NOTE: Dear Moderators, I hope this post is on the right page, because this is only my second post and I am kind of confused. Sorry. Also, I don’t mean to demean the folks in the advertising industry. These are my, and only my personal views about what I pen down. Also, this is going to be a detailed post for I think all you automobile and may I add Advertising aficionados should have enough information to aptly answer my question. Apologise for the length in advance! To start with I am a Creative Director Copy in advertising, so...
Before you get to answer my question, here’s a little background of myself, which I feel is important to why I am asking the question in the first place. In fact one of our moderators should be able to help me out my queries, since we both have trodden the same path, not to mention that he’s a veteran compared to me.
So, without any faffing around, writing long copy like Neil French, which obviously is an overachiever’s statement, let me give a brief background of myself.
I literally kick started and cranked up my eternal bond with automobiles at the ripe age of 8. And yep, that is the exact number! I rode my dad’s Jawa and Black ’52 Ambassador, obviously in a closed environment with my dad by my side. I had my dad ride pillion on the Jawa for my feet couldn’t reach the ground, a cushion under my adolescent backside to just about manage look through the steering wheel while I stretched out to reach the ABC pedals.
Long story cut short, I always wanted to become a mechanic when I grew up, which was never to be, even though the love for automobiles ran in the blood of my entire family. Why you may ask. Well those days being a mechanic was not really considered a monetarily feasible full time career, if you know what I mean.
Well, that put me on the threshold of Saatchi & Saatchi as an aspiring writer in the year 2002. And today, in a blink of an eye I am a 40 year old Creative Director, who has gone through the ups and downs of the advertising industry. And frankly I’ve have long lost the excitement that was at its pinnacle at one time. Not that my greying helps boost my morale, coupled with run of the mill advertising and award winning salary cuts and layoffs , a courteous result of COVID. But nevertheless hat’s off to this pandemic that has rekindled my love for the automobile industry, contemplating it as a full time career!
That said, I have no regrets in my 17+ years of advertising, having worked in the crème de la of agencies from Saatchi & Saatchi to Ogilvy and Lowe to Percept among the melee of agencies. Wine, women, a whole lot of money and the occasional work, topped up with a couple of awards!
Now that I’ve given you more than a gist of my background, boring you to asylum limits, let me list down the points that have made me decide to make the shift- something that I’ve been contemplating for a long, long time, but never got going about making it happen.
I am combining the positives of the good old days of advertising and few negatives of today’s advertising to make my write up crisper.
So here goes. The main reasons that made me decide to bid adieu to advertising.
1) Advertising is no more like it used to be, where the main mediums were Print, TV, Radio and Outdoor/Hoardings.
2) Agencies strived to bring out the best creatives that would win them awards, be it a Cannes, One Show, D&AD, Goa Fest et al. You name it. Do the Volkswagen ads ring a bell?
3) Agencies were judged by their creativity and not the amount of cash they made.
4) The entire atmosphere of an agency was chilled out unlike the agencies nowadays where one has to wear a dog collar around their necks to punch in on time.
5) Them days we never had rules, no office timings, we could smoke in office, your refrigerator overflowing with your favourite beverages and yet nothing came in the way to strive to make the best ads ever that always met deadlines. May I quote an award winning ad here for an anti ageing cream! All it said was ‘TOCK TICK.’ Man, can you get any better!
6) Those days’ ad agencies chose the clients, and not the other way around.
7) Our salaries were sky high, for the simple reason that agencies made commissions that were equally high.
8) It took passion, creativity and an inborn talent to be part of an ad agency. Either you had it in you or not. There were no in-betweens. If you were good, you kept your job, and if you were bad you would be desperately knocking on the doors of other agencies.
9) Now, getting to the worst part. Post recession, mid to late 2000’s? Turned the ad industry topsy-turvry. With the IT boom starting with call centres, and not to mention turn our beloved Garden City into a Concrete Jungle the agency commissions started to drop, thanks to stubborn clients, with all the money in the world who wanted things their way. The client started calling the shots rather than agencies. In short, the good old glory of advertising started to slowly but steadily fade away, apart that once in a blue moon decent ad.
10) Lo and behold, ads like ‘Jabong’ and a million more obnoxious ads started to take the upper hand. No ideas. Just Robin Hood- Lookalike owners endorsing their own product, ah, and obviously all the celebs that one can get their hands to compensate for those baseless ideas. To top it off, these ads start to pop up just when you are listening to Bob Marley on Youtube.
11) Yep, everyone talks about the advertising industry going ‘digital’ nowadays and consider us too outdated to handle it. What they don’t realize that their so called Gen-X ‘Digital advertising is just another medium of advertising. What they unfortunately don’t realize is that “Digital” is just a medium of advertising!
