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Tag: Mohammed Khan

  • Theatreperson, creative, writer, litterateur, he was an advertising man with a reputation, writes Prabhakar Mundkur

    Sylvester daCunha – one of the Original Mad Men

    Sylvester da Cunha
    Sylvester daCunha. Picture source: unknown/via Twitter

     

    By Prabhakar Mundkur

     

    daCunha Associates, Elysium Manson, Walton Road. The address said.

     

    The year was 1977. I was desperate to get a job, having outlived the meagre pocket money of Rs 120 that my mother gave me. So desperate that I had applied to an ad in the Times of India for which I clearly didn’t qualify. Those days the recruitment ads in the Times could get creative. The ad said “Account Excecutive with 5 year’s experience needs daCunha’s”. Most of my friends in advertising had already discouraged me from joining the profession. When I asked them why, they had told me that I wasn’t a bastard, which you needed to be if you had to be successful in advertising. That intrigued me. I wanted to be in it nevertheless.

     

    So, I wrote a smart letter to Sylvie that said we were looking for the same thing. He was looking for the five years experience backwards in time, and I was looking for the five years forward. For some strange reason that ploy worked. I got a call from Sylvie. And after a successful interview he hired me at the princely sum of Rs 1200 per month. My joy knew no bounds.

     

    Sylvie was a hard taskmaster. I remember he once found a typo in an artwork (a colon instead of a semicolon) and in a rage he pierced his pencil through my artwork. These were the days of hot metal typesetting. Another day would be lost to make another artwork. But a lesson would be learned for life. Never ever let a typo go through. I was forced to learn the proof-readers marks and symbols right away. Something I am sure Account Executives who followed five years later wouldn’t know.

     

    My media training happened in a car. One evening Sylvie asked me to learn the circulation and rates of all the major newspapers in the country. The next morning unfortunately my scooter broke down right in front of his house on Peddar Road. Sylvie kindly offered me a lift, which I accepted little knowing that my media test would start in the car. What is the circulation of Daily Thanthi, he asked. And what is its rate? I was a little shattered but passed the media test successfully. Basically, I had joined the Marines of advertising. I couldn’t have been trained any better.

     

    Looking back, Sylvie was one of the original Mad Men in India. He grew up in an era when advertising people were copywriters, art directors, film-makers, media persons and strategy planners all rolled into one. He was a very talented writer and had made his reputation in an agency called ASP (short for Advertising and Sales Promotion Company). Those days it was one of the best agencies in town. Boasting of names like Usha Katrak, Shyam Benegal, Prahlad Kakkar and many others. Sylvie left to form his own agency daCunha Associate and took along some of ASP’s accounts including Amul Butter. We had a slew of blue chip accounts that included Lakme, Nutramul, Calcium Sandoz and Britannia Biscuits to name a few.

     

    Sylvie was one of the last advertising men with courage (the others were my uncle Bal Mundkur and Mike Khanna of JWT). One day, I went to Britannia with some creative work, and the client was rude enough to get angry and he then threw the layouts on the floor of his office. I was shattered. I went back to the office to relate the story to Sylvie who was furious. He asked his secretary Patsy to get him Julian Scott, the Chairman of Britannia on the phone. As I was leaving Sylvie’s office, I overheard Sylvie tell Julian that he wanted to resign the account because his brand manager had insulted his account executive by throwing the layouts on the floor.

     

    They don’t make men like him anymore. Theatre person, creative, writer, litterateur, he was an advertising man with a reputation. And he was respected by the best people in the business of those days be it Simone Tata, Dr Verghese Kurien, Julian Scott and many others.

     

    I owe my gratitude to him. For getting me ready for the world of advertising. I was proud to have emerged from daCunha Associates, an agency that even had the great Mohammed Khan before me.

     

    Go well, Sylvie. I love you. You will always have a special place in my heart!

     

    Prabhakar MundkurPrabhakar Mundkur is a veteran advertising professional, a prolific musician and an even more prolific commentator who has worked across continents. He is currently holidaying in Canada, and wrote this tribute in the wee hours of the day to a man he loves much, and he owes so much to.

     

     

  • This was the fourth edition of Rediffusion Red Talks, a series of talks by Rediffusion alumni

    Ex-Rediffer Rana Barua speaks at Red Talks

    By Our Staff

     

    Rana Barua was the guest at the fourth Rediffusion Red Talks, a series of talks by Rediffusion alumni.

     

    Barua who worked at Rediffusion from 2000 to 2005 as Business Development Director reminisced his days at the agency, where he learnt to put in his very best in making pitches that earned him the title of ‘Son of a Pitch’ amongst his colleagues! Barua said his most memorable pitch at Rediffusion was for Tetley tea in Kolkata in the early 2000s.

     

    Barua’s summed up his work belief in three key words: Innovate, Excel and Disrupt. These he said helped him most in his professional life. He believes in working like an entrepreneur, and building a challenger archetype by constantly re-inventing and challenging himself. Goliaths have never scared him, he said.

     

    Rana Barua added other winning mantras during his talk. 1. Play to win 2. Give back to society and give back to the industry 3. Keep learning and keep listening.

