2018: A good year to disrupt creative agencies

Two things happened recently, that have filled me with an existential dread as an advertising guy. I see a leak in the advertising industry’s ship. But instead of fixing it, the two indicators are telling me that advertising industry is busy being in denial – telling its employees, its clients that everything is fine, all […]

The precariat agencies

I am interested in the changing dynamics of agency business. So I tend to read whatever I can about new efforts being made to reinvent businesses. Some of the efforts are truly astounding – the AI agency Born, for example – sounds very interesting. Then there is Maana, a big data company that helps make […]

Shifting to Colombo, Sri Lanka?

I am an Indian, living in Colombo, Sri Lanka. And I would have done a few things differently had I known a few things about Colombo before I came here. So here’s a heads-up for future expats heading to the wonder island. The summary If you are a savvy business person and looking for new […]

The feedback loop

There is one definitive characteristic that separates the competent from the mediocre; the practice of giving, seeking and acting upon constructive feedback. I was fortunate enough to get good bosses early on in my career who were kind and thoughtful with their feedback. I learnt a great deal from them. One of the most valuable […]

Essential Mutations for the 21st Century Brands

1. Rise of the walls 21st century weather report The world is reeling under the hate wave of right wing xenophobia, binaries of ‘Us vs. Them‘. The hate wave is projected to continue and expand as people turn their back on ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity, which had yielded unequal fruits for the globalised […]

Advertising industry’s new ‘Pivot’

No planet for old businesses Exhibit 1: On 16 June 2017, Amazon.com Inc. announced that it is acquiring Whole Foods Market Inc., for $13.7 billion in an all-cash transaction. By the end of that day, Walmart, Kroger, Target & Costco had lost their market caps by 5.8%, 7.1%, 9.1% and 15.7% respectively. On the eighth […]

Targeting: the holy grail of 201x’s ad-tech creeps

Traditional advertising was famously opaque. As the old adage went – “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” So when digital advertising came about, the initial siren songs were about the promise of precise targeting and reducing the ‘wastage’. That siren song has not lost […]