Copywriter Dubai: hey, are you surviving?

Copywriter Dubai: are you surviving?

The world (1): Dear copywriter, are you ok? (Felt like a soft voice asking into my ears)
Copywriter (2): Yes. Yes; and what makes you think differently?

(1) Come on, don’t act-you stupid. You are not a country to deny the effects of recession. We all know that advertising is hit hard by the economic downturn. Just look at the Gulf News newspaper, how lean it has become! No single real estate ad for the last one month and you act as if nothing has happened. Tell us, do you have food to eat at least once in a day?

(2) You paparazzi, why are you after me? You media people only spread negativism and pessimism. In fact today morning I had a profusion of pocari sweat mixed with 20% ginger ale and 30% Horlicks. I was enjoying my life all through the last month. My BP is 155/75, weight 78.987 kilograms and walk is brisk.  See…I am jittery as a June bug!

(1) But don’t tell us that the fall in advertisements have no effects on you….
(Don’t you see that newspapers fill the vacant spaces with their own or associate advertisements?)

(2) Yes they have effects. I can easily carry the newspaper around as it is not that heavy now. Imagine the number of trees that are saved because we are printing less number of pages these days. And you sensationalists should know that online advertising in UAE is growing exponentially. Big agencies – advertising agencies are affected, that is indeed a truth, but we all are not made redundant.

(1) But we the poor people, people in the main street are happy that your greed days are over…

(2) No…you people cannot write us off yet. We will still speak gibberish and act snobbish. We guys will dress up in low waist denim jeans and appear in formal occasions inappropriately dressed, often wearing worn out canvas shoes. Even if we die like this, our graves will be deep and wide enough to accommodate all these electronic gadgets and style accessories. We won’t die lonely.

Recession is nothing.
Advertising rules
(These two sentences are with echo, like speaking loud inside a church-to fade out)

With this I woke up to the realities of the world and advertising. It is 7.33 am. Another day; who will bite the dust today?

Disc Jockeys and what an advertising agency guy or copywriter in Dubai can learn from them

When I go to hotel parties in Dubai, I love to watch their DJs. I have learnt much about advertising, particularly about brand positioning by observing them. Like doctors, lawyers and politicians, jockeys think of themselves as special people. They think they are so unique that even a guy flying stealth might be scorned by them. They have acquired mannerisms and styles to make them and others feel like they are DJs. Like a well positioned brand in advertising, they position themselves to fit our perception very well.

Let us study these guys from an advertising professional’s perspective.

Let us see what makes them a Dubai Disc Jockey or a DJ anywhere else.

Name:

Your name should be something like DJ Nasha, DJ Sasha, DJ Doom, DJ Storm, DJ Ankit, DJ Acid, DJ Black Widow, DJ Orangutan etc. There will be no jockeys with names like DJ Mathew Kurian, DJ Subash S. Nair, DJ Thomas Joseph etc. If your parents have given you a normal name change that to something like I have mentioned above.

Hair Cut:

You can be bald, with sparse hair or very long hair. Bleached hair and hair locks are also largely accepted. Normal haircuts are big NO-NOs. The thumb rule is not to look like a guy whose mother has combed his hair.

Facial hair:

French beards, Goatees (like that of James Hetfield from the heavy metal band Metallica) are in.

Facial Expression:

Always look like a guy who hates humanity. Wear this expression even while you go for a pee. Never never smile at people and always be as unfriendly as possible. Remember that Un-cool is Cool.

Dressing:

You should be the missing link between a funky teenager and a 70yr old guy. They key is to shock people, either by simplicity or extravagance. Wear black. Wear chains around your neck. Have innumerable bracelets on both hands. Your fingers should adorn at least 20 junk metal rings.

Many people might say that I am stereotyping, indeed I am. As social beings we have a studied notion about what all things are or what all things should be. It has lot to do with our cultural background and exposure. In other words we cannot accept a DJ with a normal hair cut or a normal name. It is our perception about him that makes him a DJ. His success lies in tuning his position according to our perception.

