“If you are not inspired, you cannot be creative”

Creativity breathes life into advertisements and in order to be creative, one has to draw inspiration from every minute element, shared Ravi Deshpande, Chairman and Chief Creative Officer, Contract India.

According to him, advertising is about getting inspired by fresh air, cities and cultures, movies, music, wildlife, children, extraordinary people, science and technology, athletes and by ordinary people. “I have always tried to practise the business of advertising through one fundamental thing – ‘inspiration’. Inspiration can strike you anytime anywhere and it comes to you from unexpected sources. If you are not inspired, then you are not likely to be someone who is going to be creative.”

Deshpande believes advertising is a challenging field and he is taking a journey deeper into that world in order to practise a whole new way of working in advertising.

He is of the opinion that an advertisement should not be too boring, too logical, or formulaic. There has to be an element of magic in an ad. Stating Paul Arden, Former Executive Creative Director, Saatchi and Saatchi’s thoughts on advertising, Deshpande said, “Ask an advertising director, who has art directed a VW ad in 1989 and he will tell you. Ask him who is the director of the National Theatre and he won’t know. Most advertising people live within the world of advertising and 90 per cent of the inspiration in this field comes from other advertising. To be original, seek your inspiration from unexpected sources.”

In a bid to explain how inspiration could be in various forms, he gave examples of ads for Epuron and FirstPost – inspired by fresh air; American Tourister – inspired by differing cities and cultures; Heineken and FedEx – inspired by movies; Skoda, Nike – inspired by music, and so on.

Speaking about the FirstPost ad created by Contract India, Deshpande said, “It was a huge success as within a short span, the viewership of the commercial reached 5.4 million. It was inspired by something as simple as fresh air.”

Elaborating further, Deshpande said that it is the characteristics of people that makes the world interesting and enables him to make interesting commercials. If questions like ‘How come South Indians are mathematical and scientific wizards and yet superstitious about age-old customs and traditions?’ are asked, then the answer to such questions will give an idea and an idea is what an advertiser is looking for.
 
Speaking about the power of movies, Deshpande added that a good movie touches the eyes, ears, and soul, and this is highly stimulating, making one feel inspired. “Find time from work to do the things that you love, that allow you to grow as a person and see things in a completely different light every time,” asserted Deshpande.

Deshpande shared his views at the Gyan series session organised by Ad Club Madras. He spoke on the topic ‘A journey through various sources of inspiration that helps you produce great advertising’.