 At a time when doctors, scientists, researchers, healthcare experts across the globe are struggling to develop a vaccine, Baba Ramdev very confidently walked up to a stage and spoke about coronary which was loud, you know, widely reported as a cure for the much dreaded corona virus. Now it snowballed into a controversy, post which Patanjali was pulled up by the Ayush Ministry but exactly a week later he was told that he was allowed to sell the drug, the kid has an immunity booster if not a cure. Patanjali inadvertently ended up getting a lot of publicity for manufacturing an immunity booster and in the process it has managed to put the spotlight back on whether controversies really help in selling a brand. And to discuss that today on Creative Talks, we have some very well-known phrases from the industry. Let me start from the senior most, one of the most respected ad-makers in the country, Prahlad Kakar, who's also the founder of Genesis Films. I don't think there's anyone who doesn't remember Pepsi, nothing official about it and made by him. I think which is also your favourite Prahlad. No, no, but excuse me, I mean, what do you mean by respected? I mean, you know, nobody will believe anything that I say from now on. If you call me respected, if you turn around and say yes, you know, blunt, forthright, politically incorrect, yes, respected. Okay, so in that case we'll make peace with politically incorrect Prahlad Kakar. Also we have Manish Bhatt, founder, chair of MNC Sachi, who by his own admission has made a host of controversial ads. We have Santosh Paddy, CCO and co-founder Taproot Densu, whose agency Taproot is still I think held as a benchmark by many ad-men who are trying to venture out on their own. And lastly we have Shambit Mohanti, head of Creative South at McCann World Group. If your last image of Pierce Brosnan was that of holding a pan masala can, then you need to thank him for it. Yes, he could never live down because he didn't know what the product was. So welcome to the show and before we start there, let me tell you, we are receiving this discussion live on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn and we will be happy to take any questions on any of these platforms. So coming back, this is clearly not the first time that Patanjali has been in the eye of the storm. Baba Ramdev and the company have had a long history of making really absurd claims to cure a bunch of diseases like HIV, cancer, quote unquote, I think cure homosexuality and even help women conceive a male child. So this appears to be a identity tested formula to feed into the fear of the people. The question is, will it really work for the brand? Pralad, let me start with you. What do you think? See, what happens with somebody like Baba Ramdev is unless he tries it on himself and proves as a test in the market, whether he takes the medicine orally or anally, we don't really know because he hasn't said how you take the medicine. But whatever it is, if one hand he takes the COVID medicine, on the other hand, a doctor injects him with the COVID, what do you call viral and then 14 days later, if he's still alive and not wheezing his guts out, then we say, wow, we found a cure. I mean, it's a very simple, before and after tried and tested advertising. What do you call stunt? Is that you try it on yourself? Why turn on, make a claim, find 500 people have died and then everybody's suing you and then go underground in a woman's clothes, thinking with a beard and say, I'm the bearded lady from the circus. Midnight crackdown, yes. Exactly. I mean, when he started his career with one controversy, which is when he tried to be a Gandhian and Gandhi took a latte from the British cops when he was going on the salt path and Baba Ramdev did one better. He dressed up as one of his women and was trying to turn on and pass himself out as the bearded lady from the circus. Okay, that was innovative. Shambit, let me come to you. You're the youngest sitting on the panel. What do you think? Do you think this is going to work for Patanjali? See, Patanjali has always believed in this maximum of fake it before you make it, right? I think they have never believed in doing proper, at least that's my believe that, you know, they don't believe in doing R&D. In fact, they treat the customer as a guinea pig. So we launched the product first, let the customers try it out. And if the people like it and if they take a shine to it, hey, we have already made a dent in the market and will continue to grow in that category. So that has always been the approach, you know, sort of to jump down a cliff and grow their wings on the way down kind of a thing. But I think what has happened over a period of time with Patanjali as a brand, it has lost a lot of its equity because of the spurious quality that they put on the table, right? Bang on. Okubar is clearly not a moron. He will try your product once and twice, but after that, he's going to reject it outright. So with Patanjali and especially with, I think they're just trying to cash in on this entire paranoia around COVID-19, and which is why they launched Coronil to my mind. I think the word which defines it is nil. It's going to do nil for people who have contracted COVID or who are afraid of contracting COVID because this is just an eye-wash to my mind. It is just an attempt to ride this bandwagon of fear and paranoia and distress and make money. So I don't think it is going to really be something which consumers are going to take a shine to. But end of the day, I think we are a nation of 1.3 billion people that are enough and more gullible people out there who would want to give it a try. So actually, you never know. What about you Manish? Do you think it's all noise and it's not really going to help the brand? So I think I'll try to, even though I'm creative person, I'll try to make a little, try to answer like a marketing guy. So what I understood is that actually awareness is something which such strengths can manage. But building a brand and a sustainable image is impossible through the shortcuts of advertising. I remember I was an Oguilveian. I think that