describing certain situations. For instance, when talking about awards, he says that he couldn’t understand why there were separate awards for “creativity” and “awareness”. As he puts it, “Drawing such distinctions is like saying that there are different prizes for good looking taps as distinct from those who actually do what they’re supposed to do.” He talks about how HTA aced awards for all the various parameters except creativity: “It was like we had a high-end modular kitchen but knew only how to make pakoras.”

The client-agency relationships described in the book tell you exactly how ad campaigns in the days of no celebrity endorsers worked. This is a fact that Gupta laments about today’s advertising — too many celebrities. He writes that three quotients — People’s Quotient, Business Quotient and Live Quotient — helped him immensely throughout his career in advertising. Despite his distaste for excessive celebrity endorsements, his love for cricket is evident. Quite often, he uses cricketing parlance in the book.

“The Blunder Years” is where you start to lose interest a bit. Maybe it’s because the book has been full of joie de vivre till that point. The last bits describe how he was asked to leave JWT. Gupta does come across as a man who was given a raw deal. From his point of view, his disappintment is understandable. To be fair, however, he doesn’t give too much space to that.

People in the industry will love this book because, in spite of being a tell-all, it’s not controversial. You can imagine them nodding their heads in understanding, because many of them would have experienced the same circumstances that Gupta describes in his book. This is a must-read book for those who are connected with advertising or who want to make a career in advertising.

For the rest who think the ad world is a mad world, the book will be an eye-opener on many levels. Gupta could have gone terribly wrong if not for his humorous and witty take on the most serious stuff that goes on behind agency doors. To put it in cricketing parlance, well played, Mr Gupta, well played, indeed!

LIVING ON THE ADGE
JHANDE WALA THOMPSON
Author: Sunil Gupta
Publisher: Roli
Pages: xiv + 466
Price: Rs 395