12) Last but not the least, most of the folks who join the advertising industry nowadays are born with a silver, gold, hell even platinum spoons in their mouths. Unlike the days that when I worked at Saatchi & Saatchi for free, until my beloved Creative Director paid me 2k every month from her own salary.
13) So, we now reach the unlucky number that made me want to quit advertising for good. Like I said before, the youngsters with all money in the world who will eventually inherit papa’s business are more than ready to work for peanuts- writers who have not even heard of a ‘Copy Book’ leave alone read one. At the end of the day, why should an agency pay a 40 year old Creative Director with over 17 years of experience 3 lac rupees a month when they can afford half a dozen youngsters who can easily execute those fantastic ads for sore eyes!
14) Last but not the least, them days, Creative Directors had to see just 10 pieces of work from your portfolio to decide whether to hire you or not. In fact he/she would have already judged your potential by the time he/she reached the 5th piece of work in your portfolio! Your portfolio had to have a maximum of 20 pieces of your best work. Anything more was considered a total worst.
15) These days, to judge your potential, your portfolio needs to be as long as an encyclopaedia, or maybe just a little longer if possible!
Now, let me get to the main dilemma- Should I make a career shift from Advertising to Automobiles!
Let me make this as clear as possible by listing out the advantages and disadvantages for same.
Advantages:
1) Thanks to a good mechanic friend I’ve learned most automobiles inside out at a very young age. Both cars, jeeps, motorcycles et al.
2) I can build all carburetted cars and bikes from scratch. From Amby’s to Esteems. From Bullets to Yam RD 350’s, and everything in between.
3) I Have owned multiple cars and bikes, all of which I have a fair share of mechanical experience with. You can find a few in my handle, well not all though.
4) I have a lot of friends with mechanical experience to help out.
5) I am a fast learner when it comes to automobiles. Very fast at that.
6) I’ve never bought a brand new vehicle, for the very reason I never like keeping vehicles stock. Its modifications, modifications and more modifications. Mostly mechanically.
7) Never met with any major accident till today. Touch wood!
8) Have travelled most of India, from Kanyakumari to Khardungla pass on my good old 94’ Enfield.
9) Have also done a fair bit of writing for English touring company Nomadic Knights where my brother worked full time, until his untimely death. More about that later, but lest I say the unfortunate incident didn’t have anything to do with it an accident caused on a bike, but because of some morons on flying on cloud 9 which my brother had no idea of! Obviously if he had known, he would never have got into the back seat of that god forsaken car. Wrong place at the wrong time I guess. That said, he lived his life to the fullest. Miss him though!
Disadvantages:
1) My knowledge on modern fuel injected, and so called vehicles that run on artificial intelligence is next to nothing. But as I said, my passion to learn is a fast and determined.
2) There are many, so called ‘hot shops’ for vehicles more than you can count. Many specialising in particular genres of vehicles, be it bikes or cars. Be it bigger setups like X Torque who work on every bike that ever exists on the planet above 200cc. And must I say they may be a little on the expensive side, but totally worth it (they work on my HT RD 350), to smaller setups like Motomatic R&D, run by a good friend of mine in a 7 by 9 workshop right in the front of his exclusive paying guest apartment. Thanks to Karan, and a little help from me, we put the RD together from Scrap, for his love for my late brother, and may I add he didn’t take a single rupee from me, excluding spares, he also gave me some spares that he in surplus for my single owned 84’ HT owned by an gentleman from England, whom I bought from in 1998 and gifted to my late younger brother in 2004. After the sad demise of my brother, the RD was lying in shambles in Cochin. Of course, he is one of the guys who was lucky to be born with a platinum spoon, so he shot off to Timbuktu after he finished my RD. The very reason I’m getting my bikes final tweaks done at X Torque.
3) Ok, most of you must be wondering why the point mentioned above comes under the ‘disadvantages’ instead of the ‘advantages’ of me making the shift. Well the answer is simple. The point above clearly gives you an idea that the number of years I’ve spent in advertising has an adverse effect with my ‘once upon a time’ mechanical brilliance with vehicles. In simple words, I’ve lost touch with my proclaimed ‘hands-on’ experience with vehicles. Not that I can’t assemble a Cast Iron RE engine, adjust the tappets of Esteem and fine tune them. But am not as brilliant as I once used to be! I guess you get the point by now.
4) I am not well versed in fuel injected engines, leave alone ECU chips, turbo chargers et al. On a positive note, am well versed in headers, porting etc. though! Not to say that I don’t have no technical knowledge. That said, I have more than enough bookish knowledge.