time my boss used to ban me from using toilets. Some of these cliches like in visuals, like there's the sex or something, some condom, something. So there are, I think a lot of juniors used to come up with an idea using Kudampande, Sunny Leone, this, that and all. And just to, so those things are absolutely, you know, kind of to do a fly-by-night sort of a, sort of a, sort of a buzz. You can do that, but life is longer than, brand life is much longer than this is one of them. And I think over a period of time, these things will, will not work. However, there are, he's more credible than this Kutpat and Kutpat ke Baba. He's a little bit more credible and I think that's the, there are enough people who are the God-believed and a lot of those things. There are Tantra, Mantra, Kala, Jadu, etc. In that, I think these things obviously are going to cut through and he's, he's much more organized and systematic. I think we have lots of population. You know, I'd like to come to you also Paddy. You know, it's a known fact that Patanjali is struggling with market share losses in many, many FMCG categories at this point. Would you say a controversial cure for COVID was just the magic bullet it needed at this point? I think I completely agree with all these three guys. I think they echoed each other and I feel a little bit of credit has to be given to him because I think the entire brand wasn't built purely on controversies. I think there was something good about that brand where they spotted that India, who was the creator of Ayurveda, needs to be given back. But then after that, I think he didn't have the vision to go to the right people. Today, I think whatever we do, you need to have right partners. If I have a script, I'll go to the world to make it magical. Hence, he never ever got the right partner to do justice to his core idea. He never came to the right side of people like us to take the brand forward. And that's where I think he absolutely messed it up because it has a potential. It had spotted the right ingredients. It had spotted the right target audience. And those values were there. But as I said, I think he didn't have the vision to come to people like us to take it to another level. Or there were many set of people. I think he was too greedy to keep the product to himself. I mean, a brand who is launching right from ghee to jeans. Where do you stand? Exactly. Where do you stand and what kind of strategy is this? I think I have heard there are a lot of fabulous product in the lineup. He should have just concentrated on those. His honey did magically well initially. His soaps did well. Oil did well. But they should have just concentrated on the packaging. That sucks. It never appeals to me. If they had put a little bit of effort, energy and thinking behind it, I would have gone and bought it. I would have become a fan of it. So he took a lot of things for granted and hence I think the brand never flew. And it's backfiring now because that's the power of communication. That's the power of strategy. That's the power of the visionary, which I think he never had. It's kind of become reduced to, you know, he's become the controversy favorite child to a very large extent. More than the brand that he's known for. I think that's what it has done to him. You know, we don't want to limit the discussion to Patanjali. So I want to ask someone who has been there and done that, basically create shockwaves in a rather drab pan masala market with none other than James Bond. Shambit, you brought in Pierce Brosnan for a Pan Bahar ad all the way from Hollywood. Now I know I'm digressing here but I really want to know how that even happened. I know there's a lot of controversy that particular act and I would consider that particular piece of work as an act and not so much an ad because we never set out to create something controversial. It was more of a marketing ploy, I would say, a disruptive strategy in a market where Pan Bahar as a brand was probably fourth or fifth and number one was this brand, Rajniganda. And it happened to become controversial because of the nature of the product and also because of course a former Bond was endorsing it. That's something that nobody had ever imagined would happen. Now I think Pan Masala is a product that inherently suffers from an inferiority complex. You know, there is very little glamour associated with having Pan Masala as opposed to cigarettes or alcohol and which is why I think celebrity endorsements play a really major role in making it look appealing to the masses. But from the outset I think we are very clear that we didn't want a Bollywood celeb. I mean we were like let's go big or go home. So which is why my suggestion was that you know if you have to do it then let's do it with a global star and at that time of course Daniel Craig was already the new Bond and Chris Brosnan was very much fresh in the minds of people as Bond, you know and Pan Masala is usually consumed by a slightly older TG and all most of people I think people identified with him as Bond. So on one hand you had the competition which had Manoj Bajpayee, Ajay Devgan Sharukhevan endorsing Pan Masala and on the other you had James Bond who is an international icon endorsing a local brand. So absolutely I think it really created a lot of shockwaves rather but the impact it also had on sales was unprecedented. I mean the brand grew by almost 20-25% that year. But in that case though the brand association was a little difficult to make because you know nobody would imagine a Pierce Brosnan having Pan Masala. So when you created that were you ready for the kind of merciless trolling that was supposed to follow? Everywhere you saw you had people slamming the ads. So was that kind of okay with the brand when it actually happened? I think that is so much that was I would say a move which was thought out that you know I know that there was some negative publicity and I think people who consume Pan Masala comprise a very small percentage of social media. So that really didn't affect us because we are in a world where there's too much competition for attention today. I mean that's