DECEMBER 2020

It is true that advertising creatives around the world have always denounced their profession and often lamented being in the trade for long. But it is Ray who learnt every trick of the game from this advertising world. He has never repented a single day spent in the agency.

I had the privilege to work in the same advertising office where Ray had worked. In my time, it became Clarion. I have often walked the corridors where Ray had spent his days thinking of an ad campaign. I have sat where he used to sit and think. Believe me, it still gives me goosebumps.

Considering the artistic journey he took, challenging and breaking the norms, reinventing the rules of the game and walking the path all by himself, dedicating Tagore’s “Jodi tor daak shune keu na ashe” to this enigmatic journey sounds quite apt to me.

Oh, you still haven’t seen the Peter Fan ad sequence in Seemabaddha?

ArrRAY!!!! Dec

Let’s start with that iconic Peter Fans advertising ad film screening sequence shown in the feature film Seemabaddha directed by the master. (If you still haven’t watched this film, you should, before you read this any further!)

If you watch the minute detailing prevalent in that scene, you can understand it can only be portrayed with such vivid advertising-world vibes only if the director has experienced or been a part of the trade.

Ray was a very honest filmmaker. None of his films were ever made with artificial intelligence. Well, this is not a dig at the generation we are living in. The digital diaspora was evidently missing then.

These were pre-digital times, so every artwork had to be done by hand, judged by the eye, and measured to scale. “When he would make 30×40-inch posters, he would find a board of the exact size and gum the sides of a sheet of paper so it stuck to the board and remained stable through the sketching process,” says Sandip Ray,—about his perfectionism. “He would then use an amalgamation of photography and sketches, pasting images together and creating collages, while painting the other details.” (quoted from an article on Ray where Sandip was interviewed)

It was April of 1943, when Satyajit Ray joined a British advertising agency called D. J. Keymar as a Junior Visualiser. He spent the next 13 years in this agency until he became a feature filmmaker post the success of his cult classic “Pather Panchali”. When he wanted to make this feature, his agency gave him a full paid leave and expected him to come back. It's probably the

"Prix du document humain" prize at Cannes, that prevented him from getting back into advertising.

He was a master hand at illustrations and executed some brilliant campaigns. He became such a stalwart as a revolutionary filmmaker, that his repute shrouded his graphic design and illustration acumen. His oeuvre as a graphic artist is as rich and diverse as his filmography, but.

Ray studied under the tutelage of stalwarts like Nandalal Bose and Benod Behari Mukherjee, whose profound influence would reflect on his body of work throughout his lifetime. He learned the art of breaking rules from them by staying close to his heritage. Being born into a family of writers, poets and illustrators, Ray got a degree in Economics from Presidency College before moving to Shantiniketan to study painting at the Kala Bhavana at Visva Bharati University; Ray was indeed lucky to be surrounded with everything that could have made the Satyajit out of him.

In his advertising agency, he cracked and designed witty campaigns for biscuits, hair oils and cigarettes, and also designed book covers and jackets. His then-unique style shrugged off the colonial hangover, and Indianized publication design and advertisements in a way Indian audiences had never seen before. In 1950, D.J. Keymer sent Ray to London to work at the agency’s headquarters, an opportunity that introduced him

to world cinema. In just three months, he watched 99 movies and penned the script for Pather Panchali while at sea, on his way back to India. However, his preparation for filmmaking was in the form of his more familiar medium of illustration. “My earliest memories of my father are of him working in his study at home, storyboarding his films. He would always sketch every scene by hand to visualize it in his mind first; storyboarding for him was a revered ritual,” says Ray’s son, filmmaker Sandip Ray. “From his very first film, he took charge of the creative direction for the graphic collateral, like posters and flyers. I remember him holed up in his study, illustrating, colouring, and splicing images together until the artworks were ready for printing.” (quoted from an article on Ray where Sandip was interviewed)

If you take a look at the film posters he designed, it carries an essence of his rebellious artistic fervour which challenged the existing norms of designing. He introduced photography to graphic art and was a master at mixed media art forms. His deep interest in photojournalism and his extensive study of the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, reflects in all poster designs he created for his films.

A master calligrapher, Ray had a profound love for typography, and two of his typefaces, Ray Roman and Ray Bizarre, won a 1971 international typography competition. His nuanced understanding of expressive typography is reflected in the poster for the cult film in the Kolkata trilogy called “Mahanagar”. It is true that advertising creatives around the world have always denounced their profession and often lamented being in the trade for long. But it is Ray who learnt every trick of the game from this advertising world. He has never repented a single day spent in the agency.

I had the privilege to work in the same advertising office where Ray had worked. In my time, it became Clarion. I have often walked the corridors where Ray had spent his days thinking of an ad campaign. I have sat where he used to sit and think. Believe me, it still gives me goosebumps.

Considering the artistic journey he took, challenging and breaking the norms, reinventing the rules of the game and walking the path all by himself, dedicating Tagore’s “Jodi tor daak shune keu na ashe” to this enigmatic journey sounds quite apt to me.

Oh, you still haven’t seen the Peter Fan ad sequence in Seemabaddha?

ArrRAY!!!!

Contents

2021 | Looking Forward 03 First Issue

Ekla Cholo Ray 05

Fresh Brews 10

Blink, Ink & Memory Tattoos 12

Vintage Fusion 19

Gladvertising 20 Dec

Let’s start with that iconic Peter Fans advertising ad film screening sequence shown in the feature film Seemabaddha directed by the master. (If you still haven’t watched this film, you should, before you read this any further!)

If you watch the minute detailing prevalent in that scene, you can understand it can only be portrayed with such vivid advertising-world vibes only if the director has experienced or been a part of the trade.

Ray was a very honest filmmaker. None of his films were ever made with artificial intelligence. Well, this is not a dig at the generation we are living in. The digital diaspora was evidently missing then.

These were pre-digital times, so every artwork had to be done by hand, judged by the eye, and measured to scale. “When he would make 30×40-inch posters, he would find a board of the exact size and gum the sides of a sheet of paper so it stuck to the board and remained stable through the sketching process,” says Sandip Ray,—about his perfectionism. “He would then use an amalgamation of photography and sketches, pasting images together and creating collages, while painting the other details.” (quoted from an article on Ray where Sandip was interviewed)

It was April of 1943, when Satyajit Ray joined a British advertising agency called D. J. Keymar as a Junior Visualiser. He spent the next 13 years in this agency until he became a feature filmmaker post the success of his cult classic “Pather Panchali”. When he wanted to make this feature, his agency gave him a full paid leave and expected him to come back. It's probably the

"Prix du document humain" prize at Cannes, that prevented him from getting back into advertising.

He was a master hand at illustrations and executed some brilliant campaigns. He became such a stalwart as a revolutionary filmmaker, that his repute shrouded his graphic design and illustration acumen. His oeuvre as a graphic artist is as rich and diverse as his filmography, but.

Ray studied under the tutelage of stalwarts like Nandalal Bose and Benod Behari Mukherjee, whose profound influence would reflect on his body of work throughout his lifetime. He learned the art of breaking rules from them by staying close to his heritage. Being born into a family of writers, poets and illustrators, Ray got a degree in Economics from Presidency College before moving to Shantiniketan to study painting at the Kala Bhavana at Visva Bharati University; Ray was indeed lucky to be surrounded with everything that could have made the Satyajit out of him.

In his advertising agency, he cracked and designed witty campaigns for biscuits, hair oils and cigarettes, and also designed book covers and jackets. His then-unique style shrugged off the colonial hangover, and Indianized publication design and advertisements in a way Indian audiences had never seen before. In 1950, D.J. Keymer sent Ray to London to work at the agency’s headquarters, an opportunity that introduced him

to world cinema. In just three months, he watched 99 movies and penned the script for Pather Panchali while at sea, on his way back to India. However, his preparation for filmmaking was in the form of his more familiar medium of illustration. “My earliest memories of my father are of him working in his study at home, storyboarding his films. He would always sketch every scene by hand to visualize it in his mind first; storyboarding for him was a revered ritual,” says Ray’s son, filmmaker Sandip Ray. “From his very first film, he took charge of the creative direction for the graphic collateral, like posters and flyers. I remember him holed up in his study, illustrating, colouring, and splicing images together until the artworks were ready for printing.” (quoted from an article on Ray where Sandip was interviewed)

If you take a look at the film posters he designed, it carries an essence of his rebellious artistic fervour which challenged the existing norms of designing. He introduced photography to graphic art and was a master at mixed media art forms. His deep interest in photojournalism and his extensive study of the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, reflects in all poster designs he created for his films.

A master calligrapher, Ray had a profound love for typography, and two of his typefaces, Ray Roman and Ray Bizarre, won a 1971 international typography competition. His nuanced understanding of expressive typography is reflected in the poster for the cult film in the Kolkata trilogy called “Mahanagar”. It is true that advertising creatives around the world have always denounced their profession and often lamented being in the trade for long. But it is Ray who learnt every trick of the game from this advertising world. He has never repented a single day spent in the agency.

I had the privilege to work in the same advertising office where Ray had worked. In my time, it became Clarion. I have often walked the corridors where Ray had spent his days thinking of an ad campaign. I have sat where he used to sit and think. Believe me, it still gives me goosebumps.

Considering the artistic journey he took, challenging and breaking the norms, reinventing the rules of the game and walking the path all by himself, dedicating Tagore’s “Jodi tor daak shune keu na ashe” to this enigmatic journey sounds quite apt to me.

Oh, you still haven’t seen the Peter Fan ad sequence in Seemabaddha?

ArrRAY!!!!

2021 Looking Forward

I recently read somewhere that humans are too optimistic by nature. While the article itself intended to paint this as some sort of flaw, I do tend to believe flaws are what make us human. This has been a terrible year by all standards. There is little clarity on how long this will last or how long it will be before life returns to normal.

03

But we, the beautifully-flawed optimistic humans, are getting back to life. I have had youngsters in our team take off for treks to the hills, wildlife lovers are visiting the forests again, films are being shot, masked crusaders are beginning to throng the eateries, the Hyundai Creta clocked its highest ever sales in September and our wonderfully unpredictable stock market has been behaving as if nothing much is wrong with the world.

Optimism has been a driving force in advertising since forever. The worst of times always produced the best of campaigns because someone thought there was hope. And it is with immense hope that I am looking forward to 2021. The return from WFH to work as usual could be slow, but I can’t wait to hug a bunch of colleagues and teammates, office lunches, monthly birthday cake cutting ceremonies and yes, I don’t mind a few really boring client meetings thrown in as well.

Till our wonderful scientists across the world produce an effective vaccine that will hopefully save us all from COVID-19, optimism, our beautiful flaw, will continue to be the notional shield that gives us the courage and confidence to get back to life in 2021. See you in the new year.

Let’s start with that iconic Peter Fans advertising ad film screening sequence shown in the feature film Seemabaddha directed by the master. (If you still haven’t watched this film, you should, before you read this any further!)

If you watch the minute detailing prevalent in that scene, you can understand it can only be portrayed with such vivid advertising-world vibes only if the director has experienced or been a part of the trade.

Ray was a very honest filmmaker. None of his films were ever made with artificial intelligence. Well, this is not a dig at the generation we are living in. The digital diaspora was evidently missing then.

These were pre-digital times, so every artwork had to be done by hand, judged by the eye, and measured to scale. “When he would make 30×40-inch posters, he would find a board of the exact size and gum the sides of a sheet of paper so it stuck to the board and remained stable through the sketching process,” says Sandip Ray,—about his perfectionism. “He would then use an amalgamation of photography and sketches, pasting images together and creating collages, while painting the other details.” (quoted from an article on Ray where Sandip was interviewed)

It was April of 1943, when Satyajit Ray joined a British advertising agency called D. J. Keymar as a Junior Visualiser. He spent the next 13 years in this agency until he became a feature filmmaker post the success of his cult classic “Pather Panchali”. When he wanted to make this feature, his agency gave him a full paid leave and expected him to come back. It's probably the

"Prix du document humain" prize at Cannes, that prevented him from getting back into advertising.

He was a master hand at illustrations and executed some brilliant campaigns. He became such a stalwart as a revolutionary filmmaker, that his repute shrouded his graphic design and illustration acumen. His oeuvre as a graphic artist is as rich and diverse as his filmography, but.

Ray studied under the tutelage of stalwarts like Nandalal Bose and Benod Behari Mukherjee, whose profound influence would reflect on his body of work throughout his lifetime. He learned the art of breaking rules from them by staying close to his heritage. Being born into a family of writers, poets and illustrators, Ray got a degree in Economics from Presidency College before moving to Shantiniketan to study painting at the Kala Bhavana at Visva Bharati University; Ray was indeed lucky to be surrounded with everything that could have made the Satyajit out of him.

In his advertising agency, he cracked and designed witty campaigns for biscuits, hair oils and cigarettes, and also designed book covers and jackets. His then-unique style shrugged off the colonial hangover, and Indianized publication design and advertisements in a way Indian audiences had never seen before. In 1950, D.J. Keymer sent Ray to London to work at the agency’s headquarters, an opportunity that introduced him

to world cinema. In just three months, he watched 99 movies and penned the script for Pather Panchali while at sea, on his way back to India. However, his preparation for filmmaking was in the form of his more familiar medium of illustration. “My earliest memories of my father are of him working in his study at home, storyboarding his films. He would always sketch every scene by hand to visualize it in his mind first; storyboarding for him was a revered ritual,” says Ray’s son, filmmaker Sandip Ray. “From his very first film, he took charge of the creative direction for the graphic collateral, like posters and flyers. I remember him holed up in his study, illustrating, colouring, and splicing images together until the artworks were ready for printing.” (quoted from an article on Ray where Sandip was interviewed)

If you take a look at the film posters he designed, it carries an essence of his rebellious artistic fervour which challenged the existing norms of designing. He introduced photography to graphic art and was a master at mixed media art forms. His deep interest in photojournalism and his extensive study of the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, reflects in all poster designs he created for his films.

A master calligrapher, Ray had a profound love for typography, and two of his typefaces, Ray Roman and Ray Bizarre, won a 1971 international typography competition. His nuanced understanding of expressive typography is reflected in the poster for the cult film in the Kolkata trilogy called “Mahanagar”. It is true that advertising creatives around the world have always denounced their profession and often lamented being in the trade for long. But it is Ray who learnt every trick of the game from this advertising world. He has never repented a single day spent in the agency.

I had the privilege to work in the same advertising office where Ray had worked. In my time, it became Clarion. I have often walked the corridors where Ray had spent his days thinking of an ad campaign. I have sat where he used to sit and think. Believe me, it still gives me goosebumps.

Considering the artistic journey he took, challenging and breaking the norms, reinventing the rules of the game and walking the path all by himself, dedicating Tagore’s “Jodi tor daak shune keu na ashe” to this enigmatic journey sounds quite apt to me.

Oh, you still haven’t seen the Peter Fan ad sequence in Seemabaddha?

ArrRAY!!!!

I recently read somewhere that humans are too optimistic by nature. While the article itself intended to paint this as some sort of flaw, I do tend to believe flaws are what make us human. This has been a terrible year by all standards. There is little clarity on how long this will last or how long it will be before life returns to normal.

But we, the beautifully-flawed optimistic humans, are getting back to life. I have had youngsters in our team take off for treks to the hills, wildlife lovers are visiting the forests again, films are being shot, masked crusaders are beginning to throng the eateries, the Hyundai Creta clocked its highest ever sales in September and our wonderfully unpredictable stock market has been behaving as if nothing much is wrong with the world.

