• Investment World
• eWorld
• Brand Line
• Mentor
• Life
• Brand Quest
• The New Manager
• Smartbuy

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Cross Currency

• Rates
  
  

Shipping

• Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources
• In Focus
• In Depth
• Events 2007

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• The Hindu ePaper
• Business Line
• Business Line ePaper
• Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

Our Bureau

Chennai, Sept. 10

Change happens when you look at things differently,” said Mr Vijay Jacob Parakkal, Vice-President, Bates 141, an advertising agency and part of the WPP group.

Talking about the traits displayed by advertising professionals, he said at Bates 141, they always sought to look at advertising with a different perspective.

The advertising professional was generally, “one who is able to work 24/7 in an unconventional work set-up. An employee of an advertising agency cannot predict the customer’s expectation so he should be able to identify communication strategies that will help reach the product or services to the customers. A complete analysis of the product or service should precede the implementation of the communication strategy,” he said.

For this, both internal and external research was mandatory. Research should focus on the market, consumers, competitors, products, services, media and other factors involved in business environment, he said.

He was speaking at Pro Pinnacle ’08, the Summer Project Contest of the Sri Sai Ram Institute of Management Studies. The second edition of the contest was organised on August 29, in association with Kalaignan Pathipagam and The Hindu Business Line.

According to Mr Jacob, observation was an important element in producing good advertisements. Observing each and every activity around us could provide inputs for creating advertisements.

He explained this by projecting the Alpenliebe candy advertisement, which was the outcome of the observation of incidents from our daily life. This advertisement had a great impact and helped increase the turnover for Alpenliebe.

Virgin Mobile’s advertisement was cited to portray the mentality of today’s youth. Negative issues in society could easily be presented to the public in an acceptable manner when appropriate communication strategies were selected for advertisements. This could only be done when effective research work was conducted, he said.

He emphasised the importance of research and its benefits for the individual, corporate and society as a whole. Research work must have a well-built need and good data collection process and analysis. Analysis of a product could only be done by empathising with it completely.

Prof. V. R. Rajamanickam, Director, Sri Sai Ram Engineering College, Dr. K. Maran, Director, Sri Sai Ram Institute of Management Studies and Dr R. Kannappan, Principal, were present on the occasion. More than 50 research projects from various universities and institutes were presented at the contest; the three best research projects were awarded cash prizes.

More Stories on : Advertising | Events | Tamil Nadu

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line