why we I think controversial ads are becoming more and more commonplace because there's an attention deficit and we are in a world today where any publicity is good publicity. So that's the way we looked at it and I think the sales also spoke for itself. So it really took... So for us we are not worried about what the PNGs and the unilivers of the world are going to do because the competition for Pan Bahar was Rajnikandha, it was Pan Parag, it was the Wimals of the world. And in that particular category it worked like gangbusters. I know for a fact that it had other Pan Masala manufacturers re-looking at the strategy of celebrity endorsement after we took on P.S. Brosnan. So I would say it did what it was supposed to do. I think you'll also find support in Mr. Bhatt who's himself made a wide range of controversial ads. Name one, I remember the Sunny Leone ad with Alokna, the anti-smoking one. Mr. Bhatt, the one where you know at that time I remember the whole Alokna, you know, sanskari me was doing the rounds and then you showed him with Sunny Leone. I mean that was supposed to be a down route right controversial. So what was going on and you're at that point? So I think, see controversy is one of the things which probably kind of you know, I mean there are lots of things probably can connect with the consumer. I think in that case if I can remember it was not about create a controversy. It was about to, I mean the casting was done to create a kind of a, the subject, the main idea is quantifying the life which we lose with the one cigarette. We tried, we got the data saying 11 minutes. And that 11 minutes after quantifying, if we say people you will lose 11 minutes, they're not, I mean many, many brands and even government has tried to tell people that you'll die and you'll die by 11 minutes or whatever. It did not really cut ice as much probably. So we thought that if we say 11 minutes of your life aspiration or a desire or as an ambition, that gets truncated because of a one cigarette. And if I create a story around that and then we take, you know, your aspiration could be Sunny Leone and your person who can give permission is as good as Alokna, who's a good actor also. Obviously his backstory, when we use a star, you also use his, you endorsing him. So his backstory is also come to play. So it's a contrasting theory. And then you put Deepak Dobriyal who's doing a great acting as a patient and then his desire being completed by meeting Sunny Leone and that gets truncated because of a cigarette. Probably it is a correct casting rather than controversy strategy. We did not make anything do something really, really objectionable in the commercial. So it was well received. It was one of the better viral probably our industry and scarecrow did. And I think it worked in a level where everything, there was a patient on cinema and in contrast there was an entertaining act which was coming in a different, you know, weaving a different threads to the consumer's mind and connecting to this and become a buzz in a smoking room. I think that was the intention. It was not an intention or not a controversy strategy at all. Makes sense. You know, I'd like to bring you in Prahlad. You know, this is the clearest thing an advertiser can do is bank opposite of what everyone else is doing, even if it gets negative publicity. Do you agree? No, not totally, but I'll tell you what it is. See, negative publicity is a very strange phenomenon today. You have what is called in our society today fringe loonies. Now fringe loonies in my term is ultra-right, ultra-left wing or ultra-communal. Okay. Okay. They form five to 10% of your population mix, but they actually share of mind and share of voice is almost 90%. Okay. Because they're the noisiest people you can ever imagine on Earth because they're trolling, they're doing that, they're doing that. They're like, and nobody particularly likes what they say. So the easiest way to chair a controversy if you want one without what you call putting everybody off because of the controversy and still have your brand being well is to chair other fringe loonies. So when you chair the fringe loonies with something rational, but with what they don't believe in or what they've made a statement about, then come out in force and they'll come after your product or your advertising or whatever else it is and try and get it back depending on who the power in the center is. So don't turn around and chair the right wing, right now because you'll get back. Okay. Moment in stake. But if you chair the communal loonies or the left wing loonies or whoever the loonies are, who are slightly fanatical and about 3 to 5% of the population, they make so much noise about it that even if you've not seen the ad, you'll want to see the ad and say, what are you doing in the show? What is so desperate about it? Now the point is 95% of the population when they see the ad and they see who the but end of it is with you. That's right. And the 5% of the loonies are screaming their heads off and taking about a share of voice in 95%. Whereas the guys actually approve it or are sitting on the fence or don't have an opinion or whatever else it is, are not saying a word. Right. At the most they'll say like. So there's one little thing, like. And the fringe loonies will say, we don't like. Yeah, I won't. And then we don't like. But you must understand that the fringe loonies are only 3% of your population. And so much noise that it's a really interesting game to chair them. You know, pro up the little shits. So that they make the noise for you. And then if they make the noise for you, the media picks it up and everything. It becomes a multiplier. Now you take tough shoes. Okay. There was an ad made for tough. The Millens-Soman ad. Right. If you look at the ad, it was really aesthetically beautiful. There is nothing that you could see in it. Except the fact that it was actually suggesting nudity. Okay. So everybody came out, you know, all the right wing, all the shifts and all that came out. All the what do you call right wing conservatives came out. All screamed and shouted. We were on a