The Pursuit of Bollyness-II : Wagging the Dog

Continued from P of B Part-I…

For the next couple of weeks things got so hectic that there was no time to worry about the promise made to Mr. Prakash and the next meeting due.

A scene I was beginning to picture increasingly with graphic images of dangling Damocles' swords and me as the hapless Damocles. Uneasy, however, did not seem to lie our modern day Dionysius' head. At least, to all outward appearance.

I tried calling Karan Sabjan for his opinion on whether the Big M would be interested. Sabjan thanked me for adding years to his life by giving him his best laugh of the month.

This was one situation where I had nothing further to contribute. Either one knew how to get to Amibath Machchan or didn’t. I didn’t.

Feeling a bit like Pandora, with thoughts leaning increasingly towards aftermaths of usual Greek tragedies, I decided to broach the subject with LL.

As the days went by, this was not easy though. Surely he wasn't avoiding me?

With the next meeting just a couple of days away, I redoubled my efforts to corner LL and ask him for strategic guidance*.

*This is polite subordinate to boss management-speak for: Hey, you got us into this mess, and this time, you've gotta get us out.

"Get me Prakash", said LL.

Having got him on phone, LL proceeded to tell him how his father had an urgent though minor surgical procedure due on the very same morning of the next meeting scheduled and could we reschedule it? Mr. P was fortunately off to Denmark and so the next meeting was fixed up to be a whole two and a half weeks away.

Admiring this adroit manoeuvre; I admit it freely, would have never thought of it - we heaved collective sighs of relief, but I felt the figurative dangling thread fray a bit, and the sword inch closer.

But LL had thought of something.

There were only two possible approaches as advised by LL's role model Confucius:
One - Man who run in front of car get tired.
Conversely, also known as - Man who run behind car get exhausted.
Two - He who will not economize will agonize.

Next meeting, Mr. Prakash walked in fully expecting to see Machchan ensconced in our humble office abode. In his best suit and tie too. Mr. P, I mean.

LL informed him that we had contacted the Big M and that he had quoted an astronomical rate similar to his Badur contract.

I adjusted my expression accordingly so as to try look like we were the sort of people who had Machchan on call.

Knowing fully well Mr. Prakash would have never been able to loosen his purse strings to this extent, LL then commenced upon a severe campaign against using celebrities in advertising. Having embarked upon the celebrity route once, you are stuck with them forever. You've got to continue using a well known face else all will be lost. The fickle customer would move on. The astronomical fees you pay would have to be permanently budgeted for.

In short, hiring a celebrity for advertising would be like riding a tiger. You couldn't ever get off.

And what if the celebrity you've chosen lost popularity suddenly? Made a racist slur or in a drunken haze drive over a number of innocent people on the footpath. It would rub off negatively on your brand. A dreadful fate indeed.

Having made this convincing argument, LL decided to hammer the final nail in the coffin.

Amibath Machchan, while shooting in a rural, drought prone area for his next film, had insisted on a truckload of mineral water bottles. No, not for distributing amongst the thirsty populace as you may be excused for imagining. The popular brand of bottled water was used by him - wait for it - to bathe.

As LL would have it, this generated a lot of controversy and criticism for the Big M. In reality, it was soon forgotten.

This same region incidentally was an important one for Mr. Prakash's brands, generating a substantial amount of sales. As LL drew an eloquent picture as to what would have happened had we paid so many millions for the Big M; Mr. Prakash's disillusionment was complete.

Having reacted true to type, he now thanked us fervently as we had been personally responsible for saving him from a fate worse than death.

It took him only another ten more minutes to decide that he had actually arrived at this conclusion himself and claim that he had already planned to decline the offer for Machchan's endorsement should he have been ready and willing.

It is just as well the Big M would never know how far he fell from grace in our conference room in that one hour.

To soften the overall blow, LL suggested several second and third level Bollywood stars but Mr. Prakash was now a staunch convert to our cause. He happily agreed to endorsement from a humbler actor, known for playing character-led roles, suggested by Karan Sabjan.

Thus concluded another successful chapter of a highly strategic, skilfully played zero sum game.

Mafia Marketing

For weeks now, we had been noticing a simmering of excitement in LL's demeanour.

He would spend hours closeted in his cabin with his EA, who would then stumble out unsteadily, with sheaves of papers spilling out of her file.

Post such a tete-a-tete, we would often see her stagger back into our workstation* with a disoriented air, blinking a little. A bit like a convict let out into the free world after long incarceration. Then spend the rest of her time feverishly typing at her top speed.

* For those who've chanced upon this only now, scroll through the archives for a description of the Workstation in the introductory paragraphs of 'The Day of the Call - I'

I didn't ask her what it was all about as she'd been working beyond her usual 5 p.m. deadline and was consequently frazzled and tight-lipped.

I didn’t mind. It was so good to have some human company in the evening hours besides the hunk of machinery that crowded in from every angle.

I knew LL would tell us himself. All in good time. Ever paranoid about leaked secrets, it was usual for him to act like we were the headquarters of the NSA**. Or that there were hostile agents out to get his cherished trade secrets. This delusion was so much part of his personality that we learned to work with it.

** Oh c'mon! You've read Dan Brown, haven't you?

Besides we'd already guessed. His desktop was littered with mountainous piles of books on branding and marketing by authors both Indian and international.

