Genius, non-conformist, forthright, enigmatic ... we salute the qualities that set adman R Balki apart from the rest as he quits advertising to devote his time to film-making
BALKI TURNED DOWN KEY GLOBAL ROLE YEARS AGO... TO LIVE IN MUMBAI AND MAKE FILMS!
By Priyanka Mehra
Celebrated adman R Balakrishnan aka Balki - who made headlines last week by announcing his exit from advertising to devote all his time to Bollywood - was apparently offered a global role based out of London years ago, which he turned down as he wanted to live in Mumbai and make films. It turns out that Balki was asked to be the Global Creative Director of a major ad agency in London, but he chose not to take it up.
Ask him about it and he says in a matter of fact manner: “Yes, because I wanted to make movies and did not want to go out of India. I did not want that stuff at that point of time and I said no very clearly.”
In fact, Balki showed interest in film-making quite early in his career. He even applied to the Madras Film Institute to do a course in direction. Interestingly, he did not go ahead with the course because he did not like the panel that interviewed him!
Cut to the present and the storm created in adland by Balki stepping down from his role of Group Chairman, Mullen Lowe Lintas Group, and he is hard put to fathom why there have been such strong reactions from all quarters. “I don’t know why it is such a big deal, I just had fun and I’m just going away. I think nothing interesting is happening in advertising right now, that’s why my going away is one day of excitement! It is like an award show - to be forgotten after a day,” says the ad legend with characteristic candour.
Balki began his career with Mudra at the age of 23. Since then, throughout his three-decade long association with the industry, he has worked on iconic brands like Britannia, Havells, Micromax, Saint Gobain, Maruti, Hero MotoCorp, Bajaj Auto, Unilever, Idea Cellular, Tata Tea, ICICI Prudential, Axis Bank, Tanishq, Fastrack, among others, and given the industry cult campaigns like ‘Jaago re’ for Tata Tea and ‘Daag achhe hain’ for Hindustan Unilever’s Surf Excel detergent. Here’s what he had to say about the industry on the verge of bidding adieu to it:
Q] Which agencies do you see doing great work in the industry today?
I have always respected Ogilvy. Taproot, Creativeland Asia and some younger agencies are doing good work too. Leo Burnett did some lovely work on Bajaj V, and I was very proud of that. I like many other people’s work; I am only ashamed of my work.
Q] I have heard you say that you cringe when you see your work once it is out...
Yes, because it’s much better to find fault with your own work than with that of others.
Q] Would you like to point out anybody to watch out for from the younger crop?
I am sure that there are a lot of people and it will be unfair of me to take a couple of names. There would definitely be, otherwise you cannot see so much of work happening and so many clients with so many agencies. I’m sure there are many bright young people out there.
Q] What can we expect from the agency sans Balki?
Joe (Joseph George) is the finest CEO in the business of advertising. And Arun (Iyer) is one of the brightest minds in advertising while Amer (Jaleel) is heading a new agency which is big already. We have got such a fabulous talent pool that the agency will be at least 20% better than what it was when I was fully active. I am not saying this modestly, I’m actually the most dispensable person in Lowe.
Q] Now that you are going to be full time into Bollywood, what can we expect from you?
I am writing something, let’s see... I can’t talk about it right now but I will tell you soon.
‘I had almost quit advertising, until Nutrine cream biscuits came along...’
When I finished my course at Mudra, Ahmedabad and went to Bangalore to start my copy-writing career, I was told by some very senior creative people there that I wasn’t cut out for advertising - I was a space cadet, dreaming of fantasies, which had no connection to advertising.
I was almost on the verge of leaving the field after the first year, when suddenly an incident happened to bind me to it for life. R Sridhar, who now runs Brandcomm, was my manager at Mudra, Bangalore, and he had gone on holiday. I was the only writer available in the office to work on a brand called Nutrine cream biscuits. Sridhar was my biggest support and the creative head at that time. So he made me work on the ad.
Once on the job, I realized that there was no brief! Sridhar had just said that there are two cream biscuits. I then remembered the cream biscuits that my grandfather gave me every time I was on a train travelling from Madras to Bangalore. Also, we always used to carry those same cream biscuits as a gift for people whose homes we were visiting. That day, I learnt by myself what is positioning and targeting, and simply wrote two tags which said ‘Great hellos’ and ‘Great goodbyes’ for the cream biscuit. I suddenly learnt strategy, advertising, how to be creative, simple, focused - everything through that one ad – and all because someone had supported me phenomenally when I was almost on the verge of quitting. That was a turning point in my life, and I always look up to R Sridhar, who gave me the opportunity to turn my life around.
To upcoming copy-writers, all I say is that there will be ups and downs, there will be times when you will want to run away; but just be resilient, because as a famous line in the film Marigold goes, “In India, everything becomes right at the end and if it is not right, it is not the end”.