debate on television. And you know, at the end of the day, what happened was that there was this lady who was ahead of the Mila Mandel. Who said, When there was talk, basically anything is bad. Things like that, all that. They are corrupting our youth. So I told them, Madam, Millens-Soman, and Madhu Saheb, God has made them for a long time. So they did anything and they didn't see anything. So I stood in that pose the same way and went back. Because we were ugly. She was so offended. You have no idea that she didn't want to end the debate. She said you beat me outside. I'll show you. She was so offended that I called her ugly. I said no, but I'm also ugly. You were lucky you didn't get a case on you. That was very, very early. Then there was that coffee ad. You know the bitch. Malai ka. Malai ka. It became extremely controversial. Those products ended up getting banned for these ads, right? I don't think the coffee worked very well because they took off actually. It went up by about 200%. But the good thing that came out of it is the two models, you didn't know each other before the ad got married. Interesting. The way I see it is like there is this first kind of ad where the agenda is to create an uproar or controversy. And the second perhaps is like maybe the surf excel ad, ranglai sung ad which was managed to promote communal harmony. But as soon as I think it was out, the right wing, the Hindu nationalists came up in arms against it for weeks. Which body would you say has more chances of succeeding? I think something similar happened with your Airtel ad, right? You didn't make it with the intention the female boss ad. That ad actually succeeded because 95% of the population said it's a great ad. And 5% of the fringe loonies said it's a horrible ad. Take it off. What do you mean? So they exposed themselves and their feeble mindedness and their small thinking. The majority of these countries who took a dip stick at that time actually loved the ad. Safari, do you agree? Yeah, I completely agree. See, no clients ever comes to you and say the brief never says, I want a controversial ad. Okay, so there is a particular brief and you're trying to solve a problem. And while solving a problem, you may or may not create something that may create ruffle in the society. There's always a need that we need. We don't need a TVC these days. We need a viral. We need something that will go, I mean spread like a wildfire. So this is what the need of every client is today. So and if you look at history, no brand, no single brand is built on controversy. I think you get an opportunity to do something that is topical and relevant like what Manish and guys did with Aloknath or many other things that we keep on doing. So I'll give example of runner like a runner need protein, carbs, vitamins, carbohydrate and fiber, everything. Similarly, a brand needs I think a variety of things and I think conversation I wouldn't call as controversy. I would call it much lighter and say conversation. We need conversation around every work that we create because there is a need from every brand to create something really, really moving. Which again, I'm putting a word to it, which is like a viral. Hence it has to start a conversation. The more you start people start talking about because today I think most majority of our society love talking love giving opinion. And the more you open it, the more it gets resolved. And that's exactly what happened in case of Airtel. We have never designed. In fact, we have given her as a stature of a boss. He was ahead of the office, but some stupid, some idiot from somewhere said, why are you making her go home and cook? No, she's doing by choice. She's not by been forced by husband to go home and cook for him. So why are you not seeing the positive side? The positive side is she is the boss. So we are celebrating her. We are celebrating the community. So that is a positive thing for you guys to think about. So again, I'll try to make one point. If you're standing for something, if you want to really do social, I think a lot of the social ads. I think Pepsi globally did the kennel general one where they have to pull out in fact today's time. So are you relevant in that category of Pepsi standing for something like that? I don't think it's right or the tonality wasn't right. So we have to choose what are you relevant? Are you relevant for whichever category you are standing for? Even if you're doing a social work, I always feel it should be relevant to your category. If you are doing something in the area of food and beverages, please stand for hunger in the world. Please stand for something that is relevant rather than standing for something that absolutely no relevance. Because there are many brands in the world that will be relevant to some issues and hence appropriate. Like I'll give example of steelfree.com, which was done I think 20 years back. Droga Fi is one of the first celebrated work where they actually took the plane that looked like Air Force One and painted steelfree.com. And that really went viral. And as soon as the youth who went on the website, they saw that it's a fashion website where the owner was standing for anti-gravity law, which the president has imposed. I thought that was absolutely relevant. It was the most controversial ad. Many people saw it. What the hell is this? Have the president's plane been hijacked, IV secured, blah, blah, blah, blah. Many things happen. But I think the stance, the message that the brand gave there was absolutely relevant. Hence whatever we do, whether a demo of the product or something standing for the social or doing a controversial conversation. You have to be relevant. Once you are relevant, I think you will win the race. You know, you spoke about something interesting. You said no client will ever come to an agency asking you to make a controversial ad. Does that really happen? Shombit Manish, you made these ads, I think a couple of times and have agencies being asked to make viral controversial ads. There's a thin line between the two, honestly. I think there's a, I would say the differences between the word