Shantesh Row (Shanty), 31, Copy Group Head, GMASCO Dubai. A decade of decadence in advertising.
Currently handle Toyota, Lexus and IKEA, among other clients in the UAE.

Why am I in Advertising?
Because it’s the most fun I can have with my clothes on. No seriously, it’s quite an addiction for me, to be able to sit with a blank piece of paper and put in a piece of my mind on it. Then of course, there’s that small matter of paying off a home loan!

Did I always want to get into Advertising?
Yes. I was born a compulsive liar. I managed to wriggle out of many tricky situations just because I knew what words to use, when and how. Politics would have been a great option, but I’m not geriatric yet, so Advertising was the next best thing. At the start, like every middle class boy in the mid 90s, I did dabble in safer career pursuits like Chartered Accountancy and MBA (which in hindsight, would have added more zeroes to my current zero bank balance), but my heart always itched to do something creative.
Were there any particular role models for me when I grew up?
Loads. I am a firm believer in being erratic and unpredictable. Hence I was always attracted to the more mercurial people inhabiting Planet Earth. I loved Krish Srikkanth’s no-nonsense approach to slam-bam batting. I adored tales of the macabre by Roald Dahl. I fell in love with crazy B-movie makers like Joe D’Amato and even the Ramsay Brothers. You need to be a little kooky when it comes to being creative, so all these random people matter to the way you think. As for Advertising itself, it had to be the work of creatives like Freddy Birdy, Alok Nanda, James Lowther and that perennial source of inspiration, Neil French.

Who was the most influential personality on your career in advertising?
Undoubtedly, late Mr Deepak Gera of Network Advertising, Bombay. He was something else – as rare and humble a person you can ever hope to meet. DG, as we affectionately called him, really understood what advertising was all about, and more importantly, what really mattered to the people who created advertising. I spent almost 5 years at Network, over 1.5 years of which Iwas blessed to have worked with him.
I knew he was different the moment I met him as a Cub writer in 1999. Instead of the usual interview about one’s work, one’s dreams, blah, blah,we ended up spending 2 hours discussing The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, the effectiveness of the Maruti Zen and the sighting of tigers in the Periyar Reserve, Thekkady!
His principle of “when a customer sees an ad, he should say ‘great product’, not ‘great ad’…'”, stayed with me and with all those who were privileged to know him. And with Network, he created an agency that was as close to home as you can ever get.
I think God broke the mold and threw it away after creating DG. Really wish we could see more such great people around.

Has Advertising changed over the course of my career? Is execution/artdirection more important than it used to be? Do I think advertising has become more clever and less intelligent?

Well, I’m not that evolved to make such a blanket statement about Advertising, but here’s my two penny worth. Basically, over the past decade, we as people, the world over, have changed. 10 years ago, when I started working Rs 6,000 used to be a fantastic seed salary. Today, a 21-year old pockets a cool Rs 30,000 as a beginner in a Call Center. So, with this sudden increase in disposable income, it is but natural that attitudes of people will change too. Advertising has had to evolve with this societal change.
Advertising today is entertainment. In fact, all these worlds -entertainment, films, sport, news – have sort of combined to create a giant magnet of attraction. Look at how NDTV is today. If entertainment is going to different to seduce today’s multiplex going, McDonald’s chewing customer, Advertising has to be spiffy. And if this means, one has to use art direction to stop a person in his tracks or use catch-phrases like ‘What atop ka is my world’, then so be it.
Intelligent advertising? I’m appealing to my mother (and my wife) for God’s sake, not to Stephen Hawking. If intelligence and logic was the cornerstone of success, Ba of Kyunki Saas would be long time dead.

What do I think of the current state of Print Advertising versus TV inIndia?
I seriously cannot answer this, because I have been away some time from India. But on the occasions I have managed to lay my hands on some Indian newspapers and magazines, I don’t see much difference in print ads from 2004 and now.
And to think about it, TV has now not just replaced print. It has replaced everything – playing cards with one’s family, dinner time conversations, books, the works. The boob tube is here to stay, and I guess commercials will like I said, continue to ‘entertain’ us in a bigger, better fashion.
A few years ago, ‘Manohar Kahaniyaan’ used to be the staple diet of people wanting to get their kicks from some seedy, vicarious articles. Today, they get to see the same thing on Zee News. And every Crime Reporter will fetch more advertising from Dollar Underwear and TMC Saria, then its print counterpart.
Who is to know what’s next?

Where do I get my inspiration from?
Where everyone gets their oxygen from… almost any place. But yes, if there’s one thing that’s crucial to a creative’s development, it has to be travel. You can read about a place and watch it on TV till the cows come home, but there’s nothing better to open one’s mind than actually being there.

Do I think brands whose Advertising wins awards, do well in the market?
Which part of ‘No’ do you not understand?

Was there any time when I wanted to quit Advertising?
Every waking day. Advertising is the most frustratingly addictive profession one can be in. Can’t live with it, can’t live without it. For all you know,this may be my first and last interview as an Advertising Professional! If only Ram Gopal Verma reads that horror film script I sent him 3 years ago!