Optimism has been a driving force in advertising since forever. The worst of times always produced the best of campaigns because someone thought there was hope. And it is with immense hope that I am looking forward to 2021. The return from WFH to work as usual could be slow, but I can’t wait to hug a bunch of colleagues and teammates, office lunches, monthly birthday cake cutting ceremonies and yes, I don’t mind a few really boring client meetings thrown in as well.

Till our wonderful scientists across the world produce an effective vaccine that will hopefully save us all from COVID-19, optimism, our beautiful flaw, will continue to be the notional shield that gives us the courage and confidence to get back to life in 2021. See you in the new year.

Rahul Jauhari Joint President & CCO

04

Let’s start with that iconic Peter Fans advertising ad film screening sequence shown in the feature film Seemabaddha directed by the master. (If you still haven’t watched this film, you should, before you read this any further!)

If you watch the minute detailing prevalent in that scene, you can understand it can only be portrayed with such vivid advertising-world vibes only if the director has experienced or been a part of the trade.

Ray was a very honest filmmaker. None of his films were ever made with artificial intelligence. Well, this is not a dig at the generation we are living in. The digital diaspora was evidently missing then.

These were pre-digital times, so every artwork had to be done by hand, judged by the eye, and measured to scale. “When he would make 30×40-inch posters, he would find a board of the exact size and gum the sides of a sheet of paper so it stuck to the board and remained stable through the sketching process,” says Sandip Ray,—about his perfectionism. “He would then use an amalgamation of photography and sketches, pasting images together and creating collages, while painting the other details.” (quoted from an article on Ray where Sandip was interviewed)

It was April of 1943, when Satyajit Ray joined a British advertising agency called D. J. Keymar as a Junior Visualiser. He spent the next 13 years in this agency until he became a feature filmmaker post the success of his cult classic “Pather Panchali”. When he wanted to make this feature, his agency gave him a full paid leave and expected him to come back. It's probably the

"Prix du document humain" prize at Cannes, that prevented him from getting back into advertising.

He was a master hand at illustrations and executed some brilliant campaigns. He became such a stalwart as a revolutionary filmmaker, that his repute shrouded his graphic design and illustration acumen. His oeuvre as a graphic artist is as rich and diverse as his filmography, but.

Ray studied under the tutelage of stalwarts like Nandalal Bose and Benod Behari Mukherjee, whose profound influence would reflect on his body of work throughout his lifetime. He learned the art of breaking rules from them by staying close to his heritage. Being born into a family of writers, poets and illustrators, Ray got a degree in Economics from Presidency College before moving to Shantiniketan to study painting at the Kala Bhavana at Visva Bharati University; Ray was indeed lucky to be surrounded with everything that could have made the Satyajit out of him.

In his advertising agency, he cracked and designed witty campaigns for biscuits, hair oils and cigarettes, and also designed book covers and jackets. His then-unique style shrugged off the colonial hangover, and Indianized publication design and advertisements in a way Indian audiences had never seen before. In 1950, D.J. Keymer sent Ray to London to work at the agency’s headquarters, an opportunity that introduced him

to world cinema. In just three months, he watched 99 movies and penned the script for Pather Panchali while at sea, on his way back to India. However, his preparation for filmmaking was in the form of his more familiar medium of illustration. “My earliest memories of my father are of him working in his study at home, storyboarding his films. He would always sketch every scene by hand to visualize it in his mind first; storyboarding for him was a revered ritual,” says Ray’s son, filmmaker Sandip Ray. “From his very first film, he took charge of the creative direction for the graphic collateral, like posters and flyers. I remember him holed up in his study, illustrating, colouring, and splicing images together until the artworks were ready for printing.” (quoted from an article on Ray where Sandip was interviewed)

If you take a look at the film posters he designed, it carries an essence of his rebellious artistic fervour which challenged the existing norms of designing. He introduced photography to graphic art and was a master at mixed media art forms. His deep interest in photojournalism and his extensive study of the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, reflects in all poster designs he created for his films.

A master calligrapher, Ray had a profound love for typography, and two of his typefaces, Ray Roman and Ray Bizarre, won a 1971 international typography competition. His nuanced understanding of expressive typography is reflected in the poster for the cult film in the Kolkata trilogy called “Mahanagar”. It is true that advertising creatives around the world have always denounced their profession and often lamented being in the trade for long. But it is Ray who learnt every trick of the game from this advertising world. He has never repented a single day spent in the agency.

I had the privilege to work in the same advertising office where Ray had worked. In my time, it became Clarion. I have often walked the corridors where Ray had spent his days thinking of an ad campaign. I have sat where he used to sit and think. Believe me, it still gives me goosebumps.

Considering the artistic journey he took, challenging and breaking the norms, reinventing the rules of the game and walking the path all by himself, dedicating Tagore’s “Jodi tor daak shune keu na ashe” to this enigmatic journey sounds quite apt to me.

Oh, you still haven’t seen the Peter Fan ad sequence in Seemabaddha?

ArrRAY!!!!

Ekla Cholo

Lights, Camera, Action - Rayon the advertising career of Satyajit Ray

By Nilanjan Dasgupta EVP – Kolkata

Let’s start with that iconic Peter Fans advertising ad film screening sequence shown in the feature film Seemabaddha directed by the master. (If you still haven’t watched this film, you should, before you read this any further!)

If you watch the minute detailing prevalent in that scene, you can understand it can only be portrayed with such vivid advertising-world vibes only if the director has experienced or been a part of the trade.

Ray was a very honest filmmaker. None of his films were ever made with artificial intelligence. Well, this is not a dig at the generation we are living in. The digital diaspora was evidently missing then.

These were pre-digital times, so every artwork had to be done by hand, judged by the eye, and measured to scale. “When he would make 30×40-inch posters, he would find a board of the exact size and gum the sides of a sheet of paper so it stuck to the board and remained stable through the sketching process,” says Sandip Ray,—about his perfectionism. “He would then use an amalgamation of photography and sketches, pasting images together and creating collages, while painting the other details.” (quoted from an article on Ray where Sandip was interviewed)

It was April of 1943, when Satyajit Ray joined a British advertising agency called D. J. Keymar as a Junior Visualiser. He spent the next 13 years in this agency until he became a feature filmmaker post the success of his cult classic “Pather Panchali”. When he wanted to make this feature, his agency gave him a full paid leave and expected him to come back. It's probably the

"Prix du document humain" prize at Cannes, that prevented him from getting back into advertising.

He was a master hand at illustrations and executed some brilliant campaigns. He became such a stalwart as a revolutionary filmmaker, that his repute shrouded his graphic design and illustration acumen. His oeuvre as a graphic artist is as rich and diverse as his filmography, but.

Ray studied under the tutelage of stalwarts like Nandalal Bose and Benod Behari Mukherjee, whose profound influence would reflect on his body of work throughout his lifetime. He learned the art of breaking rules from them by staying close to his heritage. Being born into a family of writers, poets and illustrators, Ray got a degree in Economics from Presidency College before moving to Shantiniketan to study painting at the Kala Bhavana at Visva Bharati University; Ray was indeed lucky to be surrounded with everything that could have made the Satyajit out of him.

In his advertising agency, he cracked and designed witty campaigns for biscuits, hair oils and cigarettes, and also designed book covers and jackets. His then-unique style shrugged off the colonial hangover, and Indianized publication design and advertisements in a way Indian audiences had never seen before. In 1950, D.J. Keymer sent Ray to London to work at the agency’s headquarters, an opportunity that introduced him

to world cinema. In just three months, he watched 99 movies and penned the script for Pather Panchali while at sea, on his way back to India. However, his preparation for filmmaking was in the form of his more familiar medium of illustration. “My earliest memories of my father are of him working in his study at home, storyboarding his films. He would always sketch every scene by hand to visualize it in his mind first; storyboarding for him was a revered ritual,” says Ray’s son, filmmaker Sandip Ray. “From his very first film, he took charge of the creative direction for the graphic collateral, like posters and flyers. I remember him holed up in his study, illustrating, colouring, and splicing images together until the artworks were ready for printing.” (quoted from an article on Ray where Sandip was interviewed)

If you take a look at the film posters he designed, it carries an essence of his rebellious artistic fervour which challenged the existing norms of designing. He introduced photography to graphic art and was a master at mixed media art forms. His deep interest in photojournalism and his extensive study of the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, reflects in all poster designs he created for his films.

A master calligrapher, Ray had a profound love for typography, and two of his typefaces, Ray Roman and Ray Bizarre, won a 1971 international typography competition. His nuanced understanding of expressive typography is reflected in the poster for the cult film in the Kolkata trilogy called “Mahanagar”. It is true that advertising creatives around the world have always denounced their profession and often lamented being in the trade for long. But it is Ray who learnt every trick of the game from this advertising world. He has never repented a single day spent in the agency.

I had the privilege to work in the same advertising office where Ray had worked. In my time, it became Clarion. I have often walked the corridors where Ray had spent his days thinking of an ad campaign. I have sat where he used to sit and think. Believe me, it still gives me goosebumps.

Considering the artistic journey he took, challenging and breaking the norms, reinventing the rules of the game and walking the path all by himself, dedicating Tagore’s “Jodi tor daak shune keu na ashe” to this enigmatic journey sounds quite apt to me.

Oh, you still haven’t seen the Peter Fan ad sequence in Seemabaddha?

ArrRAY!!!!

Let ’s start with that iconic Peters Fans advertising ad film screening sequence shown in the feature film Seemabaddha directed by the master. (If you still haven’t watched this film, you should, before you read this any further!)

If you watch the minute detailing prevalent in that scene, you can understand it can only be portrayed with such vivid advertising-world vibes only if the director has experienced or been a part of the trade.

Ray was a very honest filmmaker. None of his films were ever made with artificial intelligence. Well, this is not a dig at the generation we are living in. The digital diaspora was evidently missing then.

These were pre-digital times, so every artwork had to be done by hand, judged by the eye, and measured to scale. “When he would make 30×40-inch posters, he would find a board of the exact size and gum the sides of a sheet of paper so it stuck to the board and remained stable through the sketching process,” says Sandip Ray,—about his perfectionism. “He would then use an amalgamation of photography and sketches, pasting images together and creating collages, while painting the other details.” (quoted from an article on Ray where Sandip was interviewed)

It was April of 1943, when Satyajit Ray joined a British advertising agency called D. J. Keymar as a Junior Visualiser. He spent the next 13 years in this agency until he became a feature filmmaker post the success of his cult classic “Pather Panchali”. When he wanted to make this feature, his agency gave him a full paid leave and expected him to come back. It's probably the

06

"Prix du document humain" prize at Cannes, that prevented him from getting back into advertising.

He was a master hand at illustrations and executed some brilliant campaigns. He became such a stalwart as a revolutionary filmmaker, that his repute shrouded his graphic design and illustration acumen. His oeuvre as a graphic artist is as rich and diverse as his filmography, but.

Ray studied under the tutelage of stalwarts like Nandalal Bose and Benod Behari Mukherjee, whose profound influence would reflect on his body of work throughout his lifetime. He learned the art of breaking rules from them by staying close to his heritage. Being born into a family of writers, poets and illustrators, Ray got a degree in Economics from Presidency College before moving to Shantiniketan to study painting at the Kala Bhavana at Visva Bharati University; Ray was indeed lucky to be surrounded with everything that could have made the Satyajit out of him.

In his advertising agency, he cracked and designed witty campaigns for biscuits, hair oils and cigarettes, and also designed book covers and jackets. His then-unique style shrugged off the colonial hangover, and Indianized publication design and advertisements in a way Indian audiences had never seen before. In 1950, D.J. Keymer sent Ray to London to work at the agency’s headquarters, an opportunity that introduced him

to world cinema. In just three months, he watched 99 movies and penned the script for Pather Panchali while at sea, on his way back to India. However, his preparation for filmmaking was in the form of his more familiar medium of illustration. “My earliest memories of my father are of him working in his study at home, storyboarding his films. He would always sketch every scene by hand to visualize it in his mind first; storyboarding for him was a revered ritual,” says Ray’s son, filmmaker Sandip Ray. “From his very first film, he took charge of the creative direction for the graphic collateral, like posters and flyers. I remember him holed up in his study, illustrating, colouring, and splicing images together until the artworks were ready for printing.” (quoted from an article on Ray where Sandip was interviewed)

If you take a look at the film posters he designed, it carries an essence of his rebellious artistic fervour which challenged the existing norms of designing. He introduced photography to graphic art and was a master at mixed media art forms. His deep interest in photojournalism and his extensive study of the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, reflects in all poster designs he created for his films.

A master calligrapher, Ray had a profound love for typography, and two of his typefaces, Ray Roman and Ray Bizarre, won a 1971 international typography competition. His nuanced understanding of expressive typography is reflected in the poster for the cult film in the Kolkata trilogy called “Mahanagar”. It is true that advertising creatives around the world have always denounced their profession and often lamented being in the trade for long. But it is Ray who learnt every trick of the game from this advertising world. He has never repented a single day spent in the agency.

I had the privilege to work in the same advertising office where Ray had worked. In my time, it became Clarion. I have often walked the corridors where Ray had spent his days thinking of an ad campaign. I have sat where he used to sit and think. Believe me, it still gives me goosebumps.

Considering the artistic journey he took, challenging and breaking the norms, reinventing the rules of the game and walking the path all by himself, dedicating Tagore’s “Jodi tor daak shune keu na ashe” to this enigmatic journey sounds quite apt to me.

Oh, you still haven’t seen the Peter Fan ad sequence in Seemabaddha?

ArrRAY!!!!

Let’s start with that iconic Peter Fans advertising ad film screening sequence shown in the feature film Seemabaddha directed by the master. (If you still haven’t watched this film, you should, before you read this any further!)

If you watch the minute detailing prevalent in that scene, you can understand it can only be portrayed with such vivid advertising-world vibes only if the director has experienced or been a part of the trade.

Ray was a very honest filmmaker. None of his films were ever made with artificial intelligence. Well, this is not a dig at the generation we are living in. The digital diaspora was evidently missing then.

These were pre-digital times, so every artwork had to be done by hand, judged by the eye, and measured to scale. “When he would make 30×40-inch posters, he would find a board of the exact size and gum the sides of a sheet of paper so it stuck to the board and remained stable through the sketching process,” says Sandip Ray,—about his perfectionism. “He would then use an amalgamation of photography and sketches, pasting images together and creating collages, while painting the other details.” (quoted from an article on Ray where Sandip was interviewed)

It was April of 1943, when Satyajit Ray joined a British advertising agency called D. J. Keymar as a Junior Visualiser. He spent the next 13 years in this agency until he became a feature filmmaker post the success of his cult classic “Pather Panchali”. When he wanted to make this feature, his agency gave him a full paid leave and expected him to come back. It's probably the

"Prix du document humain" prize at Cannes, that prevented him from getting back into advertising.

He was a master hand at illustrations and executed some brilliant campaigns. He became such a stalwart as a revolutionary filmmaker, that his repute shrouded his graphic design and illustration acumen. His oeuvre as a graphic artist is as rich and diverse as his filmography, but.

Ray studied under the tutelage of stalwarts like Nandalal Bose and Benod Behari Mukherjee, whose profound influence would reflect on his body of work throughout his lifetime. He learned the art of breaking rules from them by staying close to his heritage. Being born into a family of writers, poets and illustrators, Ray got a degree in Economics from Presidency College before moving to Shantiniketan to study painting at the Kala Bhavana at Visva Bharati University; Ray was indeed lucky to be surrounded with everything that could have made the Satyajit out of him.