Advertising agencies know these secrets. All they do is that they manipulate reality (not so that it becomes a lie) in such a way that people will perceive products as marketers want them to be perceived. But it can be said for sure that many successful brands became successful only because they found fresh positioning-that is not following a cliché route. Many times, this fresh route of differentiation consumes much resources and time. So a normal looking, 3 piece suit wearing DJ is possible, but it takes a while for people to accept the idea. But if it is well done, it’s worth all the effort.

So NORMALLY, as a rule,

Glue bottles will be blue,

Girls’ accessories will be in pink,

SLR cameras won’t be manufactured in white color, and

DJs will always look and act crazy.

Next time you see a Dubai DJ, know that it is not his fault that he acts strange. We people want him this way and he just acts and fits in for survival.

Looking for a copywriter job? Then learn the ad agency buzzwords…

Assets
Things that have earning power or some other value to the agency only when they reach  municipality garbage collectors. These include rejected brochures and promotional paraphernalia (big ones, medium ones, small ones, spot laminated ones, saddle-stitched ones, press bound ones etc) Style Only-No Brain client service executives, unhygienic pseudo creative guys.

Fixed Assets (also known as long-term assets) are things that have a life of more than 35 yrs but have no use for the advertising agency at present, for example old graphic designers dreaming about spray cans and have no necessary software skills, 1995 Mac machines, creative briefing tables; there are also intangible fixed assets, like the bad reputation of the agency for taking any job and promising to finish it on a single day, from painting the highway to sending people to moon.

Acid Quick Assets
Assets that are all curves but no brains. High heeled, highly made up (false hair, false eyelashes, false everything!) things that appear like comets. Nobody knows when a new one joins and when one quits: quick in both appearing and disappearing. Largely seen on husband/father visas.

Bear Market
In a bear market, creativity hibernates and creative team, anticipating job losses, tends to act busy. This can create a self-sustaining downward spiral. Clients will dictate terms even to an inter-galactic ad agency and art directors, copywriters, graphic designers, client service directors all will peacefully coexist like brothers. They even assemble to yawn as a team every half an hour.

When the market is bearish, client servicing guys look and act like poor rabbits. They will appear so cute that you will feel like pampering them at your laps and say sweet nothings into their ears. They pawn or sell their Mustangs, Corvettes, Suzukis, Kawasakis and BMWs and opt to walk home- alone. This soul reflecting lone act of walking helps them to brood on their credit card problems. (Also refer the title, Credit Crunch)

Credit Crunch
The situation is created when copywriters, graphic designers and client servicing guys lose all their money buying very expensive lifestyle gadgets like Black berries, iPhones, Mac Books etc. and look around for more money as  banks stop lending them. Suddenly they realize that when hungry they cannot eat these things and feels like a mermaid gifted with a pair of expensive shoes.

As they approach banks, they use a special mathematical formula to evaluate their potential repayment strength. This equation is as given below,

LRPc = [{[We x NCC] + 2 x HL +Nc} x Pseudo lifestyle index

LRPc is the loan Repayment capacity
We is the weight of one’s purse.[As the number of existing credit card increases, weight of the purse increases, hence reduced repayment capacity. Weight can also increase due to the presence of large number of coins, which in turn indicates the possibility that he is already a beggar. Thus lower repayment strength.]

NCC is the number of existing credit cards
HL is their greedy home loan which is also called Monkey business.
Nc is the number of sports cars.
Pseudo Lifestyle Index varies between 0 and 1. A normal advertising agency professional has this index between 0.5 and 1.

Financial crisis, advertising agencies and copywriters in Dubai & UAE

 

Real estate crisis and copywriter

It’s good news at last for copywriters and creative people. We advertising guys (there is no such term as “advertising gals” and high fashion lipstick wearing-high heel tom boys are ignored for time being) are going to inherit the world when sub-prime mortgage crisis, PUT-CALL future options, real estate bubbles and bank runs make the newspaper headlines. Copywriters, Graphic designers and art directors from advertising agencies in Moscow, Trinidad, Dubai, Sharjah, Lower Manhattan, Uzbekistan, Minnesota, Calcutta, Kerala and Algeria will benefit from this global financial real estate meltdown. This is how we are going to do it. This strategy has been discussed and finalized in a big 7 star hotel located at Eldorado by Copywriters & Ad Guys Inc. (registered in Cayman Island, Reg. No: 0909878976/NB/435/12). Creative guys (sorry, no women again!) secretly discussed this with all their financial wisdom and IQs above 134.9 to decide on three strategies.

