Ads work if the idea is simple, it has to be Kolaveri Di: Bharat Dabholkar

Maverick, theatre & ad personality, the man behind the Amul billboards, animal lover (he once even kept Piranhas in his office), at one time Head of Zen Communications – the very versatile Bharat Dabholkar is all these and much more. 

Known for his great sense of humour, Dabolkar is credited as one of the first to bring humour into Indian advertising. It comes as no surprise that he has a huge fan following all over the world, thanks to his plays, travel stories as well as his ‘Talks’ to various companies, institutions, organisations, etc. 

Before he slipped into these roles, Dabholkar, a management graduate who studied law, started his career as a trainee in Philips. 

Bharat Dabholkar left Adgully quite breathless as he shared his various exploits – as ad man, theatre person, observer of people – in his characteristic candid manner, laced with a huge dose of sharp wit. 

You are an ad man, theatre person, script-writer. What is your secret to successfully juggling so many roles?
I have no idea what the secret is, but I think I don’t take matters very seriously. Whatever I love doing, I always do that. It’s just that you have to manage your time well. Everybody can do this, because we do have so much time. We just take ourselves too seriously and all days are different from each other. So, you don’t get bored doing anything. Keeping this in mind, I do all kinds of different things. 

How different is your thought process as an ad guru and as a theatre person?
Frankly, both advertising sector and theatre fall under communication. In advertising, you are conversing with an audience whom you don’t know. In theatre, you are talking to an audience whom you know and the target audience. In that way, theatre is easier. But in advertising when you make a campaign, you don’t know the target audience for whom the campaign is created. You don’t know how they think and also you also don’t know about their likes and dislikes. In theatre, if I do a show on Sunday and if it doesn’t go well, then next week I can change that portion, or if a portion is liked very much then I can add some more to it. But in advertising you can’t do such changes. Here, what’s done is done and also you put in a lot of money behind doing one campaign. 

We see more Amul ads on hoardings than on TV. Why so?
It’s true, there are more Amul ads on hoardings. The baby girl of Amul is drawn by Creative Director Eustace Fernandes - the has girl existed and so has the slogan. When I took over and started doing Amul ads for the last 15 years, I just tried to Indianise it, make it more topical and changed the ads faster. There were times when I had done lots of 10-second Amul black and white films. The Amul Butter girl was not a real girl, it was a cartoon, so we have done beautiful 10-second films which were produced by Mr Ram Mohan. As long as we tried to do the same thing that was on the hoarding, the TV commercials worked. We realised that doing ads for TV was getting more expensive, that’s when we decided to put our ads as hoardings. Otherwise we were active on TV as well. 

Old ads still hold a strong recall value. Do you thing the recall value of Indian ads has been on a decline over the years?
I think there are more and more ads now. Earlier, we would do one ad in a week for a TV channel, but now since the brands sponsor programmes, the same ads are repeated. That way it is better. If the same ad is being shown three times a day, its recall value increases rather than pitching it once a week. 

Somehow the advertisers and ad agencies feel that there’s nothing different that can be done in this particular category. Advertising is a marketing tool. It’s not a film or fine arts. The ads should be remembered. Lots of time people don’t understand that the product is the hero of the ad and not the one who is acting in it. But now-a-days film stars are doing lots of ads and for that reason they are becoming the heart of the ad and not the product. And 90 per cent of the time these actors are not used properly. Advertisers use film stars for two reasons – they have great appeal to a large audience and also they can act better than a model can. Unless your ad is using the acting ability, there is no sense making ads with them. That’s the reason people lose sight of that. Actors have to enhance the creative thought. 

Do you think the medium has overtaken the message in brand communication?
I think what happens is that when we make a campaign, each medium actually dictates what the message under that medium should be. If you are doing an ad for a hoarding, then you cannot have more than 8 words in the hoarding. Now, the advertiser has to decide which are the 8 words that he can use to sell his product. In TV, if you have 20 seconds then you get 13-14 seconds to entertain your audience and then you can sell your product if the acting was good and appealing. 

I remember when I got into advertising, some of the biggest ads were Vicco and Nirma, but they were not great ads. Those ads were straightforward ads and because of that they had such an impact. Till date you remember the Vicco jingles. The brand has that recall. Now-a-days people just try to be creative and for that they sometimes fail to say what they want to say. Everybody wants to show their creativity and I think that’s the biggest problem. 

Years ago we launched India’s first cockroach killing Hit and then Baygon launched the same. Theirs was a complicated one, but we kept it simple and straightforward. And the response was brilliant. 

‘Fresh Mango Juice In A Freaked Out Time’ was the tetra pack in the market. But when the jingle – ‘Mango Frooti Fresh n Juicy’ – was aired and everybody started liking it as it was short and simple. 

Do you think digital platforms are taking over other mediums?
No, they are not. In our time things were easier as the competition was limited. Each brand had its own new topics. I remember I had launched Ceat Tyres with a Rhino as the mascot. Because their tyres were so tough that one couldn’t break them. People understand symbols irrespective of where they are coming from. 