In his advertising agency, he cracked and designed witty campaigns for biscuits, hair oils and cigarettes, and also designed book covers and jackets. His then-unique style shrugged off the colonial hangover, and Indianized publication design and advertisements in a way Indian audiences had never seen before. In 1950, D.J. Keymer sent Ray to London to work at the agency’s headquarters, an opportunity that introduced him

07

to world cinema. In just three months, he watched 99 movies and penned the script for Pather Panchali while at sea, on his way back to India. However, his preparation for filmmaking was in the form of his more familiar medium of illustration. “My earliest memories of my father are of him working in his study at home, storyboarding his films. He would always sketch every scene by hand to visualize it in his mind first; storyboarding for him was a revered ritual,” says Ray’s son, filmmaker Sandip Ray. “From his very first film, he took charge of the creative direction for the graphic collateral, like posters and flyers. I remember him holed up in his study, illustrating, colouring, and splicing images together until the artworks were ready for printing.” (quoted from an article on Ray where Sandip was interviewed)

If you take a look at the film posters he designed, it carries an essence of his rebellious artistic fervour which challenged the existing norms of designing. He introduced photography to graphic art and was a master at mixed media art forms. His deep interest in photojournalism and his extensive study of the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, reflects in all poster designs he created for his films.

A master calligrapher, Ray had a profound love for typography, and two of his typefaces, Ray Roman and Ray Bizarre, won a 1971 international typography competition. His nuanced understanding of expressive typography is reflected in the poster for the cult film in the Kolkata trilogy called “Mahanagar”. It is true that advertising creatives around the world have always denounced their profession and often lamented being in the trade for long. But it is Ray who learnt every trick of the game from this advertising world. He has never repented a single day spent in the agency.

I had the privilege to work in the same advertising office where Ray had worked. In my time, it became Clarion. I have often walked the corridors where Ray had spent his days thinking of an ad campaign. I have sat where he used to sit and think. Believe me, it still gives me goosebumps.

Considering the artistic journey he took, challenging and breaking the norms, reinventing the rules of the game and walking the path all by himself, dedicating Tagore’s “Jodi tor daak shune keu na ashe” to this enigmatic journey sounds quite apt to me.

Oh, you still haven’t seen the Peter Fan ad sequence in Seemabaddha?

ArrRAY!!!!

Let’s start with that iconic Peter Fans advertising ad film screening sequence shown in the feature film Seemabaddha directed by the master. (If you still haven’t watched this film, you should, before you read this any further!)

If you watch the minute detailing prevalent in that scene, you can understand it can only be portrayed with such vivid advertising-world vibes only if the director has experienced or been a part of the trade.

Ray was a very honest filmmaker. None of his films were ever made with artificial intelligence. Well, this is not a dig at the generation we are living in. The digital diaspora was evidently missing then.

These were pre-digital times, so every artwork had to be done by hand, judged by the eye, and measured to scale. “When he would make 30×40-inch posters, he would find a board of the exact size and gum the sides of a sheet of paper so it stuck to the board and remained stable through the sketching process,” says Sandip Ray,—about his perfectionism. “He would then use an amalgamation of photography and sketches, pasting images together and creating collages, while painting the other details.” (quoted from an article on Ray where Sandip was interviewed)

It was April of 1943, when Satyajit Ray joined a British advertising agency called D. J. Keymar as a Junior Visualiser. He spent the next 13 years in this agency until he became a feature filmmaker post the success of his cult classic “Pather Panchali”. When he wanted to make this feature, his agency gave him a full paid leave and expected him to come back. It's probably the

"Prix du document humain" prize at Cannes, that prevented him from getting back into advertising.

He was a master hand at illustrations and executed some brilliant campaigns. He became such a stalwart as a revolutionary filmmaker, that his repute shrouded his graphic design and illustration acumen. His oeuvre as a graphic artist is as rich and diverse as his filmography, but.

Ray studied under the tutelage of stalwarts like Nandalal Bose and Benod Behari Mukherjee, whose profound influence would reflect on his body of work throughout his lifetime. He learned the art of breaking rules from them by staying close to his heritage. Being born into a family of writers, poets and illustrators, Ray got a degree in Economics from Presidency College before moving to Shantiniketan to study painting at the Kala Bhavana at Visva Bharati University; Ray was indeed lucky to be surrounded with everything that could have made the Satyajit out of him.

In his advertising agency, he cracked and designed witty campaigns for biscuits, hair oils and cigarettes, and also designed book covers and jackets. His then-unique style shrugged off the colonial hangover, and Indianized publication design and advertisements in a way Indian audiences had never seen before. In 1950, D.J. Keymer sent Ray to London to work at the agency’s headquarters, an opportunity that introduced him

to world cinema. In just three months, he watched 99 movies and penned the script for Pather Panchali while at sea, on his way back to India. However, his preparation for filmmaking was in the form of his more familiar medium of illustration. “My earliest memories of my father are of him working in his study at home, storyboarding his films. He would always sketch every scene by hand to visualize it in his mind first; storyboarding for him was a revered ritual,” says Ray’s son, filmmaker Sandip Ray. “From his very first film, he took charge of the creative direction for the graphic collateral, like posters and flyers. I remember him holed up in his study, illustrating, colouring, and splicing images together until the artworks were ready for printing.” (quoted from an article on Ray where Sandip was interviewed)

If you take a look at the film posters he designed, it carries an essence of his rebellious artistic fervour which challenged the existing norms of designing. He introduced photography to graphic art and was a master at mixed media art forms. His deep interest in photojournalism and his extensive study of the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, reflects in all poster designs he created for his films.

A master calligrapher, Ray had a profound love for typography, and two of his typefaces, Ray Roman and Ray Bizarre, won a 1971 international typography competition. His nuanced understanding of expressive typography is reflected in the poster for the cult film in the Kolkata trilogy called “Mahanagar”.

08 Hooked to SFC? Allow me to spill the beans.

Your SFC is going to be a distraction from a much more pleasant piece of content the consumer would rather be watching. A brain needs less than 1/2 second to engage with SFC & trigger a reac- tion, positive or negative. Make your creative in a way that requires minimal effort for comprehension, and entertaining if possible. As marketers, remember these rules before you begin creating and delivering SFC for your brand.

It is true that advertising creatives around the world have always denounced their profession and often lamented being in the trade for long. But it is Ray who learnt every trick of the game from this advertising world. He has never repented a single day spent in the agency.

Successful brands understand that SFC is an elevator pitch to the I had the privilege to work in the same advertising office where consumer and they need to remember it was you. And this is Ray had worked. In my time, it became Clarion. I have often why SFC has heightened the necessity to transform creativity – walked the corridors where Ray had spent his days thinking of to make sure you not only grab attention but to do so in a short an ad campaign. I have sat where he used to sit and think. amount of time. Believe me, it still gives me goosebumps. The 6 golden rules for an effective SFC are: Considering the artistic journey he took, challenging and breaking the norms, reinventing the rules of the game and 1. Capture attention quickly. Being dramatic upfront is critical. walking the path all by himself, dedicating Tagore’s “Jodi tor Your message has to get out as soon as possible, possibly in the daak shune keu na ashe” to this enigmatic journey sounds quite first 5 seconds. apt to me. 2. Think visually. Images are more graphic, compressed and Oh, you still haven ’t seen the Peters Fans ad sequence in sticky. Seemabaddha? Videos occupy a crowded space and try to catch attention as soon as possible. ArrRAY!!!! 3. Set context, get branding in early. Story arcs work differently

09

on mobile. Consumers are 23% more likely to remember if the brand was featured in the first three seconds.

4. Design for sound off, delight with sound on. Play with supers and captioning. Make sure comprehension isn't muted. Your videos should communicate your message even without audio.

5. Frame for Vertical. Use the full real estate of the phone. Either 9:16 vertical videos or 1:1 – a perfect square.

6. Keep the duration to 10 or less. When you write to the medium, you can get your point across both quickly and powerfully. A length of 5-15 seconds is recommended.

In the digital world, the choice rests with the consumer’s thumb – so make sure you use all the tricks in the book and techniques with the CG house to ensure your ad grabs and keeps the view- er’s attention. Remember, you will only emerge victorious if you respect the environment. Be creative - test, learn, adapt and become unforgettable!

Sources:

Brand Equity, “Dynamics of a 'short attention span' world”, Jan 06 2020 Afaqs, “Do's and Don'ts while crafting 'the 10-seconder' for brands...”, 24 May 2019 Microsoft, “Attention Span Consumer Insights”, 14 May 2015

In the time it took you to read the title of this article, ponder what it might be about and decide that you actually wanted to read the whole thing, a lot of our dear readers would have checked out and gone on to pursue a completely different task. And we understand it’s nothing personal – that’s just how most of us process information nowadays.

But for those of you who have made it this far, we are truly grateful. We are all actively competing for your fabled share of attention. A truly rare commodity, this attention.

It keeps shifting in the blink of an eye, constantly jumping from one information nugget to another. Its volatile nature makes you read less every day and dictates you to forward messages that you never read. All of this while you switch rapidly between the gazillion tabs and apps on your devices.

Are you still listening?

YES, YOU!

As a matter of fact, in the last 20 years, your average attention span has contracted by almost a quarter. You now lag behind the modest goldfish in terms of being able to focus on a task or an object. Yes, a GOLDFISH. Those tiny little creatures that swim in a small glass bowl all day long. Their attention span is now

Let’s start with that iconic Peter Fans advertising ad film screening longer than yours. sequence shown in the feature film Seemabaddha directed by the master. (If you still haven’t watched this film, you should, before you read this any further!)

If you watch the minute detailing prevalent in that scene, you can understand it can only be portrayed with such vivid advertising-world vibes only if the director has experienced or been a part of the trade.

Ray was a very honest Your shortened attention span has also become more discrimi- filmmaker. None of his films nating. were ever made with artificial intelligence. Well, this is not a In today’s generation of endless choices, your cognition is using dig at the generation we are wizardry to defend against information overload. American living in. The digital diaspora Nobel winning economist Herbert Simon took deep interest in was evidently missing then. studying these mind tricks – and coined our attention giving process as ‘satisficing’ - a combination of satisfy and suffice. These were pre-digital times, Satisficing means you give attention to things as you think they so every artwork had to be deserve. You engage significantly longer with content that you done by hand, judged by the actively like, and you ignore or pay less attention to content that eye, and measured to scale. you filter out. “When he would make 30×40-inch posters, he would Satisficing becomes even more important if you are a BRAND. find a board of the exact size You have no other option but to take this challenge in your stride and gum the sides of a sheet of and accept that attention will not be handed to you on a plate – paper so it stuck to the board you must earn it. and remained stable through the sketching process,” says Sandip Ray,—about his perfectionism. “He would then use an amalgamation of photography and sketches, pasting images together and creating collages, while painting the other details.” (quoted from an article on Ray where Sandip was interviewed)

It was April of 1943, when Satyajit Ray joined a British advertising agency called D. J. Keymar as a Junior Visualiser. He spent the next 13 years in this agency until he became a feature filmmaker post the success of his cult classic “Pather Panchali”. When he wanted to make this feature, his agency gave him a full paid leave and expected him to come back. It's probably the

"Prix du document There is some good news though - brands are not just fighting humain" prize at Cannes, this battle but also emerging on top. Just like great tattoo artists that prevented him from who create indelible designs that strike in the first glance, these getting back into brands are building memorable narratives in a really short advertising. window of opportunity.

He was a master hand at Their secret sauce of success? illustrations and executed some brilliant campaigns. Short Form Content (SFC) He became such a stalwart as a revolutionary filmmaker, that his repute shrouded his graphic design and illustration acumen. His oeuvre as a graphic artist is as rich and diverse as his filmography, but.

Ray studied under the tutelage of stalwarts like Nandalal Bose and Benod Behari Mukherjee, whose profound influence would reflect on his body of work throughout his lifetime. He learned the art of breaking rules from them by staying close With the rising popularity of both short-form video platforms to his heritage. Being born into a family of writers, poets and and mobile, the appetite for mobile-friendly SFC has never been illustrators, Ray got a degree in Economics from Presidency bigger. Let’s see some brands who have truly knocked it out of College before moving to Shantiniketan to study painting at the the park: Kala Bhavana at Visva Bharati University; Ray was indeed lucky to be surrounded with everything that could have made the 1) How SpiceJet leveraged SFC to convey its new offerings: Satyajit out of him.

In his advertising agency, he cracked and designed witty campaigns for biscuits, hair oils and cigarettes, and also designed book covers and jackets. His then-unique style shrugged off the colonial hangover, and Indianized publication design and advertisements in a way Indian audiences had never seen before. In 1950, D.J. Keymer sent Ray to London to work at the agency’s headquarters, an opportunity that introduced him

to world cinema. In just three months, he watched 99 movies and penned the script for Pather Panchali while at sea, on his way back to India. However, his preparation for filmmaking was in the form of his more familiar medium of illustration. “My earliest memories of my father are of him working in his study at home, storyboarding his 2) How Google Photos used SFC to talk about an everyday prob- films. He would always lem to plug itself: sketch every scene by hand to visualize it in his mind first; storyboarding for him was a revered ritual,” says Ray’s son, filmmaker Sandip Ray. “From his very first film, he took charge of the creative direction for the graphic collateral, like posters and flyers. I remember him holed up in his study, illustrating, colouring, and splicing images together until the artworks were ready for printing.” (quoted from an article on Ray where Sandip was interviewed)

If you take a look at the film posters he designed, it carries an essence of his rebellious artistic fervour which challenged the 3) How Nescafe captured the essence of coffee using SFC: existing norms of designing. He introduced photography to graphic art and was a master at mixed media art forms. His deep interest in photojournalism and his extensive study of the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, reflects in all poster designs he created for his films.

A master calligrapher, Ray had a profound love for typography, and two of his typefaces, Ray Roman and Ray Bizarre, won a 1971 international typography competition. His nuanced understanding of expressive typography is reflected in the poster for the cult film in the Kolkata trilogy called “Mahanagar”. Hooked to SFC? Allow me to spill the beans.

Your SFC is going to be a distraction from a much more pleasant piece of content the consumer would rather be watching. A brain needs less than 1/2 second to engage with SFC & trigger a reac- tion, positive or negative. Make your creative in a way that requires minimal effort for comprehension, and entertaining if possible. As marketers, remember these rules before you begin creating and delivering SFC for your brand.

It is true that advertising creatives around the world have always denounced their profession and often lamented being in the trade for long. But it is Ray who learnt every trick of the game from this advertising world. He has never repented a single day spent in the agency.

Successful brands understand that SFC is an elevator pitch to the I had the privilege to work in the same advertising office where consumer and they need to remember it was you. And this is Ray had worked. In my time, it became Clarion. I have often why SFC has heightened the necessity to transform creativity – walked the corridors where Ray had spent his days thinking of to make sure you not only grab attention but to do so in a short an ad campaign. I have sat where he used to sit and think. amount of time. Believe me, it still gives me goosebumps. The 6 golden rules for an effective SFC are: Considering the artistic journey he took, challenging and breaking the norms, reinventing the rules of the game and 1. Capture attention quickly. Being dramatic upfront is critical. walking the path all by himself, dedicating Tagore’s “Jodi tor Your message has to get out as soon as possible, possibly in the daak shune keu na ashe” to this enigmatic journey sounds quite first 5 seconds. apt to me. 2. Think visually. Images are more graphic, compressed and Oh, you still haven’t seen the Peter Fan ad sequence in sticky. Seemabaddha? Videos occupy a crowded space and try to catch attention as soon as possible. ArrRAY!!!! 3. Set context, get branding in early. Story arcs work differently

on mobile. Consumers are 23% more likely to remember if the brand was featured in the first three seconds.

