Companies outsource this part of the business to advertisement agencies and the ‘creative team,’ working with the subjective art along with consumer psychology, brainstorms on strategies that will later take a shape of a jingle, a tagline or a seemingly lucrative scheme.[break]
“There are a lot of parameters that determine the quality of product promotion. For every client, we work closely with what the company believes in and what message it would like to disseminate, depending on the target market. There is also a budget constraint and media options, and the speculation that what is effective in print medium might not work for audio-visual media,” says Harshwardhan Shahani, CEO of Vichitra Advertising, who also looks after the audio-visual department of the creative team at his firm.
Balram Jana, Creative Director at Prisma Advertising, however, thinks that budget doesn’t hamper the quality of advertisement as long as you can make effective strategies staying within the constriction. With creative capacity, instead of the conventional platforms, new media can be utilized well.
The present scenario is either one of these – dubbing over foreign advertisements that Nepali consumers cannot relate to, and even the few of the domestic commercials seem/sound over the top, and instead of getting hold of us ,ends up being irritating or amusing, to say the least.
The trend of celebrity endorsements is slowly picking up in Nepal. Meanwhile, majority of the advertisements still lack creativity without compromising on the element of simplicity.
“Budgets are not necessarily always the constraining factors because innovative ideas thrive in spite of limited budgets. The quality of work is largely a team effort – the combined result of the vision of a client and solutions from the agency,” adds Suchitra Gurung, Senior Creative Director at JWT Thompson Nepal.
Advertisement makers need to do their homework well before starting out with an ad campaign, and the audience cannot be blamed. Apart from marketing and communication skills, and knowledge of creative tools, team members who can get into the shoes of a consumer and put on the creative hat at the same time can help make an effective commercial.
Most advertisement agencies hire art directors with commercial art background, art illustrators with specialized skills, and graphic designers. Educational background, as Balram Jana of Prisma says, isn’t mandatory. “We look for those who are self-taught, say, a graphic designer with no degree in that field but has been working for the last 10 years solely with the knowledge gained from Youtube tutorials and working with creative imaginations.”
“Primarily, we look for passion in the candidate. Passion for ideas that can solve marketing and communication problems is what drives our creative team. To be able to put those ideas into functioning solutions, a background in design and copy is crucial. The creative department consists of copywriters, art directors and designers who work together on conceptualizing ideas,” says Gurung of Thompson Nepal, adding,” The audiovisual medium requires proficiency and understanding of the film and radio media to be able to effectively create ideas that work for that medium, and hence a study in the same line is essential to get started. Ultimately, any course you choose only prepares you to step into the field of choice. Succeeding in it is all about passion.”
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