1.    We have decided to trade all our skills as real estate copywriters and brochure designers to raise 7689 credit default swaps (CDS). As a regulatory measure to guard against excessive risk-taking in the financial system we will thereby sub-prime all our assets in the main financial markets. This will indeed followed by three regulatory marathon races by amateur orangutans aged more than 53 yrs to have sufficient assets to meet our contractual obligations, through reserve requirements, capital requirements, and other limits on leverage. Possible Financial contagion effects will be nullified by introducing 29 new advertising agencies issuing IPOs throughout the coming year.

2.    As Bank Runs (BRs) can be avoided by cash injection, the possible cash crunch in the market is coordinated with excess liquidity. All copywriters registered with Copywriters & Ad Guys Inc. will persuade printing presses around the world to print Hedge-Bonds in 6 colors (Alizarin Crimson as the special color to induce liquidity leverage). This will reduce recession by quarter 3(Q3) and bring the asset-liability mismatch to alarming rates, enabling trans border wealth creation. All financial instruments will be proportionately linked with EXIM policies and directly pegged with dollar(USD).

3.    Stock Markets around the world will be induced into a PUSH strategy by PULL strategies. But if the market adopts PULL strategy first (due to Butterfly effect) they will be induced by PUSH strategies.

We creative guys are going to save the world. We are going to give back the real estate its lost glory. We copywriters and graphic designers are going to bring liquidity into the world. “Ha! you Mr. Liquidity, you can’t escape our clutches. We may not have the brain power of those Wall Street guys or the cunning nature of those four piece suit real estate guys. But here we come, BEWARE!”

Six Commandments for Advertising Copywriters, Designers, Media Planners & Client Servicing guys working in Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi or UAE.

These immortal laws are applicable not only to Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi or UAE advertising copywriters, designers, media planners & client servicing guys, but also to everyone across the world trying to make a living in advertising.

Thou shall not spend unnecessary time at your work place. But this does not mean thou shall not stretch work timings when situations demand . Respect thy job & advertising agency, but love thy family. Man is not for work, work is for man. [Reference: Chapter 3, Para 7, Verses 4-6, Gospel of work according to a Sarcastic non-award Winning Copywriter, 13.87^th edition]

Thou shall always remember that money, and not creativity, rules the world. If thee are rich, invest in Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman or UAE real estate and become more rich. If thee are creative, know that you cannot be rich, as by the law of nature creative people cannot be rich. [Reference: Chapter 3, Para 11, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life ,by Charles Darwin]

Thou shall not fall into a Credit Card Trap. Know that even though jail is a nice place to daydream, it is a great place to have daymares too. Jail wardens, as a habit, love to break kneecaps. [Reference: Chapter 2, Para 9, A study of Broken Limbs & Legs among Graphic Designers, Copywriters & Media Planners in Dubai, Sharjah and UAE Advertising Agencies; written by A Sarcastic non-award Winning Copywriter, 1st edition]

Thou shall not skip breakfast and should eat at times. Know that clients will come and go, but ulcer stays a lifetime.

Thou shall always listen to client service people. Not because they are right, but because they are dying. Sooner of later they all will be killed by the Marlboro Reds they smoke. [Reference: The Tibetan Book of Dying by Smoking, written by A Sarcastic non-award Winning Copywriter]

Thou shall ride thy motorcycles very carefully as coffin shops are hard to find in UAE. But thou can try thy luck in Rolla by coercing one of those wooden photo frame merchants to coerce their carpenter to make one coffin for thou. If thou manage to get one, tie it strongly and tightly behind thy motorcycle carrier while thou go out for a ride. Thou will never know when thou need one while riding in the car crazy roads of UAE.