4. Design for sound off, delight with sound on. Brews Play with supers and captioning. Make sure comprehension isn't muted. Your videos should communicate your message even of the month without audio. 5. Frame for Vertical. Use the full real estate of the phone. What's up with you this month? Either 9:16 vertical videos or 1:1 – a perfect square. Here's what's up with us! 6. Keep the duration to 10 or less. When you write to the medium, you can get your point across both quickly and powerfully. Get #KhushiyanOnEMI A length of 5-15 seconds is recommended. freshwith SBI Debit Card EMI. In the digital world, the choice rests with the consumer’s thumb SBI – so make sure you use all the tricks in the book and techniques with the CG house to ensure your ad grabs and keeps the view- SBI Debit Card EMI turns big purchases into easily affordable er’s attention. Remember, you will only emerge victorious if you ones, without adding any extra charges. Our team had a respect the environment. Be creative - test, learn, adapt and humorous take on this in our new campaign for India’s become unforgettable! biggest and most trusted bank. So the ads had situations such as an otherwise strict dad transforming into a Sources: doting dad who opens up his purse strings for his son. This set of three films made the viewers Brand Equity, “Dynamics of a 'short attention span' world”, Jan 06 smile and were well received by the 2020 industry as well. Watch them here Afaqs, “Do's and Don'ts while crafting 'the 10-seconder' for brands...”, and do let us know how you found 24 May 2019 them. Microsoft, “Attention Span Consumer Insights”, 14 May 2015

10

In the time it took you to read the title of this article, ponder what it might be about and decide that you actually wanted to read the whole thing, a lot of our dear readers would have checked out and gone on to pursue a completely different task. And we understand it’s nothing personal – that’s just how most of us process information nowadays.

But for those of you who have made it this far, we are truly grateful. We are all actively competing for your fabled share of attention. A truly rare commodity, this attention.

It keeps shifting in the blink of an eye, constantly jumping from one information nugget to another. Its volatile nature makes you read less every day and dictates you to forward messages that you never read. All of this while you switch rapidly between the gazillion tabs and apps on your devices.

Are you still listening?

YES, YOU!

As a matter of fact, in the last 20 years, your average attention span has contracted by almost a quarter. You now lag behind the modest goldfish in terms of being able to focus on a task or an object. Yes, a GOLDFISH. Those tiny little creatures that swim in a small glass bowl all day long. Their attention span is now

Let’s start with that iconic Peter Fans advertising ad film screening longer than yours. sequence shown in the feature film Seemabaddha directed by the master. (If you still haven’t watched this film, you should, before you read this any further!)

If you watch the minute detailing prevalent in that scene, you can understand it can only be portrayed with such vivid advertising-world vibes only if the director has experienced or been a part of the trade.

Ray was a very honest Your shortened attention span has also become more discrimi- filmmaker. None of his films nating. were ever made with artificial intelligence. Well, this is not a In today’s generation of endless choices, your cognition is using dig at the generation we are wizardry to defend against information overload. American living in. The digital diaspora Nobel winning economist Herbert Simon took deep interest in was evidently missing then. studying these mind tricks – and coined our attention giving process as ‘satisficing’ - a combination of satisfy and suffice. These were pre-digital times, Satisficing means you give attention to things as you think they so every artwork had to be deserve. You engage significantly longer with content that you done by hand, judged by the actively like, and you ignore or pay less attention to content that eye, and measured to scale. you filter out. “When he would make 30×40-inch posters, he would Satisficing becomes even more important if you are a BRAND. find a board of the exact size You have no other option but to take this challenge in your stride and gum the sides of a sheet of and accept that attention will not be handed to you on a plate – paper so it stuck to the board you must earn it. and remained stable through the sketching process,” says Sandip Ray,—about his perfectionism. “He would then use an amalgamation of photography and sketches, pasting images together and creating collages, while painting the other details.” (quoted from an article on Ray where Sandip was interviewed)

It was April of 1943, when Satyajit Ray joined a British advertising agency called D. J. Keymar as a Junior Visualiser. He spent the next 13 years in this agency until he became a feature filmmaker post the success of his cult classic “Pather Panchali”. When he wanted to make this feature, his agency gave him a full paid leave and expected him to come back. It's probably the

"Prix du document There is some good news though - brands are not just fighting humain" prize at Cannes, this battle but also emerging on top. Just like great tattoo artists that prevented him from who create indelible designs that strike in the first glance, these getting back into brands are building memorable narratives in a really short advertising. window of opportunity.

He was a master hand at Their secret sauce of success? illustrations and executed some brilliant campaigns. Short Form Content (SFC) He became such a stalwart as a revolutionary filmmaker, that his repute shrouded his graphic design and illustration acumen. His oeuvre as a graphic artist is as rich and diverse as his filmography, but.

Ray studied under the tutelage of stalwarts like Nandalal Bose and Benod Behari Mukherjee, whose profound influence would reflect on his body of work throughout his lifetime. He learned the art of breaking rules from them by staying close With the rising popularity of both short-form video platforms to his heritage. Being born into a family of writers, poets and and mobile, the appetite for mobile-friendly SFC has never been illustrators, Ray got a degree in Economics from Presidency bigger. Let’s see some brands who have truly knocked it out of College before moving to Shantiniketan to study painting at the the park: Kala Bhavana at Visva Bharati University; Ray was indeed lucky to be surrounded with everything that could have made the 1) How SpiceJet leveraged SFC to convey its new offerings: Satyajit out of him.

In his advertising agency, he cracked and designed witty campaigns for biscuits, hair oils and cigarettes, and also designed book covers and jackets. His then-unique style shrugged off the colonial hangover, and Indianized publication design and advertisements in a way Indian audiences had never seen before. In 1950, D.J. Keymer sent Ray to London to work at the agency’s headquarters, an opportunity that introduced him

to world cinema. In just three months, he watched 99 movies and penned the script for Pather Panchali while at sea, on his way back to India. However, his preparation for filmmaking was in the form of his more familiar medium of illustration. “My earliest memories of my father are of him working in his study at home, storyboarding his 2) How Google Photos used SFC to talk about an everyday prob- films. He would always lem to plug itself: sketch every scene by hand to visualize it in his mind first; storyboarding for him was a revered ritual,” says Ray’s son, filmmaker Sandip Ray. “From his very first film, he took charge of the creative direction for the graphic collateral, like posters and flyers. I remember him holed up in his study, illustrating, colouring, and splicing images together until the artworks were ready for printing.” (quoted from an article on Ray where Sandip was interviewed)

If you take a look at the film posters he designed, it carries an essence of his rebellious artistic fervour which challenged the 3) How Nescafe captured the essence of coffee using SFC: existing norms of designing. He introduced photography to graphic art and was a master at mixed media art forms. His deep interest in photojournalism and his extensive study of the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, reflects in all poster designs he created for his films.

A master calligrapher, Ray had a profound love for typography, and two of his typefaces, Ray Roman and Ray Bizarre, won a 1971 international typography competition. His nuanced understanding of expressive typography is reflected in the poster for the cult film in the Kolkata trilogy called “Mahanagar”. Hooked to SFC? Allow me to spill the beans.

Your SFC is going to be a distraction from a much more pleasant piece of content the consumer would rather be watching. A brain needs less than 1/2 second to engage with SFC & trigger a reac- tion, positive or negative. Make your creative in a way that requires minimal effort for comprehension, and entertaining if possible. As marketers, remember these rules before you begin creating and delivering SFC for your brand.

It is true that advertising creatives around the world have always denounced their profession and often lamented being in the trade for long. But it is Ray who learnt every trick of the game from this advertising world. He has never repented a single day spent in the agency.

Successful brands understand that SFC is an elevator pitch to the I had the privilege to work in the same advertising office where consumer and they need to remember it was you. And this is Ray had worked. In my time, it became Clarion. I have often why SFC has heightened the necessity to transform creativity – walked the corridors where Ray had spent his days thinking of to make sure you not only grab attention but to do so in a short an ad campaign. I have sat where he used to sit and think. amount of time. Believe me, it still gives me goosebumps. The 6 golden rules for an effective SFC are: Considering the artistic journey he took, challenging and breaking the norms, reinventing the rules of the game and 1. Capture attention quickly. Being dramatic upfront is critical. walking the path all by himself, dedicating Tagore’s “Jodi tor Your message has to get out as soon as possible, possibly in the daak shune keu na ashe” to this enigmatic journey sounds quite first 5 seconds. apt to me. 2. Think visually. Images are more graphic, compressed and Oh, you still haven’t seen the Peter Fan ad sequence in sticky. Seemabaddha? Videos occupy a crowded space and try to catch attention as soon as possible. ArrRAY!!!! 3. Set context, get branding in early. Story arcs work differently

on mobile. Consumers are 23% more likely to remember if the brand was featured in the first three seconds.

4. Design for sound off, delight with sound on. Play with supers and captioning. Make sure comprehension isn't muted. Your videos should communicate your message even without audio.

5. Frame for Vertical. Use the full real estate of the phone. Either 9:16 vertical videos or 1:1 – a perfect square.

6. Keep the duration to 10 or less. When you write to the medium, you can get your point across both quickly and powerfully. A length of 5-15 seconds is recommended.

In the digital world, the choice rests with the consumer’s thumb – so make sure you use all the tricks in the book and techniques with the CG house to ensure your ad grabs and keeps the view- er’s attention. Remember, you will only emerge victorious if you respect the environment. Be creative - test, learn, adapt and become unforgettable!

Sources:

Brand Equity, “Dynamics of a 'short attention span' world”, Jan 06 2020 Afaqs, “Do's and Don'ts while crafting 'the 10-seconder' for brands...”, 24 May 2019 Microsoft, “Attention Span Consumer Insights”, 14 May 2015

Film 1: Father-Son

Film 2: Saas-Bahu

Film 3: Bro-Sis

11

In the time it took you to read the title of this article, ponder what it might be about and decide that you actually wanted to read the whole thing, a lot of our dear readers would have checked out and gone on to pursue a completely different task. And we understand it’s nothing personal – that’s just how most of us process information nowadays.

But for those of you who have made it this far, we are truly grateful. We are all actively competing for your fabled share of attention. A truly rare commodity, this attention.

It keeps shifting in the blink of an eye, constantly jumping from one information nugget to another. Its volatile nature makes you read less every day and dictates you to forward messages that you never read. All of this while you switch rapidly between the gazillion tabs and apps on your devices.

Are you still listening?

YES, YOU!

As a matter of fact, in the last 20 years, your average attention span has contracted by almost a quarter. You now lag behind the modest goldfish in terms of being able to focus on a task or an object. Yes, a GOLDFISH. Those tiny little creatures that swim in a small glass bowl all day long. Their attention span is now

Let’s start with that iconic Peter Fans advertising ad film screening longer than yours. sequence shown in the feature film Seemabaddha directed by the master. (If you still haven’t watched this film, you should, before you read this any further!)

If you watch the minute detailing prevalent in that scene, you can understand it can only be portrayed with such vivid advertising-world vibes only if the director has experienced or been a part of the trade.

Ray was a very honest Your shortened attention span has also become more discrimi- filmmaker. None of his films nating. were ever made with artificial intelligence. Well, this is not a In today’s generation of endless choices, your cognition is using dig at the generation we are wizardry to defend against information overload. American living in. The digital diaspora Nobel winning economist Herbert Simon took deep interest in was evidently missing then. studying these mind tricks – and coined our attention giving process as ‘satisficing’ - a combination of satisfy and suffice. These were pre-digital times, Satisficing means you give attention to things as you think they so every artwork had to be deserve. You engage significantly longer with content that you done by hand, judged by the actively like, and you ignore or pay less attention to content that eye, and measured to scale. you filter out. “When he would make 30×40-inch posters, he would Satisficing becomes even more important if you are a BRAND. find a board of the exact size You have no other option but to take this challenge in your stride and gum the sides of a sheet of and accept that attention will not be handed to you on a plate – paper so it stuck to the board you must earn it. and remained stable through the sketching process,” says Sandip Ray,—about his perfectionism. “He would then use an amalgamation of photography and sketches, pasting images together and creating collages, while painting the other details.” (quoted from an article on Ray where Sandip was interviewed)

It was April of 1943, when Satyajit Ray joined a British advertising agency called D. J. Keymar as a Junior Visualiser. He spent the next 13 years in this agency until he became a feature filmmaker post the success of his cult classic “Pather Panchali”. When he wanted to make this feature, his agency gave him a full paid leave and expected him to come back. It's probably the

"Prix du document There is some good news though - brands are not just fighting humain" prize at Cannes, this battle but also emerging on top. Just like great tattoo artists that prevented him from who create indelible designs that strike in the first glance, these getting back into brands are building memorable narratives in a really short advertising. window of opportunity.

He was a master hand at Their secret sauce of success? illustrations and executed some brilliant campaigns. Short Form Content (SFC) He became such a stalwart as a revolutionary filmmaker, that his repute shrouded his graphic design and illustration acumen. His oeuvre as a graphic artist is as rich and diverse as his filmography, but.

Ray studied under the tutelage of stalwarts like Nandalal Bose and Benod Behari Mukherjee, whose profound influence would reflect on his body of work throughout his lifetime. He learned the art of breaking rules from them by staying close With the rising popularity of both short-form video platforms to his heritage. Being born into a family of writers, poets and and mobile, the appetite for mobile-friendly SFC has never been illustrators, Ray got a degree in Economics from Presidency bigger. Let’s see some brands who have truly knocked it out of College before moving to Shantiniketan to study painting at the the park: Kala Bhavana at Visva Bharati University; Ray was indeed lucky to be surrounded with everything that could have made the 1) How SpiceJet leveraged SFC to convey its new offerings: Satyajit out of him.

In his advertising agency, he cracked and designed witty campaigns for biscuits, hair oils and cigarettes, and also designed book covers and jackets. His then-unique style shrugged off the colonial hangover, and Indianized publication design and advertisements in a way Indian audiences had never seen before. In 1950, D.J. Keymer sent Ray to London to work at the agency’s headquarters, an opportunity that introduced him

to world cinema. In just three months, he watched 99 movies and penned the script for Pather Panchali while at sea, on his way back to India. However, his preparation for filmmaking was in the form of his more familiar medium of illustration. “My earliest memories of my father are of him working in his study at home, storyboarding his 2) How Google Photos used SFC to talk about an everyday prob- films. He would always lem to plug itself: sketch every scene by hand to visualize it in his mind first; storyboarding for him was a revered ritual,” says Ray’s son, filmmaker Sandip Ray. “From his very first film, he took charge of the creative direction for the graphic collateral, like posters and flyers. I remember him holed up in his study, illustrating, colouring, and splicing images together until the artworks were ready for printing.” (quoted from an article on Ray where Sandip was interviewed)

If you take a look at the film posters he designed, it carries an essence of his rebellious artistic fervour which challenged the 3) How Nescafe captured the essence of coffee using SFC: existing norms of designing. He introduced photography to graphic art and was a master at mixed media art forms. His deep interest in photojournalism and his extensive study of the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, reflects in all poster designs he created for his films.

A master calligrapher, Ray had a profound love for typography, and two of his typefaces, Ray Roman and Ray Bizarre, won a 1971 international typography competition. His nuanced understanding of expressive typography is reflected in the poster for the cult film in the Kolkata trilogy called “Mahanagar”. Hooked to SFC? Allow me to spill the beans.

