With the lockdown dampening everybody’s spirits, the SCMC Advertising Club took it upon themselves to bring back creativity and joy into students’ lives. The club heads for 2020-21, B Shashank and Mallika Mansuri held a virtual AD club session on Zoom on the 10th of May 2020. Invitations for the same were sent out via promo videos released on Instagram. A mix of Bollywood, creative copy and humour, the videos got them over 40 participants for their first session.
The session started with an introduction of the club heads, with them giving insights about why they enjoy advertising and the field of work that inspires them the most. Thereafter, the attendees were informed about the future function of the club- to simulate a real ad agency. After an explanation of an agency’s departments and functions, a proposal was made to divide the club into three pillars: Strategy, Account Planning and Creatives.
These three would be working on a brief given by the club heads in order to churn out an advertisement. Not only would this give a place to stimulate creativity but also help in the creation of portfolios for those entering the advertising industry. The former ad club heads, Prachi Rawal and Sukanya Nayak had also conducted something similar in one of their sessions. However, the virtual aspect of things made it interesting and challenging at the same time.
Mallika and Shashank then shared some of their favourite ad campaigns and asked for suggestions from the participants. After the screening of a couple more advertisements, the heads gave the attendees their first brief. Named ‘Film-Atisement’, the objective was to establish a brand’s image using famous pop culture scenes with only a copy as the connecting thread. One had to pair a certain dialogue with a specific yet relevant brand of their choice. The exercise was optional and meant to generate humour, creative thinking, and lots of fun!
An informative yet engaging session, it left everyone with something to look forward to. Filled with banter, laughs, campaigns and ideas, one can only wait to see what brilliant content the ad club generates.
Trisha Welde
(Batch 2022)
