Anant’s blog: Ideas and innovation

If  there’s a lesson to learn from the ZooZoos campaign, it’s that a big idea can rake in big bucks. At a time that marketers seemed to have locked up their safes and thrown away the keys, Vodafone saw enough merit in O&M’s (and Rajiv Rao’s) idea to invest in what has proven to be an absolute winner of an idea, culminating in a campaign with a mind-boggling 29 TVCs.

This is a point that I’ve been trying to make ever since the slowdown. The money will be tougher to get – but a lot of money is still available for the big idea. In the same category, we have Idea Cellular and Airtel consistently churning out entertaining and effective communication. There is no doubt that the clients are eagerly awaiting the next idea from Balki and Lowe with Abhishek Bachchan and from Rediffusion with Madhavan and Vidya Balan.

There’s an upside in the depression of the slowdown. TV channels, newspapers and magazines are all bending over backwards to accommodate advertisers' needs – and wants. A look at the front page of The Times of India reproduced below will give you an idea of how far they are willing to go. The big accommodation? Part of the actual edit is ‘in’ the ad. We’ve seen similar things before, but always, as far as I can remember, with dummy copy. Can you remember the last time so many stories were continued on inside pages? I can't -- and that's a new flexibility from The Times of India and new opportunities for brands and creative teams.

There are the big ideas such as the ZooZoos which are difficult to stumble upon. Till then, there are the media-led ideas which capture the imagination. If you’re in creative, understand more about media. If you’re in media, understand more about creatives.
And help yourself in tough times.