Your SFC is going to be a distraction from a much more pleasant piece of content the consumer would rather be watching. A brain needs less than 1/2 second to engage with SFC & trigger a reac- tion, positive or negative. Make your creative in a way that requires minimal effort for comprehension, and entertaining if possible. As marketers, remember these rules before you begin creating and delivering SFC for your brand.

It is true that advertising creatives around the world have always denounced their profession and often lamented being in the trade for long. But it is Ray who learnt every trick of the game from this advertising world. He has never repented a single day spent in the agency.

Successful brands understand that SFC is an elevator pitch to the I had the privilege to work in the same advertising office where consumer and they need to remember it was you. And this is Ray had worked. In my time, it became Clarion. I have often why SFC has heightened the necessity to transform creativity – walked the corridors where Ray had spent his days thinking of to make sure you not only grab attention but to do so in a short an ad campaign. I have sat where he used to sit and think. amount of time. Believe me, it still gives me goosebumps. The 6 golden rules for an effective SFC are: Considering the artistic journey he took, challenging and breaking the norms, reinventing the rules of the game and 1. Capture attention quickly. Being dramatic upfront is critical. walking the path all by himself, dedicating Tagore’s “Jodi tor Your message has to get out as soon as possible, possibly in the daak shune keu na ashe” to this enigmatic journey sounds quite first 5 seconds. apt to me. 2. Think visually. Images are more graphic, compressed and Oh, you still haven’t seen the Peter Fan ad sequence in sticky. Seemabaddha? Videos occupy a crowded space and try to catch attention as soon as possible. ArrRAY!!!! 3. Set context, get branding in early. Story arcs work differently

on mobile. Consumers are 23% more likely to remember if the brand was featured in the first three seconds.

4. Design for sound off, delight with sound on. Play with supers and captioning. Make sure comprehension isn't muted. Your videos should communicate your message even without audio.

5. Frame for Vertical. Use the full real estate of the phone. Either 9:16 vertical videos or 1:1 – a perfect square.

6. Keep the duration to 10 or less. When you write to the medium, you can get your point across both quickly and powerfully. A length of 5-15 seconds is recommended.

In the digital world, the choice rests with the consumer’s thumb – so make sure you use all the tricks in the book and techniques with the CG house to ensure your ad grabs and keeps the view- er’s attention. Remember, you will only emerge victorious if you respect the environment. Be creative - test, learn, adapt and become unforgettable!

Sources:

Brand Equity, “Dynamics of a 'short attention span' world”, Jan 06 2020 Afaqs, “Do's and Don'ts while crafting 'the 10-seconder' for brands...”, 24 May 2019 Microsoft, “Attention Span Consumer Insights”, 14 May 2015

Blink, Ink & Memory Ta oos

How brands become unforgettable in the age of shortened attention spans

By Aneek Das Associate - Strategic Planning 13

In the time it took you to read the title of this article, ponder what it might be about and decide that you actually wanted to read the whole thing, a lot of our dear readers would have checked out and gone on to pursue a completely different task. And we understand it’s nothing personal – that’s just how most of us process information nowadays.

But for those of you who have made it this far, we are truly grateful. We are all actively competing for your fabled share of attention. A truly rare commodity, this attention.

It keeps shifting in the blink of an eye, constantly jumping from one information nugget to another. Its volatile nature makes you read less every day and dictates you to forward messages that you never read. All of this while you switch rapidly between the gazillion tabs and apps on your devices.

Are you still listening?

YES, YOU!

As a matter of fact, in the last 20 years, your average attention span has contracted by almost a quarter. You now lag behind the modest goldfish in terms of being able to focus on a task or an object. Yes, a GOLDFISH. Those tiny little creatures that swim in a small glass bowl all day long. Their attention span is now

Let’s start with that iconic Peter Fans advertising ad film screening longer than yours. sequence shown in the feature film Seemabaddha directed by the master. (If you still haven’t watched this film, you should, before you read this any further!)

If you watch the minute detailing prevalent in that scene, you can understand it can only be portrayed with such vivid advertising-world vibes only if the director has experienced or been a part of the trade.

Ray was a very honest Your shortened attention span has also become more discrimi- filmmaker. None of his films nating. were ever made with artificial intelligence. Well, this is not a In today’s generation of endless choices, your cognition is using dig at the generation we are wizardry to defend against information overload. American living in. The digital diaspora Nobel winning economist Herbert Simon took deep interest in was evidently missing then. studying these mind tricks – and coined our attention giving process as ‘satisficing’ - a combination of satisfy and suffice. These were pre-digital times, Satisficing means you give attention to things as you think they so every artwork had to be deserve. You engage significantly longer with content that you done by hand, judged by the actively like, and you ignore or pay less attention to content that eye, and measured to scale. you filter out. “When he would make 30×40-inch posters, he would Satisficing becomes even more important if you are a BRAND. find a board of the exact size You have no other option but to take this challenge in your stride and gum the sides of a sheet of and accept that attention will not be handed to you on a plate – paper so it stuck to the board you must earn it. and remained stable through the sketching process,” says Sandip Ray,—about his perfectionism. “He would then use an amalgamation of photography and sketches, pasting images together and creating collages, while painting the other details.” (quoted from an article on Ray where Sandip was interviewed)

It was April of 1943, when Satyajit Ray joined a British advertising agency called D. J. Keymar as a Junior Visualiser. He spent the next 13 years in this agency until he became a feature filmmaker post the success of his cult classic “Pather Panchali”. When he wanted to make this feature, his agency gave him a full paid leave and expected him to come back. It's probably the

"Prix du document There is some good news though - brands are not just fighting humain" prize at Cannes, this battle but also emerging on top. Just like great tattoo artists that prevented him from who create indelible designs that strike in the first glance, these getting back into brands are building memorable narratives in a really short advertising. window of opportunity.

He was a master hand at Their secret sauce of success? illustrations and executed some brilliant campaigns. Short Form Content (SFC) He became such a stalwart as a revolutionary filmmaker, that his repute shrouded his graphic design and illustration acumen. His oeuvre as a graphic artist is as rich and diverse as his filmography, but.

Ray studied under the tutelage of stalwarts like Nandalal Bose and Benod Behari Mukherjee, whose profound influence would reflect on his body of work throughout his lifetime. He learned the art of breaking rules from them by staying close With the rising popularity of both short-form video platforms to his heritage. Being born into a family of writers, poets and and mobile, the appetite for mobile-friendly SFC has never been illustrators, Ray got a degree in Economics from Presidency bigger. Let’s see some brands who have truly knocked it out of College before moving to Shantiniketan to study painting at the the park: Kala Bhavana at Visva Bharati University; Ray was indeed lucky to be surrounded with everything that could have made the 1) How SpiceJet leveraged SFC to convey its new offerings: Satyajit out of him.

In his advertising agency, he cracked and designed witty campaigns for biscuits, hair oils and cigarettes, and also designed book covers and jackets. His then-unique style shrugged off the colonial hangover, and Indianized publication design and advertisements in a way Indian audiences had never seen before. In 1950, D.J. Keymer sent Ray to London to work at the agency’s headquarters, an opportunity that introduced him

to world cinema. In just three months, he watched 99 movies and penned the script for Pather Panchali while at sea, on his way back to India. However, his preparation for filmmaking was in the form of his more familiar medium of illustration. “My earliest memories of my father are of him working in his study at home, storyboarding his 2) How Google Photos used SFC to talk about an everyday prob- films. He would always lem to plug itself: sketch every scene by hand to visualize it in his mind first; storyboarding for him was a revered ritual,” says Ray’s son, filmmaker Sandip Ray. “From his very first film, he took charge of the creative direction for the graphic collateral, like posters and flyers. I remember him holed up in his study, illustrating, colouring, and splicing images together until the artworks were ready for printing.” (quoted from an article on Ray where Sandip was interviewed)

If you take a look at the film posters he designed, it carries an essence of his rebellious artistic fervour which challenged the 3) How Nescafe captured the essence of coffee using SFC: existing norms of designing. He introduced photography to graphic art and was a master at mixed media art forms. His deep interest in photojournalism and his extensive study of the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, reflects in all poster designs he created for his films.

A master calligrapher, Ray had a profound love for typography, and two of his typefaces, Ray Roman and Ray Bizarre, won a 1971 international typography competition. His nuanced understanding of expressive typography is reflected in the poster for the cult film in the Kolkata trilogy called “Mahanagar”. Hooked to SFC? Allow me to spill the beans.

Your SFC is going to be a distraction from a much more pleasant piece of content the consumer would rather be watching. A brain needs less than 1/2 second to engage with SFC & trigger a reac- tion, positive or negative. Make your creative in a way that requires minimal effort for comprehension, and entertaining if possible. As marketers, remember these rules before you begin creating and delivering SFC for your brand.

It is true that advertising creatives around the world have always denounced their profession and often lamented being in the trade for long. But it is Ray who learnt every trick of the game from this advertising world. He has never repented a single day spent in the agency.

Successful brands understand that SFC is an elevator pitch to the I had the privilege to work in the same advertising office where consumer and they need to remember it was you. And this is Ray had worked. In my time, it became Clarion. I have often why SFC has heightened the necessity to transform creativity – walked the corridors where Ray had spent his days thinking of to make sure you not only grab attention but to do so in a short an ad campaign. I have sat where he used to sit and think. amount of time. Believe me, it still gives me goosebumps. The 6 golden rules for an effective SFC are: Considering the artistic journey he took, challenging and breaking the norms, reinventing the rules of the game and 1. Capture attention quickly. Being dramatic upfront is critical. walking the path all by himself, dedicating Tagore’s “Jodi tor Your message has to get out as soon as possible, possibly in the daak shune keu na ashe” to this enigmatic journey sounds quite first 5 seconds. apt to me. 2. Think visually. Images are more graphic, compressed and Oh, you still haven’t seen the Peter Fan ad sequence in sticky. Seemabaddha? Videos occupy a crowded space and try to catch attention as soon as possible. ArrRAY!!!! 3. Set context, get branding in early. Story arcs work differently

on mobile. Consumers are 23% more likely to remember if the brand was featured in the first three seconds.

4. Design for sound off, delight with sound on. Play with supers and captioning. Make sure comprehension isn't muted. Your videos should communicate your message even without audio.

5. Frame for Vertical. Use the full real estate of the phone. Either 9:16 vertical videos or 1:1 – a perfect square.

6. Keep the duration to 10 or less. When you write to the medium, you can get your point across both quickly and powerfully. A length of 5-15 seconds is recommended.

In the digital world, the choice rests with the consumer’s thumb – so make sure you use all the tricks in the book and techniques with the CG house to ensure your ad grabs and keeps the view- er’s attention. Remember, you will only emerge victorious if you respect the environment. Be creative - test, learn, adapt and become unforgettable!

Sources:

Brand Equity, “Dynamics of a 'short attention span' world”, Jan 06 2020 Afaqs, “Do's and Don'ts while crafting 'the 10-seconder' for brands...”, 24 May 2019 Microsoft, “Attention Span Consumer Insights”, 14 May 2015

In the time it took you to read the title of this article, ponder what it might be about and decide that you actually wanted to read the whole thing, a lot of our dear readers would have checked out and gone on to pursue a completely different task. And we understand it’s nothing personal – that’s just how most of us process information nowadays.

But for those of you who have made it this far, we are truly grateful. We are all actively competing for your fabled share of attention. A truly rare commodity, this attention.

It keeps shifting in the blink of an eye, constantly jumping from one information nugget to another. Its volatile nature makes you read less every day and dictates you to forward messages that you never read. All of this while you switch rapidly between the gazillion tabs and apps on your devices.

Are you still listening?

YES, YOU!

As a matter of fact, in the last 20 years, your average attention span has contracted by almost a quarter. You now lag behind the modest goldfish in terms of being able to focus on a task or an object. Yes, a GOLDFISH. Those tiny little creatures that swim in a small glass bowl all day long. Their attention span is now

13

Let’s start with that iconic Peter Fans advertising ad film screening longer than yours. sequence shown in the feature film Seemabaddha directed by the master. (If you still haven’t watched this film, you should, before you read this any further!)

If you watch the minute detailing prevalent in that scene, you can understand it can only be portrayed with such vivid advertising-world vibes only if the director has experienced or been a part of the trade.

Ray was a very honest Your shortened attention span has also become more discrimi- filmmaker. None of his films nating. were ever made with artificial intelligence. Well, this is not a In today’s generation of endless choices, your cognition is using dig at the generation we are wizardry to defend against information overload. American living in. The digital diaspora Nobel winning economist Herbert Simon took deep interest in was evidently missing then. studying these mind tricks – and coined our attention giving process as ‘satisficing’ - a combination of satisfy and suffice. These were pre-digital times, Satisficing means you give attention to things as you think they so every artwork had to be deserve. You engage significantly longer with content that you done by hand, judged by the actively like, and you ignore or pay less attention to content that eye, and measured to scale. you filter out. “When he would make 30×40-inch posters, he would Satisficing becomes even more important if you are a BRAND. find a board of the exact size You have no other option but to take this challenge in your stride and gum the sides of a sheet of and accept that attention will not be handed to you on a plate – paper so it stuck to the board you must earn it. and remained stable through the sketching process,” says Sandip Ray,—about his perfectionism. “He would then use an amalgamation of photography and sketches, pasting images together and creating collages, while painting the other details.” (quoted from an article on Ray where Sandip was interviewed)

It was April of 1943, when Satyajit Ray joined a British advertising agency called D. J. Keymar as a Junior Visualiser. He spent the next 13 years in this agency until he became a feature filmmaker post the success of his cult classic “Pather Panchali”. When he wanted to make this feature, his agency gave him a full paid leave and expected him to come back. It's probably the

"Prix du document There is some good news though - brands are not just fighting humain" prize at Cannes, this battle but also emerging on top. Just like great tattoo artists that prevented him from who create indelible designs that strike in the first glance, these getting back into brands are building memorable narratives in a really short advertising. window of opportunity.

He was a master hand at Their secret sauce of success? illustrations and executed some brilliant campaigns. Short Form Content (SFC) He became such a stalwart as a revolutionary filmmaker, that his repute shrouded his graphic design and illustration acumen. His oeuvre as a graphic artist is as rich and diverse as his filmography, but.

Ray studied under the tutelage of stalwarts like Nandalal Bose and Benod Behari Mukherjee, whose profound influence would reflect on his body of work throughout his lifetime. He learned the art of breaking rules from them by staying close With the rising popularity of both short-form video platforms to his heritage. Being born into a family of writers, poets and and mobile, the appetite for mobile-friendly SFC has never been illustrators, Ray got a degree in Economics from Presidency bigger. Let’s see some brands who have truly knocked it out of College before moving to Shantiniketan to study painting at the the park: Kala Bhavana at Visva Bharati University; Ray was indeed lucky to be surrounded with everything that could have made the 1) How SpiceJet leveraged SFC to convey its new offerings: Satyajit out of him.