     

    Earlier speakers at Red Talks have been Mohammed Khan, beauty and wellness expert Geeta Rao, and cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle – all former Rediffusion employees.

     

    Rana Barua was introduced at Red Talks by his wife and fellow Rediffusion alumni Shavon Barua, former COO of OMD-PHD, who spoke about how they were both at Rediffusion twenty years ago. She mentioned how Barua has not only been an inspiring leader but has also spearheaded gender equality in the advertising world.

     

    Said Rediffusion Managing Director Dr. Sandeep Goyal: “Our biggest give-back to the advertising industry at Rediffusion is the legion of leaders who head various top agencies today, including Rana Barua. We are proud of them and welcome their coming back to the agency to be a part of our 50 Years celebrations”.

     

  • Senior professionals reminisce about something that dramatically changed their outlook to work… and life

    New: Life’s Lessons | Anil Kakar: Thank you, Mohammed

    Anil Kakar

    And on this third Thursday of the month, we start a new monthly series with senior professionals and captains from the industry reminiscing about something that was told to them by their bosses, mentors or colleagues that dramatically changed their outlook to work… and life.

     

    It was the summer of ’96. The time was 11:02 am. There I was with my head propped up on my hands, in the Enterprise office, aged 21 and a half, staring at the blank page on my computer with barely concealed disdain. It was time for Mohammed to walk into the office any moment now. We were already way past the material deadline. Panic sets in. The Production Manager walks straight up to me and yells, “Since you were not done with the copy, I’ve kept the artwork on hold. Is it ready yet?” More panic. My mind was blank, just like the page staring back at me from my computer. After all, this was an ad I had rewritten 216 times, no less.

     

    In comparison, a resignation letter seemed much easier to write. Looking at my impending fate in the agency, I decided to quickly write one. Just in case.

     

    Mohammed Khan

    I quickly added a new page on my computer and I started typing: ‘Dear Mohammed…’

     

    Gosh, where does one start? In the time I had spent at Enterprise, I had learnt that every piece of communication could be turned into a conversation piece. Yes, even a resignation letter.

     

    Right. Delete page. Start over again. Change background to black. Change typeface to Goudy Old Style. Change point size to 16. Print.

     

    There it was. At last. A crisp, black print-out fluttering with the pages of my writing pad. The letter gave me much-needed relief. In a matter of minutes, I felt like a whole new person.

     

    Unfortunately, the feeling didn’t last long. At least, not until I pulled out and looked at the print-out again.

     

    White type on black? I must have lost my marbles. The copy was totally illegible. Well, if my aim was to get sacked, this would have worked wonderfully well, but not before I was minced and grilled like meat. Damn.

     

    Change the background to white. Set the copy again. Wait a minute. Suddenly, the whole layout looks imbalanced. Adjust spaces on top. Still too much imbalanced negative space at the bottom. Increase point size to 17. Nah, let’s make it 16.7. That looks just right. Place a picture in the centre. The picture is too wide for the page size. I crop the picture. Something doesn’t feel right. Mohammed’s words come darting back at me; ‘You have no right to crop a picture, you’re playing around with a photographer’s vision’. Right. Apologies. Control Z. Should I expand the font, instead? There, it’s stretched to 125% and sits comfortably. Wait. This is not the way the typographer envisioned his typeface, either. Control Z. And so it went on. And on. And on. 3 dots in the headline? Blasphemy. An exclamation mark? Instant death. A visual of fish served on a square plate? Annihilation. What about a headline? Damn, I just wrote 216 which didn’t make the cut.

     

    Yet, after an hour of careful deliberation, I came to the conclusion that anything is better than leaving an agency which had taught me everything at the start of my career. Yes, even the 217th headline.

     

    At that moment, I disappeared. I hopped across to a seedy bar and grabbed a beer in the middle of the afternoon. Perhaps, my first ‘afternoon’ tipple which started a trend.

     

    I wrote headlines on paper napkins and headed straight back to the office. I walked in to Mohammed’s room, my hands still trembling with anticipation. He lit a cigarillo and sat on his chair. I showed him a set of headlines which he kept reading over and over again, intently.

     

    Finally, he looked up at me with a wrinkled forehead and asked me angrily, “What on earth is this?”

     

    “Headlines”, was my dumb reply. Dumbstruck, I almost reached for my resignation letter.

     

    He turned around and said, “How clever of you, I can see that. Why couldn’t you write these earlier?”

     

    Relieved, I slipped the resignation letter back into my pocket and asked him what was wrong with the 216 headlines I had written earlier.

     

    “Well, on the 217th attempt you wrote for no one else but yourself.”

     

    Thank you, Mohammed. That was perhaps the most important lesson I’ve learnt in the 20 years that I have been in the business.

     

    Anil Kakar is founder of Gasoline, an independent brand communications agency based in Mumbai. He has worked for close to 20 years with agencies such as Leo Burnett, Enterprise Nexus, Ambience Publicis, SSC&B Lintas and Percept. Anil worked with Mohammed Khan at Enterprise Nexus for four years between 1996-2000. Has he been in touch with Mr Khan and when was the last time he met him? “Unfortunately, I haven’t been in touch with him in the recent past.  The last I bumped into him was a year ago at Palladium. :)”

     

    Compiled by Meghna Sharma