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A Critique on the Critic |
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Mr. Sanjay Menon, Executive Creative Director - Ignite Mudra, August 5, 2010 |
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One day as I sat in before the television, which I rarely do, something happened to me. The same thing happened when I watched a movie and again while flipping through a magazine. I realized something. I realized that I wasn’t watching my favourite sitcom or just surfing through channels, or watching an academy award winning movie. I wasn’t interested in what I was reading in the magazine. I was subconsciously evaluating and judging everything that I was seeing. I was commenting on the way the dialogues were written, commenting on the lighting and the camera work, re-editing scenes and re-writing articles. Even at the supermarket I was busy evaluating packaging.
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When was the last time you sat in front of the television for the sake of pure entertainment? Or for that matter watched a movie because you like watching movies like normal people? Or flipped thru a magazine just like everyone else? Almost every day. Right? Wrong, if you work for an advertising agency you don’t just sit and watch or read. You scrutinize, you analyze, predict, assume, comment, review, criticize, applaud, question, question again and again, guess, I could find many more words, but I don’t want to cross my word limit. Not yet anyway.
We’ve forgotten what it’s like to watch movies, ads and serials without ripping them apart with scrutiny. We’ve forgotten to be normal. We are after all people who like to laugh and even cry sometimes. Do we put in so much passion in to our ads that we have none left for life itself? |
Aren’t we consumers too? Or are we from a different planet? Don’t we use a toothbrush the in mornings; don’t we want to look good? Don’t we allow ourselves to get fooled by the very ads we make? Don’t shopping sprees and discounts make us happy? Isn’t that what advertising is all about? Isn’t that what marketing objectives are all about? Films are meant to entertain, inform, open your eyes, and empower you.
It’s about time we stopped playing jury. Must we behave like the most hard to please critics? Advertising was more fun back when we were just people. And unless we rediscover what it’s like to be ‘just people’ again, we will never really know who a consumer is, what he’s like. And if we don’t know him how are we going to create ads that he likes and brands that he trusts?
It’s almost like we get sadistic pleasure by ripping work apart. Maybe its envy, maybe cynicism, maybe its revenge for everything bad people have said about our work. Whatever the reason, I’m not here to ask why.
Being advertising professionals may give us the right to say what’s good and what’s bad. But it also gives us the right to be silent; to take things as they come. So the next time you watch television or read an article (like this one); even if the lighting sucks, even if the writing isn’t good enough; give criticism a break. Just sit back and enjoy the show.
(The writer is Executive Creative Director - Ignite Mudra)
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