On this day, he called me in to be witness to a contract for his first literary effort. The success of the Ries' recently launched book on 22 laws had cut him to the quick. Not to be left far behind, he'd decided to pen his own, for Indian markets. He was fulfilling yet another desire to be famous, this time as an author.

Over the next few weeks, any activity that wasn't linked to his book's launch was put on the back burner.

We sent out mailers on priority basis to every unfortunate who'd ever had reason to mail us in the past. No one was spared - this included job applicants to our organisation, cumulatively numbering in their hundreds.

The uncharitable would've called it spam, which we did try explaining but he chose to be conveniently obtuse and said that he didn't understand all these new age words.

Still marvelling at LL's clever and precautionary brainwave of inviting a whole regional sales team to the book launch event ensuring that the venue would appear to be bursting at the seams by his eager fans, we also prepared to attend it ourselves.

After LL grudgingly agreed to contribute cab fare for our 'voluntary' visit to his event, we all closed the office down early, for the first time in the history of Marrkit.

LL had also the foresight to order us to buy one copy each of his book that same evening from the store.

Needless to say, the launch event was deemed a success by the store manager who was bedazzled by the record sales of the book that same evening.

But LL couldn’t relax just yet.

Like an anxious new mother, he would daily scan the 'Bestseller' lists published by a variety of newspapers.

Finally, his book entered second from last - that too in a local rag.

This was unthinkable. Clearly the world would have to be made to sit up and take notice.

The lists were based on sales of books in categories of fiction and non-fiction compiled weekly book-shop wise, which the newspaper then printed as gospel. Having ascertained this fact from the newspaper's editor, LL set his well thought out master plan into motion.

It remains the most perfect campaign I've ever seen. With a hundred percent success rate.

Directed personally by LL, with great finesse and precision.

To digress a bit, altruist that I am, here are pointers for those authors who aspire to bestseller glory:

• Call up certain friendly college principals and tell them about how the book has taken everyone by storm.

• Corleone style, make them an offer they can't refuse. Suggest that you would, as a friendly gesture, like to donate your book to the college library.

• Further suggest that one book would not do for so many b-school students. You'd like to donate one for each student, but please don't tell them that as you would like to keep your act of generosity anonymous.

• Send out an office employee, your very own trusted Sonny, to various bookstores in each suburb that happen to stock your book to place orders for it. Payments to be made only in cash, lest anyone suspect that the buyer is linked with you in any capacity.

• Give your gang of employees the mandate to buy your book, minimum 12 copies each over the weekend, again - payments to be made only in cash without revealing names or whom they really work for. Later, reimburse the amount to each employee. Extra books thus amassed at the office can be gifted complimentary to your clients or anyone who happens to wander in at your workplace.

• Ring up the remaining institute directors and drop into the conversation that so-and-so college has ordered 40 copies of your book for their marketing students and how they are simply cutting-edge when it comes to providing every sort of facility to their students.

• Tell anyone else who happens to ask that you don't believe in the 'Bestseller' lists and that's not important to you at all. After all, who ever understood the TRP racket? This is much the same. What matters to you is that only one, just one person find your book useful. That is all that would make you feel completely fulfilled. Really.

• Dial store managers of leading book shops and tell them how successful your book launch event at the other store was. Suggest that you are booked up for various other such launches but you can make time for their store if need be. Do this for all other metro cities too and plan your travel accordingly.

• Never let anyone outside the Family, know any of this.

Follow this and success is guaranteed. If you are a marketing person***, all this should come easily to you.

*** See 'Glossary' section for definition of a marketing person.

Thank you in advance and the least you could do to express your gratitude is send me a complimentary copy of your book.

And well, some day, and that day may never come, I'll call upon you to do a service for me.

Nothing personal, strictly business.

Oh and before I forget, for those wondering about the fate of LL's first book, by next fortnight it had blazed its way right to the top, no less than Number 1 on the bestseller lists of the two leading newspapers.

Heil LL!

The Beginning

Let’s start with when I took up my first job. I was 23 then. A small marketing consultancy called Marrkit. People working for Marrkit were known as “Marrkitians”.

Am not kidding.

Each time I heard myself being referred to as one, I felt as if I’d turned into a distant species of some creepy-crawly alien life form.

The firm is headed by a super-thin and tall “Boss” whom you almost can’t see if he turns sideways. He’s called LL by most. Not short for LL Cool J, but Luvleen Lalitlalkishen. Don’t blame ‘em. There were a few diligent ones in our office who still persisted, or rather, laboured with “Mister Lalitlalkishen”. His wife called him Luvleen. I decided to join the throng of those who called him LL.

He loved jargon. For those who don’t know, jargon is official management speak. Let me elaborate.

You know how when you call up and the Secretary, oops, Executive Assistant* says, “He’s not available right now”? That really means, “He’s on his favourite toilet seat, pondering over the next marketing strategy. And taking way too long. Call later”. He also loved creating his own jargon.

My name is Aashita Joshi, of Hindu (Indian) origin, and means, ‘one who is full of hope’. I guess now I just have one small correction - ‘One who was full of hope’. I haven’t fully recovered yet.

Scott Adams had nothing on me, man!

*: At Marrkit, it was a mortal sin to call a secretary a secretary. You had to call her Executive Assistant. Yes, it was always a ‘Her‘ at Marrkit. You could tell which one she was as she was the only one who left at 5:15 pm sharp. Our office timings were from 9 am to 6 pm.