In his advertising agency, he cracked and designed witty campaigns for biscuits, hair oils and cigarettes, and also designed book covers and jackets. His then-unique style shrugged off the colonial hangover, and Indianized publication design and advertisements in a way Indian audiences had never seen before. In 1950, D.J. Keymer sent Ray to London to work at the agency’s headquarters, an opportunity that introduced him

to world cinema. In just three months, he watched 99 movies and penned the script for Pather Panchali while at sea, on his way back to India. However, his preparation for filmmaking was in the form of his more familiar medium of illustration. “My earliest memories of my father are of him working in his study at home, storyboarding his 2) How Google Photos used SFC to talk about an everyday prob- films. He would always lem to plug itself: sketch every scene by hand to visualize it in his mind first; storyboarding for him was a revered ritual,” says Ray’s son, filmmaker Sandip Ray. “From his very first film, he took charge of the creative direction for the graphic collateral, like posters and flyers. I remember him holed up in his study, illustrating, colouring, and splicing images together until the artworks were ready for printing.” (quoted from an article on Ray where Sandip was interviewed)

If you take a look at the film posters he designed, it carries an essence of his rebellious artistic fervour which challenged the 3) How Nescafe captured the essence of coffee using SFC: existing norms of designing. He introduced photography to graphic art and was a master at mixed media art forms. His deep interest in photojournalism and his extensive study of the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, reflects in all poster designs he created for his films.

A master calligrapher, Ray had a profound love for typography, and two of his typefaces, Ray Roman and Ray Bizarre, won a 1971 international typography competition. His nuanced understanding of expressive typography is reflected in the poster for the cult film in the Kolkata trilogy called “Mahanagar”. Hooked to SFC? Allow me to spill the beans.

Your SFC is going to be a distraction from a much more pleasant piece of content the consumer would rather be watching. A brain needs less than 1/2 second to engage with SFC & trigger a reac- tion, positive or negative. Make your creative in a way that requires minimal effort for comprehension, and entertaining if possible. As marketers, remember these rules before you begin creating and delivering SFC for your brand.

It is true that advertising creatives around the world have always denounced their profession and often lamented being in the trade for long. But it is Ray who learnt every trick of the game from this advertising world. He has never repented a single day spent in the agency.

Successful brands understand that SFC is an elevator pitch to the I had the privilege to work in the same advertising office where consumer and they need to remember it was you. And this is Ray had worked. In my time, it became Clarion. I have often why SFC has heightened the necessity to transform creativity – walked the corridors where Ray had spent his days thinking of to make sure you not only grab attention but to do so in a short an ad campaign. I have sat where he used to sit and think. amount of time. Believe me, it still gives me goosebumps. The 6 golden rules for an effective SFC are: Considering the artistic journey he took, challenging and breaking the norms, reinventing the rules of the game and 1. Capture attention quickly. Being dramatic upfront is critical. walking the path all by himself, dedicating Tagore’s “Jodi tor Your message has to get out as soon as possible, possibly in the daak shune keu na ashe” to this enigmatic journey sounds quite first 5 seconds. apt to me. 2. Think visually. Images are more graphic, compressed and Oh, you still haven’t seen the Peter Fan ad sequence in sticky. Seemabaddha? Videos occupy a crowded space and try to catch attention as soon as possible. ArrRAY!!!! 3. Set context, get branding in early. Story arcs work differently

on mobile. Consumers are 23% more likely to remember if the brand was featured in the first three seconds.

4. Design for sound off, delight with sound on. Play with supers and captioning. Make sure comprehension isn't muted. Your videos should communicate your message even without audio.

5. Frame for Vertical. Use the full real estate of the phone. Either 9:16 vertical videos or 1:1 – a perfect square.

6. Keep the duration to 10 or less. When you write to the medium, you can get your point across both quickly and powerfully. A length of 5-15 seconds is recommended.

In the digital world, the choice rests with the consumer’s thumb – so make sure you use all the tricks in the book and techniques with the CG house to ensure your ad grabs and keeps the view- er’s attention. Remember, you will only emerge victorious if you respect the environment. Be creative - test, learn, adapt and become unforgettable!

Sources:

Brand Equity, “Dynamics of a 'short attention span' world”, Jan 06 2020 Afaqs, “Do's and Don'ts while crafting 'the 10-seconder' for brands...”, 24 May 2019 Microsoft, “Attention Span Consumer Insights”, 14 May 2015

In the time it took you to read the title of this article, ponder what it might be about and decide that you actually wanted to read the whole thing, a lot of our dear readers would have checked out and gone on to pursue a completely different task. And we understand it’s nothing personal – that’s just how most of us process information nowadays.

But for those of you who have made it this far, we are truly grateful. We are all actively competing for your fabled share of attention. A truly rare commodity, this attention.

It keeps shifting in the blink of an eye, constantly jumping from one information nugget to another. Its volatile nature makes you read less every day and dictates you to forward messages that you never read. All of this while you switch rapidly between the gazillion tabs and apps on your devices.

Are you still listening?

YES, YOU!

As a matter of fact, in the last 20 years, your average attention span has contracted by almost a quarter. You now lag behind the modest goldfish in terms of being able to focus on a task or an object. Yes, a GOLDFISH. Those tiny little creatures that swim in a small glass bowl all day long. Their attention span is now

Let’s start with that iconic Peter Fans advertising ad film screening longer than yours. sequence shown in the feature film Seemabaddha directed by the master. (If you still haven’t watched this film, you should, before you read this any further!)

If you watch the minute detailing prevalent in that scene, you can understand it can only be portrayed with such vivid advertising-world vibes only if the director has experienced or been a part of the trade.

Ray was a very honest Your shortened attention span has also become more discrimi- filmmaker. None of his films nating. were ever made with artificial intelligence. Well, this is not a In today’s generation of endless choices, your cognition is using dig at the generation we are wizardry to defend against information overload. American living in. The digital diaspora Nobel winning economist Herbert Simon took deep interest in was evidently missing then. studying these mind tricks – and coined our attention giving process as ‘satisficing’ - a combination of satisfy and suffice. These were pre-digital times, Satisficing means you give attention to things as you think they so every artwork had to be deserve. You engage significantly longer with content that you done by hand, judged by the actively like, and you ignore or pay less attention to content that eye, and measured to scale. you filter out. “When he would make 30×40-inch posters, he would Satisficing becomes even more important if you are a BRAND. find a board of the exact size You have no other option but to take this challenge in your stride and gum the sides of a sheet of and accept that attention will not be handed to you on a plate – paper so it stuck to the board you must earn it. and remained stable through the sketching process,” says Sandip Ray,—about his perfectionism. “He would then use an amalgamation of photography and sketches, pasting images together and creating collages, while painting the other details.” (quoted from an article on Ray where Sandip was interviewed)

It was April of 1943, when Satyajit Ray joined a British advertising agency called D. J. Keymar as a Junior Visualiser. He spent the next 13 years in this agency until he became a feature filmmaker post the success of his cult classic “Pather Panchali”. When he wanted to make this feature, his agency gave him a full paid leave and expected him to come back. It's probably the

14

"Prix du document There is some good news though - brands are not just fighting humain" prize at Cannes, this battle but also emerging on top. Just like great tattoo artists that prevented him from who create indelible designs that strike in the first glance, these getting back into brands are building memorable narratives in a really short advertising. window of opportunity.

He was a master hand at Their secret sauce of success? illustrations and executed some brilliant campaigns. Short Form Content (SFC) He became such a stalwart as a revolutionary filmmaker, that his repute shrouded his graphic design and illustration acumen. His oeuvre as a graphic artist is as rich and diverse as his filmography, but.

Ray studied under the tutelage of stalwarts like Nandalal Bose and Benod Behari Mukherjee, whose profound influence would reflect on his body of work throughout his lifetime. He learned the art of breaking rules from them by staying close With the rising popularity of both short-form video platforms to his heritage. Being born into a family of writers, poets and and mobile, the appetite for mobile-friendly SFC has never been illustrators, Ray got a degree in Economics from Presidency bigger. Let’s see some brands who have truly knocked it out of College before moving to Shantiniketan to study painting at the the park: Kala Bhavana at Visva Bharati University; Ray was indeed lucky to be surrounded with everything that could have made the 1) How SpiceJet leveraged SFC to convey its new offerings: Satyajit out of him.

In his advertising agency, he cracked and designed witty campaigns for biscuits, hair oils and cigarettes, and also designed book covers and jackets. His then-unique style shrugged off the colonial hangover, and Indianized publication design and advertisements in a way Indian audiences had never seen before. In 1950, D.J. Keymer sent Ray to London to work at the agency’s headquarters, an opportunity that introduced him

to world cinema. In just three months, he watched 99 movies and penned the script for Pather Panchali while at sea, on his way back to India. However, his preparation for filmmaking was in the form of his more familiar medium of illustration. “My earliest memories of my father are of him working in his study at home, storyboarding his 2) How Google Photos used SFC to talk about an everyday prob- films. He would always lem to plug itself: sketch every scene by hand to visualize it in his mind first; storyboarding for him was a revered ritual,” says Ray’s son, filmmaker Sandip Ray. “From his very first film, he took charge of the creative direction for the graphic collateral, like posters and flyers. I remember him holed up in his study, illustrating, colouring, and splicing images together until the artworks were ready for printing.” (quoted from an article on Ray where Sandip was interviewed)

If you take a look at the film posters he designed, it carries an essence of his rebellious artistic fervour which challenged the 3) How Nescafe captured the essence of coffee using SFC: existing norms of designing. He introduced photography to graphic art and was a master at mixed media art forms. His deep interest in photojournalism and his extensive study of the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, reflects in all poster designs he created for his films.

A master calligrapher, Ray had a profound love for typography, and two of his typefaces, Ray Roman and Ray Bizarre, won a 1971 international typography competition. His nuanced understanding of expressive typography is reflected in the poster for the cult film in the Kolkata trilogy called “Mahanagar”. Hooked to SFC? Allow me to spill the beans.

Your SFC is going to be a distraction from a much more pleasant piece of content the consumer would rather be watching. A brain needs less than 1/2 second to engage with SFC & trigger a reac- tion, positive or negative. Make your creative in a way that requires minimal effort for comprehension, and entertaining if possible. As marketers, remember these rules before you begin creating and delivering SFC for your brand.

It is true that advertising creatives around the world have always denounced their profession and often lamented being in the trade for long. But it is Ray who learnt every trick of the game from this advertising world. He has never repented a single day spent in the agency.

Successful brands understand that SFC is an elevator pitch to the I had the privilege to work in the same advertising office where consumer and they need to remember it was you. And this is Ray had worked. In my time, it became Clarion. I have often why SFC has heightened the necessity to transform creativity – walked the corridors where Ray had spent his days thinking of to make sure you not only grab attention but to do so in a short an ad campaign. I have sat where he used to sit and think. amount of time. Believe me, it still gives me goosebumps. The 6 golden rules for an effective SFC are: Considering the artistic journey he took, challenging and breaking the norms, reinventing the rules of the game and 1. Capture attention quickly. Being dramatic upfront is critical. walking the path all by himself, dedicating Tagore’s “Jodi tor Your message has to get out as soon as possible, possibly in the daak shune keu na ashe” to this enigmatic journey sounds quite first 5 seconds. apt to me. 2. Think visually. Images are more graphic, compressed and Oh, you still haven’t seen the Peter Fan ad sequence in sticky. Seemabaddha? Videos occupy a crowded space and try to catch attention as soon as possible. ArrRAY!!!! 3. Set context, get branding in early. Story arcs work differently

on mobile. Consumers are 23% more likely to remember if the brand was featured in the first three seconds.

4. Design for sound off, delight with sound on. Play with supers and captioning. Make sure comprehension isn't muted. Your videos should communicate your message even without audio.

5. Frame for Vertical. Use the full real estate of the phone. Either 9:16 vertical videos or 1:1 – a perfect square.

6. Keep the duration to 10 or less. When you write to the medium, you can get your point across both quickly and powerfully. A length of 5-15 seconds is recommended.

In the digital world, the choice rests with the consumer’s thumb – so make sure you use all the tricks in the book and techniques with the CG house to ensure your ad grabs and keeps the view- er’s attention. Remember, you will only emerge victorious if you respect the environment. Be creative - test, learn, adapt and become unforgettable!

Sources:

Brand Equity, “Dynamics of a 'short attention span' world”, Jan 06 2020 Afaqs, “Do's and Don'ts while crafting 'the 10-seconder' for brands...”, 24 May 2019 Microsoft, “Attention Span Consumer Insights”, 14 May 2015

In the time it took you to read the title of this article, ponder what it might be about and decide that you actually wanted to read the whole thing, a lot of our dear readers would have checked out and gone on to pursue a completely different task. And we understand it’s nothing personal – that’s just how most of us process information nowadays.

But for those of you who have made it this far, we are truly grateful. We are all actively competing for your fabled share of attention. A truly rare commodity, this attention.

It keeps shifting in the blink of an eye, constantly jumping from one information nugget to another. Its volatile nature makes you read less every day and dictates you to forward messages that you never read. All of this while you switch rapidly between the gazillion tabs and apps on your devices.

Are you still listening?

YES, YOU!

As a matter of fact, in the last 20 years, your average attention span has contracted by almost a quarter. You now lag behind the modest goldfish in terms of being able to focus on a task or an object. Yes, a GOLDFISH. Those tiny little creatures that swim in a small glass bowl all day long. Their attention span is now

Let’s start with that iconic Peter Fans advertising ad film screening longer than yours. sequence shown in the feature film Seemabaddha directed by the master. (If you still haven’t watched this film, you should, before you read this any further!)

If you watch the minute detailing prevalent in that scene, you can understand it can only be portrayed with such vivid advertising-world vibes only if the director has experienced or been a part of the trade.

Ray was a very honest Your shortened attention span has also become more discrimi- filmmaker. None of his films nating. were ever made with artificial intelligence. Well, this is not a In today’s generation of endless choices, your cognition is using dig at the generation we are wizardry to defend against information overload. American living in. The digital diaspora Nobel winning economist Herbert Simon took deep interest in was evidently missing then. studying these mind tricks – and coined our attention giving process as ‘satisficing’ - a combination of satisfy and suffice. These were pre-digital times, Satisficing means you give attention to things as you think they so every artwork had to be deserve. You engage significantly longer with content that you done by hand, judged by the actively like, and you ignore or pay less attention to content that eye, and measured to scale. you filter out. “When he would make 30×40-inch posters, he would Satisficing becomes even more important if you are a BRAND. find a board of the exact size You have no other option but to take this challenge in your stride and gum the sides of a sheet of and accept that attention will not be handed to you on a plate – paper so it stuck to the board you must earn it. and remained stable through the sketching process,” says Sandip Ray,—about his perfectionism. “He would then use an amalgamation of photography and sketches, pasting images together and creating collages, while painting the other details.” (quoted from an article on Ray where Sandip was interviewed)

It was April of 1943, when Satyajit Ray joined a British advertising agency called D. J. Keymar as a Junior Visualiser. He spent the next 13 years in this agency until he became a feature filmmaker post the success of his cult classic “Pather Panchali”. When he wanted to make this feature, his agency gave him a full paid leave and expected him to come back. It's probably the

"Prix du document There is some good news though - brands are not just fighting humain" prize at Cannes, this battle but also emerging on top. Just like great tattoo artists that prevented him from who create indelible designs that strike in the first glance, these getting back into brands are building memorable narratives in a really short advertising. window of opportunity.

He was a master hand at Their secret sauce of success? illustrations and executed some brilliant campaigns. Short Form Content (SFC) He became such a stalwart as a revolutionary filmmaker, that his repute shrouded his graphic design and illustration acumen. His oeuvre as a graphic artist is as rich and diverse as his filmography, but.