Do you think the significance of digital is growing – not just in ads but in all other aspects?
In digital, you can watch a movie or anything at any point of time. If I want to watch a cricket match, I don’t have to wait to see it in a TV. I can watch it on my phone. Today, the effectiveness of the medium is amazingly impactful. Everybody has now got a smartphone. In that perspective, advertising has become very effective. If you want the people to watch your ads 20 times, then you have to make your ad more impactful. 

Has the quantity of the ads taken over the quality to make it viral?
People in India are extremely creative. I don’t know how they do it. But I can’t. Ads work if it is a simple idea, if you make it very complicated then people don’t like that. If you want your ad to be viral, it has to be ‘Kolaveri Di’ (laughs). The song went viral because it was different and crazy. Though it was not rhythmic, with good lyrics, but it went viral. To make an ad viral, you have to keep it simple so that people can put their own inputs to it and make it more interesting. 

What have been your most memorable works so far?
I have created many memorable campaigns, can’t name all of them. I got awards for Ceat, Frooti, Appy, BOI and many more. But my most memorable was Amul, it gave me intense creative satisfaction and huge recognition. 

If you make any ads today, what would be your style of working?
Honestly speaking, I don’t think that over the last 50 years advertising has changed very much. The way of expressing has changed, the technology has changed, but the basics of advertising have not changed at all. The way body soap was advertised 40 years ago, remains the same 40 years later. If that time it was Madhubala, then today it will be Alia Bhatt or Kareena Kapoor. The concept doesn’t change, only the models change. 

You are often regarded as the Father of Hinglish Theatre. Your comment on this…
I come from a Marathi medium school and couldn’t speak a single sentence of English. I joined Elphinstone College in Mumbai, where everybody spoke fluent English, but I didn’t know how to speak a single line. I did the same thing in my work as well. Whether making ads or writing scripts, I used to mix English, Hindi and Marathi together, because people in India don’t talk pure English. Each person carries the accent of his mother tongue irrespective of which language he is speaking in. So, I started using it in advertising and also in theatre. It’s not only Hinglish – it has Gujarati and Marathi words in it as well. It has now become a fashion. I am not the father of any language. I don’t know any language properly. That’s why I need all the Indian languages to make one sentence. 

How do you find this Hinglish trend going nowadays?
When I had written the Hinglish plays, there were two reasons – one was that language was close to people and I had brilliant actors. Each theatre has limited actors. If I make plays in any regional language, then it is meant for only that region. But I started making Hinglish plays because then there would be a mass audience. And I can get different actors from different theatres to act in my regional plays. But you can’t do the same in English theatre. In theatre, you have to be innovative. You have to keep on surprising people. 

We have seen old Hindi film songs being incorporated in ads. What are your views on this?
This is stupid. I was the one to use them first years ago. What I did was take the tune and weave in my own words on the product in that song. My premise was that since people already knew the tune so every time they heard the song they would also recall my ad through the tune. But today, people use the same lyrics, which is stupidity as you are not incorporating the product through the jingle. When I used those B-Town songs, I made sure that I showed my product through those songs, which worked. 

Could you tell us about your upcoming projects?
I have an advertising agency in Tanzania, Africa for the last 5 years and we do lots of advertising for Tanzania. In India, I was heading Publicis Group and I am the Advisor and Chairman of L&K Saatchi and I do lots of advertising there for different brands as a consultant and an advisor to Publicis. 

I have done many comedy shows. Recently, I did a show which was adapted from a Marathi play. That was my first Hinglish play. Then I did a play named ‘Purush’, a very thought-provoking play which had Nana Patekar and Reema Lagoo. It was about a school teacher being raped by a politician. 

At present, my play ‘That’s My Girl’ is on. It’s completely different from whatever I have done till now. It’s about father-daughter relationship – the protagonist comes to Mumbai to become a superstar. So, here the casting was important. But by God’s grace our casting was good and whoever has seen the play has liked the ‘Girl’ of the show even though she is newcomer. 

The one advice that you would want to give to today’s generation and also to those who want to step into the creative field?
 If you are in the business of communication, you should keep yourself out. You shouldn’t think of yourself. You have to understand that you are in a commercial arena. People are buying tickets to see what you want to show them. They buy the product that you show. So, you have to give them what they want. You have to keep your eyes and ears open. Don’t be overconfident. You should always learn from each and everything and you have to observe what’s happening. Observation is the main power you should have if you want to stay in this industry. 

What are the trends that you foresee in your field?
I have no idea. I wish I knew this. To predict how things will be four years from now is a very difficult thing. I don’t think anybody can predict that because the world is changing so fast, and by the time you will think that ‘this’ will happen, ‘this’ will change. 

On a parting note, what is the secret behind your fitness?
Honestly speaking, I have one of the healthiest lifestyles. I have never smoked or drank in my entire life, this despite having had some of the worst company – a friend of mine used to drink every night and one day he died of an overdose. Surprisingly, I did the maximum ads for liquor brands! 

I have also gone through lots of stress, but I never had a headache in my life. I had made ads for painkillers like Aspro, but in my personal life I seriously didn’t have any headache. 

(Amen to that!)

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