How To Save Your Marriage

Have you heard of a carpenter who could fix a broken marriage? (Now all you lads who just jumped up in Ogilvy's creative department yearning to crack the next big film on Fevicol, please sit down. This is not an invitation to impress the mustaches. It is a serious question.) Or for that matter have you heard of a carpenter who could fix his own broken marriage?

But carpenters don't discuss marital issues with clients. They stick to their work. They do not say, that by building this dinner table, you will bridge the generation gap between you and your kid by the next meal! Or by making this bed... well, you get the picture.

But this ad puts a different veneer on the state of affairs in todays speed-dating-marrying-divorcing world. In this unbelievable ad the woman changes her mind about the whole divorce thing because she looks at the new laminates in the guys house (do not miss her glance at the more-than-one-person-slept-in bed as she totters around the house). Take a look.

Now, I bet that this script was originally written for Nescafe and recycled for Marino. And the creative department brought it out of someone's unreleased portfolio just because the client had rejected all good scripts. Maybe in the original the guy changes his coffee brand and the marriage gets saved. No? Not a good script? Ok, how about the other woman comes out of shower and says "Ew, you are drinking coffee! I am so outta here" and walks off. No? Still not impressed? Well, neither am I with this ad.
 I am not going on a fast or anything. But today I will skip coffee over this.

Jai Daniel J. O'Conor, Jai Hind.
- Anna.

Sorry, We Can't Ford it...

"They sacked me!" he cried as he threw himself at my feet. I was giving my morning pravachan about how 'scams' bring down our credibility. There were some hot trainee creatives in my pandaal today and wanted a private consultation post the pravachan. Needless to say, I found this intrusion a bit irritating.
It took me a millisecond to recognize him - Pakya! The junior production in-charge of JWT, Mumbai! "What did you do Pakya? Did you offend any NCD or someone?" I knew him to be a loose cannon of sorts. I was sure he must have fudged some invoices or printed some fake petrol bills and charged it to a big ticket client or something.
"I didn't do anything!", he sobbed. "It was going so well. I had joined this great top rung agency and I was getting to work on Ford. Imagine working on an international account in your first job!"
Poor guy. I had to give him a dose of reality. "What international account? As a junior production guy, isn't your job carrying art-pulls or dvds around?" I asked softly.
"But I was assigned to the Ford team", he wiped his tears. "My girlfriend was so proud of me. She gave a 'Like' to my FB status about working on Ford. She also shared it on her timline..."
"So what went wrong?" I asked. "I don't know. I entered the office today and everyone was talking about someone apologising to somebody else. The shit hitting the ceiling fan or something. So I asked my boss what's up, and he said "Mader****" who uploaded the fuc**** ads?" "Language, Pakya!", I shouted.
I saw that the hot trainee creatives were a bit uncomfortable, and I did not want them to leave. "But that's what my boss said. I think he was referring to some chu*** scam ads the boys were making last evening" Pakya was helbent on screwing it up for the second time today. "Then boss asked me why my computer was not turned off last evening. I always work late, and I browse 'adsoftheworld' to pass my time as I wait for the layouts or artworks. I must have forgotten about it and left the computer on. So what's the big deal?" "But my boss dragged me to the conference room where all the big guys were, and said, this is the assh****"
The hot trainees got up to leave. I asked them to sit down. They needed this expletives-training if they had to survive in the agency world. "And then what happened?" Pakya went on, "Nothing. The HR head came to me and said, 'We had such plans for you, but this is as far as we can go', and handed me my sacking letter." He started sobbing again.
So Pakya was the first and the last victim of the Ford-gate. Totally oblivious to the whole controversy. I am sure he did not know who Silvio Berlusconi was, let alone the social media backlash that the campaign had generated. To me, he was like the gagged and tied women thrown back in the spacious boot of the Figo.
I am deeply disturbed by what was done to him. An account got saved. A scam went unpunished. But Pakya's possible bright career got ruined in the name of 'strict action taken'.

I am on a month long fast against this atrocity. And the fact that the ads themselves were not worth even a single word in social media.

Jai Henry Ford, Jai Hind.
- Anna.