Ray studied under the tutelage of stalwarts like Nandalal Bose and Benod Behari Mukherjee, whose profound influence would reflect on his body of work throughout his lifetime. He learned the art of breaking rules from them by staying close With the rising popularity of both short-form video platforms to his heritage. Being born into a family of writers, poets and and mobile, the appetite for mobile-friendly SFC has never been illustrators, Ray got a degree in Economics from Presidency bigger. Let’s see some brands who have truly knocked it out of College before moving to Shantiniketan to study painting at the the park: Kala Bhavana at Visva Bharati University; Ray was indeed lucky to be surrounded with everything that could have made the 1) How SpiceJet leveraged SFC to convey its new offerings: Satyajit out of him. a)

In his advertising agency, he cracked and designed witty campaigns for biscuits, hair oils and cigarettes, and also designed book covers and jackets. His then-unique style shrugged off the colonial hangover, and Indianized publication design and advertisements in a way Indian audiences had never seen before. In 1950, D.J. Keymer sent Ray to London to work at the agency’s headquarters, an opportunity that introduced him

15

to world cinema. In just three months, he watched 99 movies and penned the script for Pather Panchali while at sea, on his way back to India. However, his preparation for filmmaking was in the form of his more familiar medium of illustration. “My earliest memories of my father are of him working in his study at home, storyboarding his 2) How Google Photos used SFC to talk about an everyday prob- films. He would always lem to plug itself: sketch every scene by hand to visualize it in his mind first; storyboarding for him was a revered ritual,” says Ray’s son, filmmaker Sandip Ray. “From his very first film, he took charge of the creative direction for the graphic collateral, like posters and flyers. I remember him holed up in his study, illustrating, colouring, and splicing images together until the artworks were ready for printing.” (quoted from an article on Ray where Sandip was interviewed)

If you take a look at the film posters he designed, it carries an essence of his rebellious artistic fervour which challenged the 3) How Nescafe captured the essence of coffee using SFC: existing norms of designing. He introduced photography to graphic art and was a master at mixed media art forms. His deep interest in photojournalism and his extensive study of the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, reflects in all poster designs he created for his films.

A master calligrapher, Ray had a profound love for typography, and two of his typefaces, Ray Roman and Ray Bizarre, won a 1971 international typography competition. His nuanced understanding of expressive typography is reflected in the poster for the cult film in the Kolkata trilogy called “Mahanagar”. Hooked to SFC? Allow me to spill the beans.

Your SFC is going to be a distraction from a much more pleasant piece of content the consumer would rather be watching. A brain needs less than 1/2 second to engage with SFC & trigger a reac- tion, positive or negative. Make your creative in a way that requires minimal effort for comprehension, and entertaining if possible. As marketers, remember these rules before you begin creating and delivering SFC for your brand.

It is true that advertising creatives around the world have always denounced their profession and often lamented being in the trade for long. But it is Ray who learnt every trick of the game from this advertising world. He has never repented a single day spent in the agency.

Successful brands understand that SFC is an elevator pitch to the I had the privilege to work in the same advertising office where consumer and they need to remember it was you. And this is Ray had worked. In my time, it became Clarion. I have often why SFC has heightened the necessity to transform creativity – walked the corridors where Ray had spent his days thinking of to make sure you not only grab attention but to do so in a short an ad campaign. I have sat where he used to sit and think. amount of time. Believe me, it still gives me goosebumps. The 6 golden rules for an effective SFC are: Considering the artistic journey he took, challenging and breaking the norms, reinventing the rules of the game and 1. Capture attention quickly. Being dramatic upfront is critical. walking the path all by himself, dedicating Tagore’s “Jodi tor Your message has to get out as soon as possible, possibly in the daak shune keu na ashe” to this enigmatic journey sounds quite first 5 seconds. apt to me. 2. Think visually. Images are more graphic, compressed and Oh, you still haven’t seen the Peter Fan ad sequence in sticky. Seemabaddha? Videos occupy a crowded space and try to catch attention as soon as possible. ArrRAY!!!! 3. Set context, get branding in early. Story arcs work differently

on mobile. Consumers are 23% more likely to remember if the brand was featured in the first three seconds.

4. Design for sound off, delight with sound on. Play with supers and captioning. Make sure comprehension isn't muted. Your videos should communicate your message even without audio.

5. Frame for Vertical. Use the full real estate of the phone. Either 9:16 vertical videos or 1:1 – a perfect square.

6. Keep the duration to 10 or less. When you write to the medium, you can get your point across both quickly and powerfully. A length of 5-15 seconds is recommended.

In the digital world, the choice rests with the consumer’s thumb – so make sure you use all the tricks in the book and techniques with the CG house to ensure your ad grabs and keeps the view- er’s attention. Remember, you will only emerge victorious if you respect the environment. Be creative - test, learn, adapt and become unforgettable!

Sources:

Brand Equity, “Dynamics of a 'short attention span' world”, Jan 06 2020 Afaqs, “Do's and Don'ts while crafting 'the 10-seconder' for brands...”, 24 May 2019 Microsoft, “Attention Span Consumer Insights”, 14 May 2015

In the time it took you to read the title of this article, ponder what it might be about and decide that you actually wanted to read the whole thing, a lot of our dear readers would have checked out and gone on to pursue a completely different task. And we understand it’s nothing personal – that’s just how most of us process information nowadays.

But for those of you who have made it this far, we are truly grateful. We are all actively competing for your fabled share of attention. A truly rare commodity, this attention.

It keeps shifting in the blink of an eye, constantly jumping from one information nugget to another. Its volatile nature makes you read less every day and dictates you to forward messages that you never read. All of this while you switch rapidly between the gazillion tabs and apps on your devices.

Are you still listening?

YES, YOU!

As a matter of fact, in the last 20 years, your average attention span has contracted by almost a quarter. You now lag behind the modest goldfish in terms of being able to focus on a task or an object. Yes, a GOLDFISH. Those tiny little creatures that swim in a small glass bowl all day long. Their attention span is now

Let’s start with that iconic Peter Fans advertising ad film screening longer than yours. sequence shown in the feature film Seemabaddha directed by the master. (If you still haven’t watched this film, you should, before you read this any further!)

If you watch the minute detailing prevalent in that scene, you can understand it can only be portrayed with such vivid advertising-world vibes only if the director has experienced or been a part of the trade.

Ray was a very honest Your shortened attention span has also become more discrimi- filmmaker. None of his films nating. were ever made with artificial intelligence. Well, this is not a In today’s generation of endless choices, your cognition is using dig at the generation we are wizardry to defend against information overload. American living in. The digital diaspora Nobel winning economist Herbert Simon took deep interest in was evidently missing then. studying these mind tricks – and coined our attention giving process as ‘satisficing’ - a combination of satisfy and suffice. These were pre-digital times, Satisficing means you give attention to things as you think they so every artwork had to be deserve. You engage significantly longer with content that you done by hand, judged by the actively like, and you ignore or pay less attention to content that eye, and measured to scale. you filter out. “When he would make 30×40-inch posters, he would Satisficing becomes even more important if you are a BRAND. find a board of the exact size You have no other option but to take this challenge in your stride and gum the sides of a sheet of and accept that attention will not be handed to you on a plate – paper so it stuck to the board you must earn it. and remained stable through the sketching process,” says Sandip Ray,—about his perfectionism. “He would then use an amalgamation of photography and sketches, pasting images together and creating collages, while painting the other details.” (quoted from an article on Ray where Sandip was interviewed)

It was April of 1943, when Satyajit Ray joined a British advertising agency called D. J. Keymar as a Junior Visualiser. He spent the next 13 years in this agency until he became a feature filmmaker post the success of his cult classic “Pather Panchali”. When he wanted to make this feature, his agency gave him a full paid leave and expected him to come back. It's probably the

"Prix du document There is some good news though - brands are not just fighting humain" prize at Cannes, this battle but also emerging on top. Just like great tattoo artists that prevented him from who create indelible designs that strike in the first glance, these getting back into brands are building memorable narratives in a really short advertising. window of opportunity.

He was a master hand at Their secret sauce of success? illustrations and executed some brilliant campaigns. Short Form Content (SFC) He became such a stalwart as a revolutionary filmmaker, that his repute shrouded his graphic design and illustration acumen. His oeuvre as a graphic artist is as rich and diverse as his filmography, but.

Ray studied under the tutelage of stalwarts like Nandalal Bose and Benod Behari Mukherjee, whose profound influence would reflect on his body of work throughout his lifetime. He learned the art of breaking rules from them by staying close With the rising popularity of both short-form video platforms to his heritage. Being born into a family of writers, poets and and mobile, the appetite for mobile-friendly SFC has never been illustrators, Ray got a degree in Economics from Presidency bigger. Let’s see some brands who have truly knocked it out of College before moving to Shantiniketan to study painting at the the park: Kala Bhavana at Visva Bharati University; Ray was indeed lucky to be surrounded with everything that could have made the 1) How SpiceJet leveraged SFC to convey its new offerings: Satyajit out of him.

In his advertising agency, he cracked and designed witty campaigns for biscuits, hair oils and cigarettes, and also designed book covers and jackets. His then-unique style shrugged off the colonial hangover, and Indianized publication design and advertisements in a way Indian audiences had never seen before. In 1950, D.J. Keymer sent Ray to London to work at the agency’s headquarters, an opportunity that introduced him

to world cinema. In just three b) months, he watched 99 movies and penned the script for Pather Panchali while at sea, on his way back to India. However, his preparation for filmmaking was in the form of his more familiar medium of illustration. “My earliest memories of my father are of him working in his study at home, storyboarding his 2) How Google Photos used SFC to talk about an everyday prob- films. He would always lem to plug itself: sketch every scene by hand to visualize it in his mind first; storyboarding for him was a revered ritual,” says Ray’s son, filmmaker Sandip Ray. “From his very first film, he took charge of the creative direction for the graphic collateral, like posters and flyers. I remember him holed up in his study, illustrating, colouring, and splicing images together until the artworks were ready for printing.” (quoted from an article on Ray where Sandip was interviewed)

If you take a look at the film posters he designed, it carries an essence of his rebellious artistic fervour which challenged the 3) How Nescafe captured the essence of coffee using SFC: existing norms of designing. He introduced photography to graphic art and was a master at mixed media art forms. His deep interest in photojournalism and his extensive study of the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, reflects in all poster designs he created for his films.

A master calligrapher, Ray had a profound love for typography, and two of his typefaces, Ray Roman and Ray Bizarre, won a 1971 international typography competition. His nuanced understanding of expressive typography is reflected in the poster for the cult film in the Kolkata trilogy called “Mahanagar”.

16 Hooked to SFC? Allow me to spill the beans.

Your SFC is going to be a distraction from a much more pleasant piece of content the consumer would rather be watching. A brain needs less than 1/2 second to engage with SFC & trigger a reac- tion, positive or negative. Make your creative in a way that requires minimal effort for comprehension, and entertaining if possible. As marketers, remember these rules before you begin creating and delivering SFC for your brand.

Successful brands understand that SFC is an elevator pitch to the consumer and they need to remember it was you. And this is why SFC has heightened the necessity to transform creativity – to make sure you not only grab attention but to do so in a short amount of time.

The 6 golden rules for an effective SFC are:

1. Capture attention quickly. Being dramatic upfront is critical. Your message has to get out as soon as possible, possibly in the first 5 seconds.

2. Think visually. Images are more graphic, compressed and sticky. Videos occupy a crowded space and try to catch attention as soon as possible.

3. Set context, get branding in early. Story arcs work differently

17

on mobile. Consumers are 23% more likely to remember if the brand was featured in the first three seconds.

4. Design for sound off, delight with sound on. Play with supers and captioning. Make sure comprehension isn't muted. Your videos should communicate your message even without audio.

5. Frame for Vertical. Use the full real estate of the phone. Either 9:16 vertical videos or 1:1 – a perfect square.

6. Keep the duration to 10 or less. When you write to the medium, you can get your point across both quickly and powerfully. A length of 5-15 seconds is recommended.

In the digital world, the choice rests with the consumer’s thumb – so make sure you use all the tricks in the book and techniques with the CG house to ensure your ad grabs and keeps the view- er’s attention. Remember, you will only emerge victorious if you respect the environment. Be creative - test, learn, adapt and become unforgettable!

Sources:

Brand Equity, “Dynamics of a 'short attention span' world”, Jan 06 2020 Afaqs, “Do's and Don'ts while crafting 'the 10-seconder' for brands...”, 24 May 2019 Microsoft, “Attention Span Consumer Insights”, 14 May 2015

In the time it took you to read the title of this article, ponder what it might be about and decide that you actually wanted to read the whole thing, a lot of our dear readers would have checked out and gone on to pursue a completely different task. And we understand it’s nothing personal – that’s just how most of us process information nowadays.

But for those of you who have made it this far, we are truly grateful. We are all actively competing for your fabled share of attention. A truly rare commodity, this attention.

It keeps shifting in the blink of an eye, constantly jumping from one information nugget to another. Its volatile nature makes you read less every day and dictates you to forward messages that you never read. All of this while you switch rapidly between the gazillion tabs and apps on your devices.

Are you still listening?

YES, YOU!

As a matter of fact, in the last 20 years, your average attention span has contracted by almost a quarter. You now lag behind the modest goldfish in terms of being able to focus on a task or an object. Yes, a GOLDFISH. Those tiny little creatures that swim in a small glass bowl all day long. Their attention span is now

longer than yours.

Your shortened attention span has also become more discrimi- nating.

In today’s generation of endless choices, your cognition is using wizardry to defend against information overload. American Nobel winning economist Herbert Simon took deep interest in studying these mind tricks – and coined our attention giving process as ‘satisficing’ - a combination of satisfy and suffice. Satisficing means you give attention to things as you think they deserve. You engage significantly longer with content that you actively like, and you ignore or pay less attention to content that you filter out.

Satisficing becomes even more important if you are a BRAND. You have no other option but to take this challenge in your stride and accept that attention will not be handed to you on a plate – you must earn it.

There is some good news though - brands are not just fighting this battle but also emerging on top. Just like great tattoo artists who create indelible designs that strike in the first glance, these brands are building memorable narratives in a really short window of opportunity.

Their secret sauce of success?

Short Form Content (SFC)

With the rising popularity of both short-form video platforms and mobile, the appetite for mobile-friendly SFC has never been bigger. Let’s see some brands who have truly knocked it out of the park:

1) How SpiceJet leveraged SFC to convey its new offerings:

2) How Google Photos used SFC to talk about an everyday prob- lem to plug itself:

3) How Nescafe captured the essence of coffee using SFC: Hooked to SFC? Allow me to spill the beans.

Your SFC is going to be a distraction from a much more pleasant piece of content the consumer would rather be watching. A brain needs less than 1/2 second to engage with SFC & trigger a reac- tion, positive or negative. Make your creative in a way that requires minimal effort for comprehension, and entertaining if possible. As marketers, remember these rules before you begin creating and delivering SFC for your brand.

Successful brands understand that SFC is an elevator pitch to the consumer and they need to remember it was you. And this is why SFC has heightened the necessity to transform creativity – to make sure you not only grab attention but to do so in a short amount of time.

The 6 golden rules for an effective SFC are:

1. Capture attention quickly. Being dramatic upfront is critical. Your message has to get out as soon as possible, possibly in the first 5 seconds.

2. Think visually. Images are more graphic, compressed and sticky. Videos occupy a crowded space and try to catch attention as soon as possible.

3. Set context, get branding in early. Story arcs work differently

on mobile. Consumers are 23% more likely to remember if the brand was featured in the first three seconds.

4. Design for sound off, delight with sound on. Play with supers and captioning. Make sure comprehension isn't muted. Your videos should communicate your message even without audio.

