An interview with the Founder & Creative Director of Jacob Creative.
Tell us about how different is working as Manoj Jacob in ad agency and Manoj Jacob in your ad Agency.
The difference is quite enormous. As creative head of an agency, I only really had to worry about the quality of work. Now I’m Chief Everything Officer. I’m responsible for creative, client servicing, recruitment, finance, new business, coffee… I now do a lot more with my 10 to 6.
You started in 1996 as Junior Copywriter, After 19 Years in Advertising, What made you start Jacob Creative?
When you’re employed, no matter how high up the ladder you are, there’s always someone above you. So there are several things that you’d like to do, but simply cannot. Being your own boss changes that, gets rid of the conflict between your own belief system and that of the agency.
For example, I do not care for advertising awards, a pursuit which takes up too much time and money in the big agencies. I believe award shows are counter-productive, because they encourage creative people to save their best efforts for the awards season. Check this out – Indian agencies win more international awards today than we did 15 years ago. However the work you see in the newspapers today is embarrassing. Back then, agencies were proud to put their key numbers on ads. Today?