viral and controversial, right? What is viral may not be controversial, but what is controversial will probably be viral, right? But I don't think any client ever say that, hey, give me a controversial ad. People obviously want to steer away from controversy. Nobody wants to be controversial child, so to say, or the brand to be associated with it. I think brands become or communication becomes controversial, not because they set out to be controversial, but because something about it has been picked up by someone who has found something offensive about it or something to ridicule about it. And it just, you know, grows from there like a. You'll always find some fringe lunatic who has his own idea of right and wrong, who stands on the pulpit and screams his head off and media helps him. Media is the biggest culprit of them all because they actually love controversy and they will work out and they'll claim it and they'll keep it alive long after it's gone because of PRP. And I think, I think, for example, what Patty gave an example of the Kendall Jenner in the Pepsi ad, I don't think they ever intended it to be controversial. Of course it became controversial and it ended up creating a huge backlash because it was so insensitive, right? And ultimately Pepsi retracted it. So of course, in the heart of hearts, every client wants that the ad should go viral, but for the right reasons and not for the wrong reasons. But the thing is that is not really in anyone's hands. You never know which way the cookie was going to crumble. You know, that reminds me. I think there was this one interesting ad you made, Mr. Bhatt, the one on yellow pages where there was this child. I mean, there's this husband who's looking for a divorce lawyer in the yellow pages as soon as he sees his son who's very dark and he and his wife are relatively fair. So, you know, who would in their right mind think that the Tata would buy an idea like this? So tell me, you know, even if brands are big enough, you know, established ones, are they also keen on capturing viewers' attention with ads like these? So we did this ad in 2001 or 2002. We also got Duryodhan Award, apart from Abbey's and other awards. That is for gender insensitivity, right? It's a very simple joke and I don't think that was anything to do with the races or anything. It's just that it happens to be a dark child. I mean, obviously, it was not intended to attack at the receipt. I think we come to the first question that does the client tell you to make it viral? Yes, they do say, but commonality between controversy and viral and love, it happens. What does it mean? It doesn't happen. Viral also happens. Controversy also happens and love also happens. So it happens. Basically, nobody intends to. See, I think if you just fundamentally see, advertising is all about enhancing the product stories. Now, if sometimes product has a great story, we will enhance that. But sometimes product does not have great story. We still have to make bad product look good in the public perception. And for which we need to make our communication should evoke 9 out 9. Right? In that, people do not say anything for the race, but there's one controversial race there, which has been utilized very rarely in literature also. Which is Vibhatsaras, which is discussed, which actually very rarely used. In Ramcharitmanas Manas, Tulsidas had a Doha, I had removed it. In that, it is written that vishta pui radhir kachhada, varda hi kabahun upal bahu chhada. Kabhi vishta kabhi khun, kabhi baal, haddhiya barsa tata, megnath uske usme. All these are varnan. See the writing of mantas. Khushwan Singh, Vishnu Sahani and lot of writers have written in literature in this discussion on Vibhatsaras, the many side stories of the partition time has been written like that. But it has been less used. Advertising also sometimes used this out of 9, that's the one. But we actually walk near the thin line. On one side, we are a client or the world says push the boundary. When the boundary goes beyond that, people come. In that case, tell me in many cases you managed to shock the consumer. Yes, but is that the same as convincing a consumer to buy your product? Otherwise it just becomes a case of you provided some entertainment for your audience and the brand got its 10 minutes in the spotlight and then you probably won an award. And then that's it. Who cares about long term brand building? Does that happen? This stunt won't lead to brand building at all. It just covers the awareness part of it. The affinity with the brand cannot be like you can't have a continued stunts only. I think Prahlad and Paddy and all also should answer this part. When you want awareness, like points to yellow pages was a very low interest area for most people. So it wasn't that you're trying to sell the yellow pages. You're trying to sell the fact that it's convenient. You can find anything in it. And that awareness was very necessary and they're not going to run campaigns for the rest of their lives trying to build the brand and the value of the brand. What is it? It's a very, very quick reference, what do you call yellow pages where you can find anything in it? So if you have one really viral or slightly controversial ad, they've solved the problem because then everybody is talking about that particular thing and you're talking about yellow pages. So when you turn yellow pages involved in a controversy, then who is yellow pages? What is yellow pages? Yellow pages is a glossary of people or professionals who you can find in yellow pages. Enough. It's done its job. I'll just add a bit, Neeta. I think things were very different 15-20 years back. Times have become very sensitive, as I said, because of digital medium, because of internet, because of social media. People are just waiting to create issue out of nothing. There are millions of people who are just sitting there as Prahlad kept on saying, just to make issue out of nothing. And if today Manish was given that same brief, I think they will think twice before doing that ad. Hence, I think those were the time where many things were allowed and hence we, a lot of we