5. Frame for Vertical. Use the full real estate of the phone. Either 9:16 vertical videos or 1:1 – a perfect square.

6. Keep the duration to 10 or less. When you write to the medium, you can get your point across both quickly and powerfully. fresh A length of 5-15 seconds is recommended. In the digital world, the choice rests with the consumer’s thumb – so make sure you use all the tricks in the book and techniques with the CG house to ensure your ad grabs and keeps the view- er’s attention. Remember, you will only emerge victorious if you respect the environment. Be creative - test, learn, adapt and become unforgettable!

Sources:

Brand Equity, “Dynamics of a 'short attention span' world”, Jan 06 2020 Afaqs, “Do's and Don'ts while crafting 'the 10-seconder' for brands...”, 24 May 2019 Microsoft, “Attention Span Consumer Insights”, 14 May 2015

18

In the time it took you to read the title of this article, ponder what it might be about and decide that you actually wanted to read the whole thing, a lot of our dear readers would have checked out and gone on to pursue a completely different task. And we understand it’s nothing personal – that’s just how most of us process information nowadays.

But for those of you who have made it this far, we are truly grateful. We are all actively competing for your fabled share of attention. A truly rare commodity, this attention.

It keeps shifting in the blink of an eye, constantly jumping from one information nugget to another. Its volatile nature makes you read less every day and dictates you to forward messages that you never read. All of this while you switch rapidly between the gazillion tabs and apps on your devices.

Are you still listening?

YES, YOU!

As a matter of fact, in the last 20 years, your average attention span has contracted by almost a quarter. You now lag behind the modest goldfish in terms of being able to focus on a task or an object. Yes, a GOLDFISH. Those tiny little creatures that swim in a small glass bowl all day long. Their attention span is now

longer than yours.

Your shortened attention span has also become more discrimi- nating.

In today’s generation of endless choices, your cognition is using wizardry to defend against information overload. American Nobel winning economist Herbert Simon took deep interest in studying these mind tricks – and coined our attention giving process as ‘satisficing’ - a combination of satisfy and suffice. Satisficing means you give attention to things as you think they deserve. You engage significantly longer with content that you actively like, and you ignore or pay less attention to content that you filter out.

Satisficing becomes even more important if you are a BRAND. You have no other option but to take this challenge in your stride and accept that attention will not be handed to you on a plate – you must earn it.

There is some good news though - brands are not just fighting this battle but also emerging on top. Just like great tattoo artists who create indelible designs that strike in the first glance, these brands are building memorable narratives in a really short window of opportunity.

Their secret sauce of success?

Short Form Content (SFC)

With the rising popularity of both short-form video platforms and mobile, the appetite for mobile-friendly SFC has never been bigger. Let’s see some brands who have truly knocked it out of the park:

1) How SpiceJet leveraged SFC to convey its new offerings:

2) How Google Photos used SFC to talk about an everyday prob- lem to plug itself:

3) How Nescafe captured the essence of coffee using SFC: Hooked to SFC? Allow me to spill the beans.

Your SFC is going to be a distraction from a much more pleasant piece of content the consumer would rather be watching. A brain needs less than 1/2 second to engage with SFC & trigger a reac- tion, positive or negative. Make your creative in a way that requires minimal effort for comprehension, and entertaining if possible. As marketers, remember these rules before you begin creating and delivering SFC for your brand.

Successful brands understand that SFC is an elevator pitch to the consumer and they need to remember it was you. And this is why SFC has heightened the necessity to transform creativity – to make sure you not only grab attention but to do so in a short amount of time.

The 6 golden rules for an effective SFC are:

1. Capture attention quickly. Being dramatic upfront is critical. Your message has to get out as soon as possible, possibly in the first 5 seconds.

2. Think visually. Images are more graphic, compressed and sticky. Videos occupy a crowded space and try to catch attention as soon as possible.

3. Set context, get branding in early. Story arcs work differently

on mobile. Consumers are 23% more likely to remember if the brand was featured in the first three seconds.

4. Design for sound off, delight with sound on. Play with supers and captioning. Make sure comprehension isn't muted. Your videos should communicate your message even without audio.

5. Frame for Vertical. Use the full real estate of the phone. Either 9:16 vertical videos or 1:1 – a perfect square.

6. Keep the duration to 10 or less. When you write to the medium, you can get your point across both quickly and powerfully. A length of 5-15 seconds is recommended.

In the digital world, the choice rests with the consumer’s thumb – so make sure you use all the tricks in the book and techniques with the CG house to ensure your ad grabs and keeps the view- er’s attention. Remember, you will only emerge victorious if you respect the environment. Be creative - test, learn, adapt and become unforgettable!

Sources:

Brand Equity, “Dynamics of a 'short attention span' world”, Jan 06 2020 Afaqs, “Do's and Don'ts while crafting 'the 10-seconder' for brands...”, 24 May 2019 Microsoft, “Attention Span Consumer Insights”, 14 May 2015

Vintage Fusion

Parle Monaco’s campaigns from 2008, featuring Aamir Khan, 2008delivers the message of turning around life’s cynical moments and making life more interesting, all through harmless fun. The idea was to have participative humour, where both parties involved laugh in the end.

19

In the time it took you to read the title of this article, ponder what it might be about and decide that you actually wanted to read the whole thing, a lot of our dear readers would have checked out and gone on to pursue a completely different task. And we understand it’s nothing personal – that’s just how most of us process information nowadays.

But for those of you who have made it this far, we are truly grateful. We are all actively competing for your fabled share of attention. A truly rare commodity, this attention.

It keeps shifting in the blink of an eye, constantly jumping from one information nugget to another. Its volatile nature makes you read less every day and dictates you to forward messages that you never read. All of this while you switch rapidly between the gazillion tabs and apps on your devices.

Are you still listening?

YES, YOU!

As a matter of fact, in the last 20 years, your average attention span has contracted by almost a quarter. You now lag behind the modest goldfish in terms of being able to focus on a task or an object. Yes, a GOLDFISH. Those tiny little creatures that swim in a small glass bowl all day long. Their attention span is now

longer than yours.

Your shortened attention span has also become more discrimi- nating.

In today’s generation of endless choices, your cognition is using wizardry to defend against information overload. American Nobel winning economist Herbert Simon took deep interest in studying these mind tricks – and coined our attention giving process as ‘satisficing’ - a combination of satisfy and suffice. Satisficing means you give attention to things as you think they deserve. You engage significantly longer with content that you actively like, and you ignore or pay less attention to content that you filter out.

Satisficing becomes even more important if you are a BRAND. You have no other option but to take this challenge in your stride and accept that attention will not be handed to you on a plate – you must earn it.

There is some good news though - brands are not just fighting this battle but also emerging on top. Just like great tattoo artists who create indelible designs that strike in the first glance, these brands are building memorable narratives in a really short window of opportunity.

Their secret sauce of success?

Short Form Content (SFC)

With the rising popularity of both short-form video platforms and mobile, the appetite for mobile-friendly SFC has never been bigger. Let’s see some brands who have truly knocked it out of the park:

1) How SpiceJet leveraged SFC to convey its new offerings:

2) How Google Photos used SFC to talk about an everyday prob- lem to plug itself:

3) How Nescafe captured the essence of coffee using SFC: Hooked to SFC? Allow me to spill the beans.

Your SFC is going to be a distraction from a much more pleasant piece of content the consumer would rather be watching. A brain needs less than 1/2 second to engage with SFC & trigger a reac- tion, positive or negative. Make your creative in a way that requires minimal effort for comprehension, and entertaining if possible. As marketers, remember these rules before you begin creating and delivering SFC for your brand.

Successful brands understand that SFC is an elevator pitch to the consumer and they need to remember it was you. And this is why SFC has heightened the necessity to transform creativity – to make sure you not only grab attention but to do so in a short amount of time.

The 6 golden rules for an effective SFC are:

1. Capture attention quickly. Being dramatic upfront is critical. Your message has to get out as soon as possible, possibly in the first 5 seconds.

2. Think visually. Images are more graphic, compressed and sticky. Videos occupy a crowded space and try to catch attention as soon as possible.

3. Set context, get branding in early. Story arcs work differently

on mobile. Consumers are 23% more likely to remember if the brand was featured in the first three seconds.

4. Design for sound off, delight with sound on. Play with supers and captioning. Make sure comprehension isn't muted. Your videos should communicate your message even without audio.

5. Frame for Vertical. Use the full real estate of the phone. Either 9:16 vertical videos or 1:1 – a perfect square.

6. Keep the duration to 10 or less. When you write to the medium, you can get your point across both quickly and powerfully. A length of 5-15 seconds is recommended.

In the digital world, the choice rests with the consumer’s thumb – so make sure you use all the tricks in the book and techniques with the CG house to ensure your ad grabs and keeps the view- er’s attention. Remember, you will only emerge victorious if you respect the environment. Be creative - test, learn, adapt and become unforgettable!

Sources:

Brand Equity, “Dynamics of a 'short attention span' world”, Jan 06 2020 Afaqs, “Do's and Don'ts while crafting 'the 10-seconder' for brands...”, 24 May 2019 Microsoft, “Attention Span Consumer Insights”, 14 May 2015

Coca Cola - The Last Customer

As the world celebrates the holiday season, the unknown and uncredited people in the service industry - the real Santa Clauses making all our wishes come true tirelessly, give up much in order to make the occasions special for us. This is a homage to those millions of people, a wonderfully fuzzy idea led by Coca Cola, as a small gesture in thanks.

20 Gladvertising

In the time it took you to read the title of this article, ponder what it might be about and decide that you actually wanted to read the whole thing, a lot of our dear readers would have checked out and gone on to pursue a completely different task. And we understand it’s nothing personal – that’s just how most of us process information nowadays.

But for those of you who have made it this far, we are truly grateful. We are all actively competing for your fabled share of attention. A truly rare commodity, this attention.

It keeps shifting in the blink of an eye, constantly jumping from one information nugget to another. Its volatile nature makes you read less every day and dictates you to forward messages that you never read. All of this while you switch rapidly between the gazillion tabs and apps on your devices.

Are you still listening?

YES, YOU!

As a matter of fact, in the last 20 years, your average attention span has contracted by almost a quarter. You now lag behind the modest goldfish in terms of being able to focus on a task or an object. Yes, a GOLDFISH. Those tiny little creatures that swim in a small glass bowl all day long. Their attention span is now

longer than yours.

Your shortened attention span has also become more discrimi- nating.

In today’s generation of endless choices, your cognition is using wizardry to defend against information overload. American Nobel winning economist Herbert Simon took deep interest in studying these mind tricks – and coined our attention giving process as ‘satisficing’ - a combination of satisfy and suffice. Satisficing means you give attention to things as you think they deserve. You engage significantly longer with content that you actively like, and you ignore or pay less attention to content that you filter out.

Satisficing becomes even more important if you are a BRAND. You have no other option but to take this challenge in your stride and accept that attention will not be handed to you on a plate – you must earn it.

There is some good news though - brands are not just fighting this battle but also emerging on top. Just like great tattoo artists who create indelible designs that strike in the first glance, these brands are building memorable narratives in a really short window of opportunity.

Their secret sauce of success?

Short Form Content (SFC)

With the rising popularity of both short-form video platforms and mobile, the appetite for mobile-friendly SFC has never been bigger. Let’s see some brands who have truly knocked it out of the park:

1) How SpiceJet leveraged SFC to convey its new offerings:

2) How Google Photos used SFC to talk about an everyday prob- lem to plug itself:

3) How Nescafe captured the essence of coffee using SFC: Hooked to SFC? Allow me to spill the beans.

Your SFC is going to be a distraction from a much more pleasant piece of content the consumer would rather be watching. A brain needs less than 1/2 second to engage with SFC & trigger a reac- tion, positive or negative. Make your creative in a way that requires minimal effort for comprehension, and entertaining if possible. As marketers, remember these rules before you begin creating and delivering SFC for your brand.

Successful brands understand that SFC is an elevator pitch to the consumer and they need to remember it was you. And this is why SFC has heightened the necessity to transform creativity – to make sure you not only grab attention but to do so in a short amount of time.

The 6 golden rules for an effective SFC are:

1. Capture attention quickly. Being dramatic upfront is critical. Your message has to get out as soon as possible, possibly in the first 5 seconds.

2. Think visually. Images are more graphic, compressed and sticky. Videos occupy a crowded space and try to catch attention as soon as possible.

3. Set context, get branding in early. Story arcs work differently

on mobile. Consumers are 23% more likely to remember if the brand was featured in the first three seconds.

4. Design for sound off, delight with sound on. Play with supers and captioning. Make sure comprehension isn't muted. Your videos should communicate your message even without audio.

5. Frame for Vertical. Use the full real estate of the phone. Either 9:16 vertical videos or 1:1 – a perfect square.

6. Keep the duration to 10 or less. When you write to the medium, you can get your point across both quickly and powerfully. A length of 5-15 seconds is recommended.

In the digital world, the choice rests with the consumer’s thumb – so make sure you use all the tricks in the book and techniques with the CG house to ensure your ad grabs and keeps the view- er’s attention. Remember, you will only emerge victorious if you respect the environment. Be creative - test, learn, adapt and become unforgettable!

Sources:

Brand Equity, “Dynamics of a 'short attention span' world”, Jan 06 2020 Afaqs, “Do's and Don'ts while crafting 'the 10-seconder' for brands...”, 24 May 2019 Microsoft, “Attention Span Consumer Insights”, 14 May 2015

In the time it took you to read the title of this article, ponder what it might be about and decide that you actually wanted to read the whole thing, a lot of our dear readers would have checked out and gone on to pursue a completely different task. And we understand it’s nothing personal – that’s just how most of us process information nowadays.

But for those of you who have made it this far, we are truly grateful. We are all actively competing for your fabled share of attention. A truly rare commodity, this attention.

It keeps shifting in the blink of an eye, constantly jumping from Please send your one information nugget to another. Its volatile nature makes you suggestions, ideas, queries read less every day and dictates you to forward messages that you never read. All of this while you switch rapidly between the or feedback to gazillion tabs and apps on your devices. editor@redi usionist.in

Are you still listening?

All rights reserved | Rediffusion 2020

YES, YOU! All articles published reflect the opinions of Rediffusion Brand Solutions Pvt Ltd employees. As a matter of fact, in the last 20 years, your average attention All images are either Rediffusion's own property span has contracted by almost a quarter. You now lag behind the or license-free only. modest goldfish in terms of being able to focus on a task or an object. Yes, a GOLDFISH. Those tiny little creatures that swim in a small glass bowl all day long. Their attention span is now

longer than yours.

Your shortened attention span has also become more discrimi- nating.

In today’s generation of endless choices, your cognition is using wizardry to defend against information overload. American Nobel winning economist Herbert Simon took deep interest in studying these mind tricks – and coined our attention giving process as ‘satisficing’ - a combination of satisfy and suffice. Satisficing means you give attention to things as you think they deserve. You engage significantly longer with content that you actively like, and you ignore or pay less attention to content that you filter out.

Satisficing becomes even more important if you are a BRAND. You have no other option but to take this challenge in your stride and accept that attention will not be handed to you on a plate – you must earn it.

There is some good news though - brands are not just fighting this battle but also emerging on top. Just like great tattoo artists who create indelible designs that strike in the first glance, these brands are building memorable narratives in a really short window of opportunity.

Their secret sauce of success?

Short Form Content (SFC)

With the rising popularity of both short-form video platforms and mobile, the appetite for mobile-friendly SFC has never been bigger. Let’s see some brands who have truly knocked it out of the park:

1) How SpiceJet leveraged SFC to convey its new offerings:

2) How Google Photos used SFC to talk about an everyday prob- lem to plug itself:

3) How Nescafe captured the essence of coffee using SFC: