ARCHIVES
I don’t do look back. I’m not a “those were the days” kinda guy.
But to be really honest, those indeed were beautiful, innocent, stupid, mad, reckless days; the early years in advertising. Don’t know how many people I must’ve annoyed as a brat pushing hard to get shit done.
Good fun. Great learning. No one was harmed.
A turn of the century PRINT campaign for AWARE, an organisation in South East Asia that fights for women’s rights. In this case, equal pay.
The UNICEF Child Prostitution Project. What started as a “here’s an ad, where’s my gong?” sort of thingy quickly became a deep realization of gratitude. The more I got drawn into research and conversations, the more I felt lucky for the life I had, and the more I wept for kids who didn’t. Here are a few TV and PRINT executions made possible by the support and generosity of fellow advertising and media folks.
It’s easy to make a big noise with tons of dollars. How do you do that with almost nothing? FHM, a naughty mag for the more sexually conscious blokes, wanted to make its annual noise. Who are the “100 Sexiest Women of the Year”? We asked Kumar, South East Asia’s famous drag queen and comedian, who stood at Speaker’s Corner demanding hesheit should be in the reckoning: A STUNT that was reported in all the national newspapers and on primetime news channels. Then, we got people to take pictures — that reminded them of "naughty chick things" — and load them on the FHM website as contributions for the contest promotion campaign. (Mind you, the term UGC wasn’t yet coined in 2001 Asia.) All this was done with a princely sum of SD$500. When you are poor you try harder, smarter. Or at least, have a laugh.
OOH for DEATH BY CHOCOLATE — a legendary chocolate boutique in Singapore.
And PRINT. Remember print? Long copy torture?
It was a time of Great Economic Depression and phantasmagoric catastrophe as Asia tiptoed into the new millenium. Okay, not that dramatic but it was nervy and everyone was playing it safe. Perfect time for VOLVO, which was about safety in those days, to remind people with these simple INSTALLATIONS...brought in a lot of chuckles for the Swedish brand.
POSTERS and OOH to announce the new features in MAZDA cars. Air-conditioning. Sunroof.
POSTERS for PULZ — India’s professional grade hi-fi speakers made by a bunch of super bright, understated audiophiles and engineers.
And PRINT in music trade magazines.
PRINT campaign that launched what is now Mumbai’s most beloved coastal seafood chain of restaurants. As the line suggests “The most (burp!) satisfying seafood this side of the Arabian Sea.” Still true.
Featuring some of India’s greatest leaders (Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose) this PRINT campaign played on “voter cynicism”. By scoffing and forfeiting your right to vote in a democracy, you might be losing out on potential, hope and future greatness.
POSTER and OOH for CAESAR dog food.
Oh yeah, this indeed was done a few years before T-Mobile's flashmob stunt-film in London. Released on the eve of Chinese New Year (of the Chicken) in Singapore for M1 TELECOM, it became Singapore’s most talked about TV SPOT of 2005.
VIRAL CONTENT for RED BULL as it entered the Indian market.
TV SPOTS for SINGAPORE OPEN in a golf-crazy part of the world.
JOHNNIE WALKER ‘Striding Man’ NEON SIGN on Taipei 101, the then tallest building in the world, that houses the stock exchange and giants of corporate Asia.
OOH and RETAIL for BHARAT PETROLEUM SUPER KOOL RADIATOR COOLANT. Plus, actual GIVEAWAYS for motorists at traffic lights during New Delhi’s burning summers.
POSTERS and OOH for the famous Taj Hotel Mumbai’s La Patisserie announcing the shop’s new arrivals.
TABLE MATS and POSTERS in and around Singapore’s fabled food courts and hawker centers for AROMAS COFFEE shops. Great food should end with great coffee.
POSTERS and DIRECT MAIL for the highly coveted IAS Portfolio School Singapore.
Get through faster...at what was then Asia’s hottest creative agency, Ogilvy Singapore.
"If you drink and drive, be prepared for the worst”. A STUNT where strikingly dodgy PAMPHLETS were distributed outside bars and clubs. For once, there was no need to proof read.
Special buy PRINT ad for ASHOK SALIAN, India’s leading fashion and art photographer, in India’s then #1 ad mag called The Brief.
And lastly, this waffle that got me a job in Singapore during a recession — a LETTER to Creative Directors. My first restless step outside India.
