Arati’s Blog: Whatever happened to ‘Suit Up!’?

Ogilvy & Mather had a Master Class on Day Four on ‘What It Takes To Be A Brilliant Suit’.

I caught the first part of it which had Graham Fink, chief creative officer, Ogilvy China, taking the mic. In a rather funny presentation, he described the various kinds of suits there could be, and what young account executives should do to not become those. Like the ‘Flash Suit’ (all about getting a good meeting, versus getting something good out of it), the ‘1980s Suit’ (living in the past, not moving on), the ‘Scruffy Suit’ (who just doesn’t care about his work), the ‘Suit Of Armour’ (the know-it-all who never listens to anyone else), the ‘Wallpaper Suit’ (who has no opinion) and the ‘Riddler Suit’ (who never seems to solve anything, but only adds to the confusion).

His advice to the young attendees: be honest; keep updating yourself, talk to the right people; find out about the client (Fink said he once sold an ad by telling the client his son would enjoy it, something he was sure of because it had the client’s son’s favourite track on it); be open-minded; make a contribution and have a point of view.

Lastly, he said the best kind of suit to wear is the bespoke suit: it makes an impression, and because it takes a little while to make, the wearer also knows it inside out because he’s been a part of the process, and voiced his opinion through various sittings. “It isn’t about selling an idea, but selling the thinking and setting up a logical line of thought for the business problem and the creative solution,” said Fink. “Then, all the creative work has to do is push further open an already open door.”

I had to step out then, but was curious about what happened at the end because David Mayo (president, Ogilvy APAC) had told me they planned to come up with another name for the Suit at the end of the session (Fink called the term derogatory and hollow).

To the rescue, Twitter.  Or so I thought.

Huh? Jack? How did that happen???

Must solve this new mystery tomorrow.

India spotting: Met BBDO’s Josy Paul and Raj Deepak Das, Grey’s Jishnu Sen and Nirvik Singh, and Creativeland Asia’s Raj Kurup at the Opening Gala last night; sighted Piyush Pandey, Abhijit Avasthi and Rajiv Rao at the Master Class; Euro RSCG’s Satbir Singh is always going in the opposite direction from me, so still haven’t got to say “Hey” to him.   

Cannes experience: Doesn’t this look like something out of a movie (the happy kind)?