Eventually, I’ve saved the worst for the last. One of the main reasons I need all your valuable suggestions. So here goes:
1) I am based in Bangalore and can’t relocate due to personal reasons.
2) I have absolutely no investment. Literally a totally empty bank account, thanks to Covid adding to my misery!
3) A couple of friends are ready to invest if the idea is feasible. But frankly, there are slim chances for the same. I may be wrong though. Guess I’ve got to start thinking more positive.
4) Is it feasible to work under someone, if the money I make is eventually enough for my bread and butter?
I guess enough of the ups and downs which leads up to my dilemma whether to make a career shift from ‘Advertising to Automobiles’!
Apologies once more for the long write up, for I need sincere advice to my question.
Our esteemed moderator Rudra Sen should be able to throw in some apt answers to my answers to my questions, for he’s seen both sides of the coin.
Off topic- Sir, hope you still own that brilliant black Ambassador with an Isuzu petrol engine and watering upholstery!
Keenly looking forward to your suggestions!
Cheers!
Aadhitya
Let me sign off with my rather minuscule garage, thanks to me having to dispose many vehicles due personal reasons, one of my favourite that was stolen by my ex-brother in law. But in no way am I embarrassed to say that i own only 3 bikes right now, for my motto remains- Always remain positive!
To sign off, what better way to do so with a couple pictures of my beloved rides, for which i'll write a seperate blog explaining the work that went through all of them. All are souped up up with all the bells and whistles mechanically. Who cares about looks anyway.
Over and out!
Hey welcome to the forum! Quite the life you have led so far. I’m not very experienced in the ways of the world but thought of giving you my 2p. You’re clearly over advertising so it’s time you look at something else. Having said that if you think advertising is past it’s heydays, then remember that the auto industry is facing it’s toughest time ever and the future is uncertain- are diesels going to be around, will electric cars make inroads, will batteries be swappable, etc. etc.? The good news though is there’s always a customer for an honest, straightforward, ethically run business... more-so if it’s a garage. Methinks you keep working in advertising to bring home the paychecks no matter how small. Give up your weekends for your passion. Start in a small area and do as much work as you can in terms of quantity and diversity. With word of mouth and leveraging your ad industry experience the business will slowly pick up. Start saving since you’ll need the cushion. With the team-bhp community behind you one day you’ll have a full fledged garage. I know I’ll stop for a cup of tea when I’m down there next. :thumbs up
I thought about your question for a while. Why not do BOTH? You have advertising experience and the auto industry (along with FMCG) is a Top 3 advertiser in India, as a category. I'm sure as an enthusiast, you will bring unique perspectives to the table.
Join a car manufacturer or work on a big auto account through an agency. That way, you'll combine both. It's also a lower risk, logical move.
May be I missed, or may be you didn't mention explicitly - is it the end of the road in your current career?
Also I read that you have low savings - 1) How will you cough up initial money to setup what ever you are thinking of 2) What will you do if your new venture doesn't produce enough money?
Contrary to what other's may suggest about moving to Automobile companies with a profile that is closer to advertising - I would not. Automobile companies are yes-man corporates run top-down by slaves (just like any other big corporate doing large numbers) and if you are creative sorts with free will you will become miserable within a month of joining any role.
I guess the points menioned below from my initial writeup addresses most of your doubts.
3) A couple of friends are ready to invest if the idea is feasible. But frankly, there are slim chances for the same. I may be wrong though. Guess I’ve got to start thinking more positive.
4) Is it feasible to work under someone, if the money I make is eventually enough for my bread and butter?
Cheers!
It looks like you're facing significant challenges in the advertisement industry which is migrating more towards social media. It is a natural change as kids spend less time on TV and more time on Instagram on their phones/tablets. From what I read, you're seeing a quantity v/s quality 'issue' and you're still a part of traditionalists who value quality over quantity. Also, your personal life seems to have dealt you a bad hand, so it is a double whammy.
Your true love seems to be restoring & maintaining vehicles that are considered "vintage" by 2020 standards.
I see two solutions:
1. You find a business partner(s) that is equally passionate and has $$$ to invest in a vintage vehicle repair shop specializing in maintenance & restorations. I really don't know how profitable this can be, but might be worth a shot in a place like Bangalore.
2. Bite the bullet and move on to digital advertising (with a move to advertising in the automotive world :) if possible)
Good luck :)
Sorry for the late reply. And not to mention your valuable inputs. I strained my right hand and usinge a crep bandage, so can't type with my left hand alone:crying. Please bear with me and I'll answer to all your replies. And please keep your suggestions coming in.
Cheers!