did many things that was beyond our imagination. And thanks to many times we have got away with it. If we could do those things, I think we'll be killed today. I mean, we'll be killed literally. I think there is a big religious body and I've gone through many, I'll just give one example. We have gone through many, especially I have gone through many. I think it was second year of my advising career. I was in Mudra. And my school friend was a DTDC career franchisee. So he said, I have to give a small black and white ad in the publication. So just do one type of thing and give. I said, there is an opportunity, because being a kid, when you're junior, everything is an opportunity for you. I said, no, let's do something good. So I convinced him to do an ad where Hanuman is carrying the Sanjeevani mountain. And we said, delivery clear career voice. It got released in midday. It got released in some Navakal. And in the evening he get a call from two wounds saying, how the hell can you do this? So they landed at his house. We used to stay in a chawl. Okay, it's a one plus one chawl. So then he called me on my landline in Mudra. I came at 7.30. When these idiots saw with orange tikka and all saying, both of them are in the chaddi. What will they pay? What will they do? In a flat 20 minutes, they said, sorry, say a letter and run from here. Now if there was a big brand, they would have milked it. And believe me, I have gone through many such incidents where these guys, if there is a brand, they will expect a big chunk of money from you. And if you're doing a social thing, then they will say, do a lot of tando and they will take a sorry note from you just to keep it in their file. I think this has been practicing because there are many religious body who survive only on this. Survive only looking at finding things. I think there are many religious body from either side, from all the sides. I think because the industry body is little weak, hence we have been attacked. We don't have many guards. We are not united. Aski has taken some strong stance on many things, but still we are not united. The fact is the kind of liberty, the kind of liberty that Bollywood gets. We don't even get 10 percent. If there is a condom added in between 10-20 seconds, then we get bug out. Whereas after the condom added, there are no rips in that film. But they are given that liberty. It's the same child, it's the same father, it's the same family who is watching that as well. So why the hell we have been penalized for yours? And I think it's a sensitive issue where we have to come together. Somebody has spotted saying, there is no unity in it. Those who want it, why? We are a 70,000 crore industry. Why can't we come together? Why can't we put some freedom? Because we are in the field of creativity and every creative field needs certain freedom. There are brand guys who are very sensitive about what we do. They put a lot of filters. Some idiots come and say, this is wrong, this has to be done in a particular way. Sorry, we are matured enough in our society as citizens. We understand our consumers. Why are you so sensitive about many things that you are not sensitive about Bollywood? As I said, this is because we are not united. I mean, look at Ashok Pandit. He stands for everything in Bollywood. He's a president of Bollywood body and whatever issue he just goes head on. I wish we can hire him. Deepin Pandit too. That's an important thing. That's food for thought I think there. And I think Shambit wanted to leave the discussion. He had told me he wants to. Do you want to still? I've got five minutes. There is one last question I want to ask you. Taking out from what Paddy has said, there is a section of population out there who is trying to create truckers and then there is a genuine section out there who just takes offence. Any ad technically which is made a little ahead of its time becomes controversial. I think long back there was this Manisha Lamber ad for Femina which was speaking about widow remarriages. It didn't really go down well with the audience. And there are a couple of other examples also like that. So what happens to the brand now? But does it have to worry about antagonizing the loyal but conservative set or does it look forward to getting more people on board as consumers? Prelad, do you want to take that? The point is that as I said you have your fringe loonies and some of them are extortionists. You have what you call an organization in Bangalore called Ram Seine. You remember them? The Valentine's Day Ruckus creators, right? They blackened some guy's face because he was dating a girl. What do you expect to do, date a boy? And then they went into oblivion because everybody came out and started sending them pink chuddies or some shit like that. There was a huge movement where they were posting them pink chuddies from all over the country. So they went slightly underground. But do you know that India today did an expose on them where they had become just a lumpen body and they said, you can hire us for so much money. We will do this for so much money. We will do that for so much money. We will create a controversy for you. Now, you know, I mean, if you have bodies like this, which affiliate themselves with right wing, left wing, top wing, bottom wing, and they have got fathers to protect them, they can sell their services for anything because the media picks it up. Now, I've always been telling media this, that when you think somebody has got an angle into it and they're not doing it out of genuine concern for the large mass of people who actually enjoy what you're doing, then you might actually blacklist them in the sense to black them out. Don't give them free publicity because the moment anybody who wants free publicity gets up and starts torturing you or something. Now, you know, if you look at our politics, if you don't break something, if you don't put a bund, if you don't destroy, if you don't cause jobs or damage, you don't get carried. So why is it that people who are destructive and who are, you know, out and out, they get the media coverage. The good guys never get the media coverage. Right. And before, before I end this discussion, I just like to close with one. I'd like to ask each of you one favorite controversial ad, which according to you has really worked. I'll start with you, Shumbhid, because you have to leave, which is your favorite controversial ad so far, apart from the one you made. Something very recent. I think sometimes controversy also stems from the brand taking a stand. And I think that Colin Kaepernick ad for Nike, it's one of my favorites. Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything. The basketball player, Colin Kaepernick. So, and it led to a lot of social media outrage, people destroying Nike apparatus, shoe socks. There's a brand new Nike's hashtag, but I think it benefited the brand immensely because the brand was brave enough to take a stance by getting Colin Kaepernick on board. So that would definitely have to be up there for me. Manish, your turn. I think I have one hours and one word, whatever. One is the Benetton Unhit. I think it did its job in a simplest manner. And one, I think, Prahlad was a consultant to that brand and we used to handle Rupa. So, we had an aspiration that we had to make something like that, especially Rupa, like the one about Nike. I mean, should write like that. So, our aspiration was fulfilled by that ad. We shot in Prague. There was one, whatever, Tubs, like Millions Woman kind of guy, obviously wearing a skin color thing, but obviously not nude, but pretended to be nude. And he was holding roosters at his crotch and saying, what's your size? And it did its job. A lot of people wrote about it, against it, so my wish got fulfilled. I hope she's watching. I did not stop running that ad ever. DNA and wherever possible. It's a theater of mind which we play. We never said what we supposed to say. Like we show a groom cutting tag and the bride thinks it's genital, but he's cutting his tag in his bride's chamber for his undergarment. It's a theater of mind which we're working on. We are not saying anything. That's what advertising and creativity is all about. We are not saying anything. You're just playing with your mind, right? Paddy, your turn. The people who think, I find that you put everything in. If they have a bad mind, I really adore the Nike as a brand who has been standing for edgy work, edgy that becomes controversial. Be it, I think, Lance Armstrong or Tiger Woods during his controversy, Nike always promoted these characters who were on a negative split. Apart from this, Colin Kaepern, I love one more which wasn't globally reached every corner the way it happened with Colin's ad. It was somewhere in the US where a lot of youngsters were victims of drugs. What the local mayor did, he took a church that wasn't used, an old, big church that wasn't used by the locals because there were many new churches that had come up. The brand decided to convert that church into a basketball court by which all the youngsters who were around that church got an opportunity to come together and sports became the reason for them to get rid of drugs. I thought this was a very, very brave, courageous thing. It won at many places including a design property at Cannes as well, which is space design. I thought the brand really stands or touch upon... Again, I think this was very, very relevant. How can you make sports which is your core? How can you make that as a basic facility to the youth? Hence, I feel the relevance part is quite strong here. You are not selling a product or a set of product but you're standing for a cause and that's for the welfare of the society. And I think I wish I could have done this. So this just moves me. Absolutely. And Prahlad, your turn. Well, you know, I'm the child of controversy from day one. I've had more ads banned by censors than any single person in this country but I did find anything wrong with it. I actually challenged them to a certain extent and said, why do you want to ban this? I mean, what is the rational? And they said, no, we are the censor board or we are the censor body and we've decided that you cannot do this in ads. So I said, who the hell are you? You know, I mean, we've got ASCII, we've got all these people who actually allowed this ad to go on and you orbit some little government clerk who decides that, you know, stretcher bearers carrying a patient on a stretcher can't drop the patient in the middle of the road because they see a runaway suitcase come hurtling at them. You know, even the stretcher bearer got up the stretcher chap got up and ran off. And they actually banned it and they said, no, the organization of stretcher bearers will complain to us that they're not allowed to drop patients so carelessly on the ground. I said, I'll go to any government hospital and see what they're doing there in the corridors. I mean, what are you talking about? But the point is that, you know, there's no specific ad that I can say was either my favorite controversy or non-favorite controversy. But the fact is that Nike stands out actually for a lot of controversy because they actually turn on and have an attitude and what Nike is telling is not shoes. They're selling that comma of theirs is they just do it. It doesn't matter what you're doing. So I remember Wimbledon ad, which came out just before Wimbledon. Everybody is desperately laying lines. They're holding the net. People are running around desperately trying to get the court in order and this dog comes across, sniffs at their post where the net is being hanged, raises his hind leg and pees on it and goes off. And it says, Nike, just do it. So, I mean, it was so completely out of the box. It was completely unexpected. I looked at it, I almost held out laughing. But somebody has to turn on and find objection in it. And we have so many people in social media today who are empowered to turn on and give an opinion because they have the place in the sun. So the point is in a way, social media is good because it actually gives people the power to have an opinion and you can engage with them if you choose to. But it also gives a whole lot of absolute yahoo. The power to want to be known because