What makes a good Creative Director?
Those two things that attach a male appendage to the trunk of the body! Got balls, will be a good CD.
Dilbert’s principle states that most people rise to their level of incompetence. So by that logic, most CDs are has-beens who’ve been promoted only because their experience demands it. But there are also CDs who havethe sheer sense of cutting through the chaff and delivering knock-your-pants-off communication.
Someone great said, you’ve got 2 ears and 1 mouth, so use them in the right proportion. Therefore the best CD is one who truly listens. To his team, to his brief, to his customer and to his own inner conscience.

What are my views on Scam Advertising?
I have a simple argument for this…why do we sit on our high horses and demand originality in Advertising? Do we make the same demand from our film directors (including some so called ‘legends’), who rip off Hollywood DVDs? Or our musicians who remix and massacre classics? Scam Advertising is somewhat healthy, simply because it is a great way to kick start the brainstorming process. If some people are happy with it, and feed off the rewards of scam, let them. The original creatives, who work on proper briefs and deliver effective communication, will stay off scams in any case. Also, it’s a small world, everyone knows what’s true and what isn’t. Today’s the age of make-believe, of shameless self-publicity, inalmost all spheres of life. So why should Advertising be any different? Again, over the long run, the scam artists almost always fade away. It’s the true quality craftsmen and women who are recognised for their worth.

What would I like to say about the quality of advertising coming from Dubai?
A few years ago, Dubai was derided as being the last refuge of a loan-ridden creative. Not anymore. Things have changed (and are constantly changing) both in terms of the market and also in terms of creativity. For starters,there is a definite shift from tactical, sales-driven advertising into morecohesive, more memorable brand advertising. Then, Dubai is definitely attracting better creative people from the world over, who want to make a’career’ here versus just ‘money’ which was the mantra some time back.
Let’s understand that it is a difficult market to position and sell aproduct simply because Dubai is a melting pot of different people, languagesand financial demographics. What Dubai does offer creative is the money to execute large projects, especially in terms of photography and clients who are willing to go off the beaten path.
Like all places, Dubai and the Middle East advertising will take time to make its mark internationally, and there always problems when it comes tosituations where the client is British, the CD Lebanese and the creativeIndian, but a perfunctory glance at international awards over the past 2 years, will show you more examples of cutting-edge creative from the UAE.
Also, it is a difficult market for a creative to survive in. With rent rates over the roof, expenses touching new highs, exchange rates falling, and Indian salaries on the rise, there is not much difference today in a Dubai V/s Mumbai creative ladder. So, one needs to be competitive in order to sustain oneself onto the next job. And have loads of patience.

Any current work in Indian Advertising that I find exciting? Especially Print?
Like I said, I’m not much abreast with what’s happening in Indian print(though I loved the Levis Slim Jeans campaign). What excites me more is what’s happening on the financial services side of commercial advertising. Having worked on a few financial accounts like IDBI Bank, HDFC Home Loans, etcetera, I like the fact that financial commercials have so much of abetter insight and such an infusion of humour into the same.
I have loved the ads for Bank of India (Rishton ki jamaa punji), SBI CreditCards, the ‘sar uthaa ke jeeo’ campaign and more.The work I love. Mostly done with my great art director and close friend, Harshad Badbe. You can check out some of our work on theharshad.blogspot.com
We hardly get to see Illustration based Art Direction. What do I think is the reason? Is it that we dont have any inspiring illustrators or is it the Client?
Clients mainly. I’ll give you an example of the Middle East itself. When selecting models for an ad campaign, we are usually forced to look for ‘Mediterranean faces’ – which would appeal to the Arab and Western customers alike. Which means, most ads that feature people in them, are difficult to differentiate from each other.
Add illustrations to this mix, and the situation becomes even trickier. What kind of illustration style to use? What kind of people to show in such illustrations? Will putting illustrations make the product look less serious? Dubai has seen some illustration heavy campaigns done for Burjumanand Lifestyle, but even they seem to be clones of each other.
Also, let’s look at the art directors themselves. Most would love to have ashoot for their ads, with models and locations attached. It gives biggerbragging rights, you see. With illustrations, most art directors feel it is beneath their level and would rather pass it on to the graphic designer or visualiser below. Which is such a shame, especially when you look at the cool work that’s happened on i-Pod or Honda using illustrations and graphics.

Who would I want to spend a dinner with?
Anyone who would ‘spend’ on the dinner bill after! Actually lots of people. Salma Hayek for soup. Keeley Hazell for appetisers. Priyanka Chopra for themain course. And Kelly Hu as the After 8s. Naah! I told you I’munpredicatable, so my ideal dinner conversations would be with 2 mavericks… Sajid Khan (who I think is one of the funniest men in India) and Ram Gopal Verma (for whom I would like to write the definitive Indian horror film.)
Ok, I admit it…I’m having a takeaway dinner with my wife this evening!

What’s on my iPod?
Beetein Lamhein. The Dark Side of the Moon. Iris. 60 Pearl Jam songs. And around a thousand more I’ve transferred but haven’t yet whistled to.


Mac or PC?
Mac in office. PC at home. Perfect.