Prateek Suri : Interview With An Advertising Copywriter

Prateek Suri, Creative Group Head, Contract Advertising is also an avid drummer. Till his metal outfit disbanded a few years ago, he was often seen on stage at music festivals across the country. He now spends his free time as a part-time session drummer, who loves the outdoors as much as beer, YouTube, trolling the internet and annoying his wife.   

Why are you into Advertising?
You stare into nothingness, day dream with your feet on the desk and ‘think’ all day long. Just when you delude yourself into believing that this is life, you get so busy that your coffee goes cold, days blur into nights and your dog forgets your face. Gotta love that unpredictability.

Did you attend school for fine art or design or Communications?
Yes, I studied advertising and PR at IIMC, Delhi after graduating in English from DU.

Tell us about your awards? How have they impacted your career? Do clients listen to you more?
I’ve been fairly lucky in the awards department. In the past few years, I’ve won merits at Spikes, Adfest, Adstars, Mirchi Kaan,Goa Fest and Effies. As for the clients, everybody knows the adage, “you’re only as good as your last campaign”. So you’re constantly trying to prove yourself, with every new brief.

Were there any particular role models for you when you grew up?
I had this huge poster of Michael Jordan in my room, growing up. The irony is that I sucked at basketball.

Who was the most influential personality on your career in Advertising?
Nandu Narasimhan. He’s the reason I even joined advertising. If it wasn’t for him, I’d be some cocky PR rep.

Where do you get your inspiration from?
By meeting people outside of advertising.

Tell us something about the Contract work environment. We know lots of creatives would love to work with Contract.
Contract has a fluid structure, with work flowing from Delhi to Mumbai, to Bangalore and vice versa. So you get good exposure on all the brands on roster. The agency has a heady mix of talented, witty, and borderline psychotic people. We’re a young lot that works hard, plays hard and knows how to party when we get down to it.
What do you think of the state of Print advertising right now. At least here in India, the released work is most often too sad?
R.I.P.

Tell us about your latest digital campaign…
We did a digital video for Truly Madly recently, that generated a lot of buzz online. Everything from its conceptualisation, to the art and sound-design was done in-house, at Contract. Props to the team for their mad skills!

Do you think brands who’s advertising wins awards, do well in the market? 
The general viewer is yearning for entertaining content on her devices. (Her, because as Ogilvy said, “…the consumer is your wife”)
And award winning work stands for out of the box, sometimes even daring advertising.
You do the math.

What advice do you have for aspiring creative professionals?
Let your work do the talking.

Who would you like to take out for dinner?
I think the question should be, what would you like for dinner? Steak, medium rare and chilled beer please.

What’s on your iPod?
Do people still use iPods?
I have Porcupine Tree, Karnivool, Tool, Cloudkicker, Flume, Nicolas Jaar and Bonobo on my playlist.

 Mac or PC?
PC.

Whats your Twitter Handle?
@supersuri