What a Year at Webchutney Has Taught Me
Recapping a wonderful rollercoaster of a journey by Supriya Jain, Copywriter
As a 20-something graduating from the bubble that MICA is, I shuddered at the thought of what the big bad advertising world would look like. I crossed my fingers, hoping that the work would be as engaging as it was in college.
Having loved every minute of the Hershey’s pitch in my first week at Webchutney, I realized that this was going to be one hell of a ride.
Today, the enthusiasm hasn’t dimmed one bit. It’s gotten louder if anything.
There is so much I have learned in the past year. Not only have I discovered facets of advertising I never knew but there hasn’t been a single day when I dreaded working.
Am I immune to Monday blues? Nope.
And the misery of having to stay up past 1 am during a pitch? Not that either.
But did all of that make me want to not wake up the next day and get back to killing it? Not once.
While a simple blog could never encapsulate everything that Webchutney has taught me, here’s me taking a shot at it regardless:
Advertising college was a puddle. This is the Pacific.
When I was in ad school, I dabbled in multiple things — from making storybooks to designing apps to writing an entire cocktail menu. While all of it was fun, I realized that I was being the jill of all trades. Delving into so many things only gets you a glimpse of each. Webchutney opened up the world of digital advertising for me. In the past year, I have understood how digital campaigns are structured, why they need to have routes when they don’t, why the space of a brand is important, and how big ideas work.
Brands are like people.
The more I get into advertising, the more I realize that brands are like people. They have their distinct personalities, behavior, values, pet peeves, and deal-breakers. Although simple, this analogy is as true as it can get. Take ‘Tone of Voice’ for instance. Tinder and Hershey’s would never talk alike. While Tinder would be a lot more focussed on Gen Z and their dating experiences; Hershey’s celebrates bonding moments. The two brands have drastically different personalities. And this is what lays the course for how they behave. Just the way a sweet, warm, and mild-mannered person isn’t likely to get into an armed fight, Hershey’s isn’t likely to do a roast campaign. It would be out of character, no?
Route or behavior?
Seeing routes being cracked for each campaign made me understand how campaigns come to life with a single thought.
But what is a route, really?
Just how a person would behave in a certain way in a given situation, a brand is no different. No matter the situation, it stays true to its personality and set of values. I can best explain this with an example. I was doing a Valentine’s Day campaign for Platinum Days Of Love, a jewellery brand that makes love bands for couples. The context the brand wanted to explore was the pandemic. It was fixated on the hashtag, ‘Stronger In Love’.
We internally gave a sharper cut to this where we decided that ‘Stronger In Love’ was going to be about a couple who’s undergone a perspective shift in the face of adversity, owing to the strength of their love. And this was perfectly in line with the brand space. PDOL was all about celebrating couples that stick by each other’s side through thick and thin, learning and growing together as friends first and partners second. It wasn’t further from their emotional tone of voice either. The route ‘Stronger In Love’ was essentially the way it would respond to a pandemic if it were a person, growing from it, becoming more resilient at every step.
Beyond the finish line
Webchutney has an insanely fast-paced work culture, one that keeps you on your toes. Being proactive and alert comes as a direct result of that.
Replying to emails on time, getting clarity, being mindful enough to know when it’s okay to take on work or when our plates are so full that anything more on them would lead to them slipping right out of our hands.
I not only started being alert when it comes to existing briefs and questioning things at every step, but I also began to think of ideas proactively. Something that is non-negotiable if creative growth is even slightly important to you.
Leveraging topical moments too requires you to be exceedingly alert, for if it’s not done within two hours of a certain event, better to not do it at all.
Big Ideas. Bigger Anxiety.
Having stepped into Webchutney, one thing that scared the living daylights out of me were big ideas. How does one think of them? How does one go about figuring out the tech angle?
Almost every big idea that I heard or the ones that Webchutney has done involve some insane level of tech innovation. Being technologically challenged, I understood this was going to be no piece of cake, especially for me.
But what is the root of these big ideas?
Do they begin at the tech level? NOPE.
Once I figured that out, life got a lot easier. EVERY big idea (yes each and every one) begins with a problem or an insight. Pretty obvious, right? But when most people start out thinking of them, they think of the execution first. What cool tech innovation could this idea be built upon instead of thinking, ‘What problem can we solve?’ I was one of these people.
Take Vice 8 Bit Journo for instance. What was the problem that idea was trying to solve? Kashmir was digitally cut off from the rest of the world. With no internet access, the ability to know what’s happening in the world was also stripped off.
The core thought of 8 Bit Journo? To bring headlines to a region that has no way of accessing them. Doing this by converting digital news pieces into 8 bit was the answer to solving this problem, the tech execution bit.
Summing up
In the short span of a year, the amount I’ve learned at Webchutney, I doubt I would’ve learned working elsewhere. The quality of work is relentlessly upheld.
As I run out of words (not ideal, given I’m a copywriter) to describe the impact this place has made on my advertising journey, it’s time to close this.
