Somewhere in Space

So a small name change started it all. Deli9Bistro which had opened up in Gachibowli just a few weeks ago was forced to change its name. It is henceforth going to be called Deli9bistro.

Why was this name change implemented, I wondered. It couldn’t be Numerology. I mean, everyone knows that the owners are bad at Maths. It couldn’t be Astrology. The owners are too close to the stars to care a damn. So what could it be that made them take such a momentous decision.

I was intrigued. And I couldn’t sleep this afternoon. And that mad state of sleeplessness continued till my little bird told me the secret.

It had to do with the staff you see. Due to a shortage of local, trained talent, most restaurants had taken to hire people from Orissa, Bihar and even Bengal. The problem with these ‘vernacs’ was that they were used to the ka, kha, gag, ghaa, na kind of alphabets and syllables.

English unfortunately did not differentiate between one alphabet and its thicker cousin. A did not have an Aa. B did not have a Bb. And so on.

So someone, someone quite smart actually, decided that they would distinguish sounds by whether they were Capital Letters or Small.

And that is where the problem arose. In its earlier avatar, the staff used to call the outlet Deli-Nine-Bheestro because they thought the Capital B had to be hard pronounced with a ‘h’ sound. Bheestro! Get it. Not the softer bistro.

Now that was sounding real ‘dehati’. And that is not what the suave trio at the Nine Group of Companies likes. They had to ensure that the staff got the pronunciation right. So they quietly changed the capital B to a small b.

Call them now, and see how they’ve gotten their staff to stop calling it Bheestro . They have indeed started calling it Bistro.

Truly a triumph of alphabetology over Mother Tongue Influence.

Well done guys. Now the next challenge is to get your staff to stop calling it Delhi9Bistro

As a guy who’s been responsible for at least a hundred original brand names and possibly a thousand and more brand promotions, I have always heard the brief from client as “Make it classy, make it unique, make it customer friendly etc.”

Of course I used to chuckle when friends and peers would respond to the same brief and come up with generic names like Classy, Excellent, Unique or even Best. There was of course another school that would borrow from International Icons. 10 Downing Street (the pub). Whitehouse (the building). Stonehenge (the apartments). And so on.

I don’t know how many of you noticed, but sometime back the idea of using low brow names for hi-brow establishments became fashionable. So we had the Chai Shop at the Taj…oh by the way, they were the first to introduce Dhaba Nights too. There are several other examples of people using ‘basic’ names like Sigree, Angeethi, Chopsticks. Damn there is even a Big Fork.

But the latest is a class apart. Those of you who have Parsee or Maharashtrian friends, may remember how their penchant for adopting names derived from their professions always made us smile. Ghaaswalla. Pithawalla. Doctor. Major. Poonawalla. Daruwalla. And of course the quintessential Waghmare (Tiger Killer). But this one was always a winner.

Soda Bottle Opener Walla.

Now who could imagine that there was somebody who was a professional Soda Bottle Opener Walla, and that a family could be named after that profession.

But there is. You can check the Bombay Telephone Directory for confirmation.

That said, when I heard that the people behind the exclusive Olive Chain were starting a new outlet in Hyderabad and naming it “sodabottleopenerwalla”, I was amused. (Opening on 20th May I understand).

Conversations took shape in my mind.

Hey Bro…where you going? Sodabottleopenerwalla…you wanna come.

Beta, I am not comfortable with you going with your friends to this new place. I mean, what kind of a place provides you people to open soda bottles and insists that you open and pour your other beverages yourself. Unless they have departments like Darupilanewalla or something.

Or think of conversations in Uber or Ola Cabs. Sodabottleopenerwalla please. Sure, but we have to stop at tyrepuncturerepairwalla first.

Creativity has manifested itself in many brand names. 13 Dhaba is my recent favorite. Tera Dhaba…Your Dhaba…is also ‘Tera’ which signifies the supreme being (sub kuch tera hai).

Obviously humor is behind the choice of this brand name. Let us see how Hyderabad takes it. Will we laugh? Will we chuckle? Or will the city smirk?

One of the sure signs of old age is that we begin to firmly believe that the good days that we were a part of, and perhaps helped shape in some manner, have gone. And the world is now mired in circumstances over which mankind has no control.

Our schools were better when we were students. Our work place was much better when we were the employees or even the bosses. Our families were happier when we were in charge. And so on and so on.

But the other day Sudhakar Etrouth, a young friend of mine, award winning Creative Director par excellence, one whose work I have been admiring for a while, released a campaign online that shook my very belief. (Images used in this blog are all his, and being used with his permission).

No, it was not just the old and ‘retired’ that had an axe to grind with the peculiar dynamics of their profession The young too were already lamenting that something somewhere was not quite right.

My thoughts have been trying to collect themselves since the Ad Club of Hyderabad provided a platform for the legendary Mohammed Khan to share his thoughts about ‘then and now’.

One of the most striking difference between now and then is the fact that the ‘Client’ has become smarter and the ‘Agency’ has just not bothered to catch up.

This may have been the result of clients who started hiring smart MBAs and street savvy blokes for key communication role (this is not saying that there are on the clients’ side, some of the biggest buffoons in the business). This may also have been that the clients are marrying better. I mean if a ‘wife’ has to have final say about my ad, I’d pray only that she was a more sound lady than before.

Also the client has access to all the reference material required on the net. Gone are the days when you could pretend to be smarter only because you had a later issue of the Black Book than the other agencies (and the client did not know what the Black Book was).

Add to this the fact that digital photography and crashing prices have made every alternative client an ace photographer or short film maker, then you know you have a problem. Worse still is when clients invite their teenage children for film presentations because they too have emerged as child prodigies and have been declared as Satyajit Rays in the making.

My other complaint is the order of accessorisation that takes place especially in the creative departments. There was a time when a copywriter became cockier by the campaign. Success has that side effect. And as each campaign succeeded and the pay packets improved, the pony tails grew, the studs appeared, the stubble greyed and the clothes hung more audaciously. But now the order has been reversed. The pony tails and studs precede the writing skill. And often in the search for the right ‘look’ the art of writing is ignored.

As a fairly regular Voice Over Professional I lament the quality of scripts that seem to be getting approved. And am only scared to think about the quality of films eventually produced.

There was a time when if someone told me that ‘the best part of the film was my voice’ I’d be flattered. Now I am petrified, mortified.

Another facet of advertising that troubles me is the fact that the youngsters of today ignore personal experience of products when they’re asked to write. And take the client’s word for it.

I learnt some basics from a copywriter who used the Pressure Cooker before it was launched and ensured a change in its design before its launch. I actually took home a few sheets of Novopan and worked on them even to do an audio visual. I started smoking (after resisting the temptation through school and college) only when I was assigned to work on a campaign for a Cigarette. Nowadays it’s virgins writing about the pleasures of condoms, and kids on wheelchairs writing about the joys of running on the beach.

There was a time when we thought there was a premium on originality. Now I understand that it is one of the victims of time management.

At the end of all this ranting however, I must say that it is the greatness of the professions, be it advertising, film making or anything else that have allowed them to survive. And indeed provide a platform for brilliance.

Brilliance that comes through somewhere, somehow. Inspite of all the hurdles, inspite of all the challenges. And that is what makes the profession worth being in. Worth living for.