Keep it simple

Whether in life or an ad, it requires great skill to keep things uncomplicated.

What I've liked
My heart always goes out to the creative team which has to factor in celebrities and numerous other must-haves instead of very necessary brand statements. The reason being that their canvas becomes that much smaller and to create something original, relevant and interesting within such tight parameters requires great skill and fortitude.

Yes, I say fortitude because most creative teams balk at the prospect and badger the client servicing to change the strategy rather than handling the challenge.

So when I saw the recent MRF tyre ad with Brian Lara, I gave them a quiet ovation before my television set. I am talking of the simple yet very clever ad where Brian Lara walks out of a hotel and asks for his car ("a white one with MRF tyres") and an entire fleet turns up!

In one stroke, the idea handled both the givens in the most natural manner possible "" marrying a cricketing legend and the fact that MRF is probably the most popular brand on the Indian roads. Think about it "" that is a difficult combination to put together creatively in a matter of 30 or 40 seconds. But they did and what is even better, made it look effortless. Maybe the film could have been a wee bit tighter, maybe the pauses a bit shorter, but those are small nitty-gritties that can easily be overlooked in the light of the greater achievement "" cracking a good idea out of a seemingly impossible brief!

What I've learned
Keep it simple

Once upon a time, long ago there lived a very rich man, who, one day decided that he had had enough of the Krishnamurthys and his kind of the world. He left everything behind him and went away to the forest to live with what he thought would be a non-complicated life amongst the birds, the squirrels and the trees. He lived happily for a brief while, till one day he discovered that rats were nibbling at his dhoti every night.

His clever shishya (yes, there was one of those as well) recommended that they get a cat to get rid of the rats. And so they did. Then they realised that the cat needed milk to stay alive and so they bought a cow to feed the cat. Now the cow needed looking after so they hired a servant to look after the cow and pretty soon the poor man discovered to his dismay that he was replicating the same life that he had renounced just a few years earlier! The point I am trying to make here is that a simple life is not a geographical factor. It is a state of mind, an attitude that you adopt in every little decision you make in the life that you lead, wherever you may be. Let me illustrate: I wanted my elder daughter to get into medicine and without consulting her told her to sit for the exams.

She got into Pharmacy instead and within a few months left her course. It was only when I questioned her about it that she told me that she had not wanted to do either Medicine or Pharmacy. Now if only I had simplified both our lives by just asking her in the beginning what she wanted to do, I would have saved her a lot of heartache. Tackling the problem head-on is something which most of us are very reluctant to do. Despite its simplicity, its instant effectiveness, we layer the situation with numerous complications and hope that it will sort itself out. The truth is, it never does. Until one day we finally take the sword and hack our way out of our own mess!

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