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Jigsaw of experiences

Ram Sehgal's latest work is part autobiography and part handbook for admen

PHOTO: R. SHIVAJI RAO

ANECDOTES GALORE Ram Sehgal.

Advertising, author Ram Sehgal insists, is fun. "Otherwise grown ups wouldn't spend a lifetime dedicated to this art burning the midnight oil, (combating) jet lag and deadlines."

Sehgal's latest book "Mixed Feelings: My Advertising Years", a readable memoir that teeters between being an autobiography and a handbook for admen, traces Sehgal's life, beginning in Pondicherry at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram where he grew up.

Using his 38 years of experience in the seemingly glossy world of advertising, Sehgal goes on to tell anecdote after anecdote, thus giving readers a jigsaw of experiences to figure out what the profession was like, in what he evidently sees as its glory days.

"We had giants in the advertising industry. I regret to say it's not true anymore," he said, adding that the "high level of integrity, knowledge and insight" of the profession has slowly been eroded. "Today, all the attention is on the bottom line. There are compromises in the quality of creative work and honesty."

Sehgal shared some nuggets of wisdom during his talk, the most notable of which was probably the statement, "a product is made in the factory. The brand is made in the customer's mind." "But customers' belief in brands is getting eroded," he said of the present-day scenario, "and what's happening - with the mobile networks, for instance - is a price war not a brand war. There's no brand personality, no character. Cover the logo and you won't even know what the brand is."

But all in all, he concluded, Jerry Della got it right when he said, "Advertising is the most fun you can have with your clothes on."

And, after years of pacifying difficult clients, he's also decided that if he ever chooses advertising in his next life, he'd "like to be a very big nasty client."

SHONALI MUTHALALY

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