they want to criticize somebody and out of complete negativity and pure black negativity, nothing else. There's nothing positive about it at all. That actually reminds me to take a question which is on similar lines. An anonymous attendee says, there's a large chunk of population who love little dark humor, little controversy and little edgy stories even in the form of ads. Because of a small chunk of armchair activists on social media who oppose everything under the sun, the audience doesn't really get to see those kind of ads. So do brands today need to be more courageous? What do you think? Sorry, I'll button here. I need to take your leave. It was really lovely chatting with all of you. But Pranath, please continue. Thank you so much for joining us. We're just closing it anyway. I hope you're a tough client and I hope you're not going to ask for the money that they owe you because they're going to say we're not going to pay you because of COVID. Okay. He's absolutely right what he said because I've already maintained that 5% of your people who like to make controversies out of nothing do it to get attention for themselves. They're all attention seekers. They've done nothing in their lives which will actually give them some sunlight. But they will ride on somebody else's, what do you call it, talent? They'll ride on somebody else's creativity and turn on and criticize it so that the media picks it up and says, this guy is head of this little group of people who are right-wing, left-wing, top, down, bottom, underway activists who turn on and say that this is wrong and therefore they start to dialogue with them. And for that one or two days when that controversy rages, these people get their moment in the sun for doing nothing except being negative. So I mean at some stage we're going to get as a population, we're going to get fed up and turn on and tell them to shut up even in social media. And I'm waiting for that day because it's very close. So we turn on and say mind your own business, just do your own thing and don't get involved in something that doesn't concern you or doesn't matter. We like it and that's it. Thank you so much. Pari wants to add something. Sometimes back we were thinking on this because of social media or because of the behavior in the social media or the attack via social media on brands or creative work has actually made a lot of clients very sensitive. Even if there are two to three comments which are negative compared to 50,000 comments which are positive, brands seems to becoming very sensitive and hence the edginess, the weapons that we used to use earlier have been taken away from us. We are a lot more less creative compared to what we were 10 years back. Will we be able to do a tough shoes ad today? I don't think so. I don't think so. We'll have courage to do that kind of thing. But that's again one of my favorite ads because if you run that ad, it's ageless. It will run today. It's such a beautiful ad. We always say minimize everything when you want to sell a product. I'm just taking literally, they have minimized everything and just put the shoes in front of you. So what else do you see? So obviously I think somewhere the industry people or consumers need to be a little more sensitive. It's like if you give a toy to a youngster to a bachu, he will play with it for a while and that's the exact same sentiment mindset which is happening with our consumer. The internet has opened up. Hence they are like going holo without thinking anything. Beat advertising, beat on issues, beat on COVID. I think people are not at all sensitive about what they are saying. I have got a platform. If I can type, let me just rant. I think it impacts many, many, many things. But I think we will grow up with maturity. 5, 7, 10 years down the line. I think our approach towards social media will be far different. But if you don't keep on sensitizing people I think we will keep on suffering more. Manish, any closing thoughts? I think people originally started, that used to be a very simple. Satyu meh sab good and evil hota tha. Satyu to hota tha. Slowly, slowly we got evolved and then now we have grey shades. So many grey shades. So the media reflected, the creators reflected. The advertiser reflected to use all these grey shades. Now, obviously there is a very thin line between them. It crosses. But we should have to take it, we as a society have to take it as a pinch of salt that okay, it happens. But now making a big gaga over these kind of things like MTV and advertising actually taught work to Indian society and everything. 10 years back, 12 years back, 15 years back such a beautiful world. We all joined advertising because of that communication, because of that. If we lose that edge, why we used to enter advertising MTV and MTV generation we used to call and advertising because none of the other medium literature anything were not allowing to express work in us. And that itself has been getting killed day by day and making us very, very logical. The sheer reason why we came into it because we used to express those edginess and that itself is under threat and under the curve. I think that is where we used to know people like Prahlad in this industry. We used to know that Cyrus in my MTV doing this where we see this ad is very edgy and all. That's the reason we came. Now what is it? Super, super. So if I may sum up, I'd like to say to everyone, every ad maker out there contemplating on creating the next bold shocker of an ad, if you're creating a controversial ad for the right reasons, do it with conviction because I think nothing can propel a brand faster than a controversial ad, which is like I mentioned for the right reasons. So in three words, I think make it large. Thank you so much everyone for joining me on this wonderful discussion. I think this was one of the best we've had in the recent history. Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye bye. Thanks Sita. Bye Pralad, bye Manish. Bye guys. Now remember, the next platform is OTT. You can say what you want and get away with it. Surely. Thank you Pralad. Thank you Manish. Thank you Paddy.