Meet the new Creative Trailblazer!!!
*Drum roll + Vuvuzela blast*
Creative whaaaa?
Hehehe… yeah that’s my new designation. Creative Trailblazer. Although I’ll still be technically under the copywriting section of the Creative department, this new promotion handed to me by our Creative Director is a milestone in our company (and probably in the advertising industry).
Kinda makes sense. We in the ad agency are all about creativity. Why have boring designations like designer, developer, copywriter, supervisor etc? Why not go all out with guns blazing like how we do during a brainstorming session?
The proposal for my designation went to our Delhi Head office, as it was something very unusual. And finally it got approved!
[My official business card]
So, what’s a Creative Trailblazer?
Basically, it means somebody with ideas that leave a trail of fire. Ideas big enough to create an impact in the market and conceptualize innovative campaigns never done before. A pioneer in creativity.
Well there had always been the age old discussion, that a mainstream Ad agency copywriter (read: Print or TV) and a digital ad agency copywriter are quite different in terms of what they do. Mainstream copywriters work on coming up with visuals and copy that catch the attention of the masses and how their copy will fit in with the visuals, whereas if you want to be in the digital industry, you have to know the digital industry really well.
For example, even though I am a copywriter, I do a lot of designing and programming based on the copy I am writing. And it is really important to know the internet audience well in order to have a successful campaign. There is no guarantee that what may work well in TV, Print or Radio, will work well online. Hence we have to keep ourselves constantly up to date with what the rest of the online crowd is doing. To suggest a concept based on Augmented Reality, we have to take into consideration how technologically feasibly the concept is and whether it is ideal for the average TG, and these are the things you can learn only if you are active on cyberspace.
As a digital copywriter, we have to plan the entire IA, sitemap and UI of a client as a part of the campaign and make everything as user friendly as possible right up to how analytics will react to the proposition.
Knowing photoshop, dreamweaver and flash is definitely a plus point if you want to be a digital copywriter. But most of all, you cannot just stop with the knowledge you have. The world is constantly changing and suddenly your friends will laugh at you if you have a 4GB pen drive. I still remember having a 1GB HARD drive on your computer was a big deal a few years ago. See where I’m getting at? There are no written rules here. Everything around you is rapidly changing and evolving when it comes to the digital world, and you can either opt to be left behind or move with the momentum. And you HAVE to move along if you want to survive.
And oh yes… being a nerd/geek scores in this industry. Slashdot FTW!
Plus I can’t wait to see the look in a client’s eye when I hand him my card on the next client meeting… Will he hesitate to ask me what the designation means, probably thinking that he might sound like an idiot for not knowing such a designation…
Coming back to the topic, I really don’t know how putting my designation as a “Creative Trailblazer” on my LinkedIn profile is going to reflect. Of course there are many people with “unique” designations, like Vint Cerf who is the “Chief Internet Evangelist” at Google and Kishore Biyani who is the “Chief Knowledge Officer” of Pantaloon Retail India. But these guys are already BIG and everybody knows who they are. Will anyone take an unknown “Creative Trailblazer” seriously? (Or as we say in IIM-B, it’s an arbit designation). Hmmm… maybe that is what I am willing to gamble on, and seriously, I believe this is the risk any creative person should be willing to take. It’s not just about the job. It’s the passion that comes along with the job.
Let’s see how this whole story unfolds. After all, the only way to know how this will perform in the digital world is to put it out here for the market to react. Working for Webchutney, the No.1 Digital Agency in India (As per The Economic Times, Brand Equity Agency Reckoner for two consecutive years 2008 & 2009) I guess this is just another way of showing you who we are. Cheers to you all.
