A Legend Transferred The Passion & I Found My Path!
Attending a couple of elective courses during my MBA program at IIM (Kolkata), which were taught by an advertising legend, I was bitten by the ‘bug’! Advertising wasn’t a lucrative option, even then, but I made the plunge & haven’t moved out since!
Name: M A Parthasarathy
Work stream: Advertising & Marketing Communications
Current role & company: Chief Client Officer, Mindshare India
Years of work experience: 19 yrs.
Education history:
• 11th & 12th – Science
• Graduation – B.E. (Hons) in Mechanical Engineering, BITS, Pilani
• Post graduation – PGDM, IIM (Kolkata)
Career History:
• After BE, 1 yr: Marketing Executive, HCL Ltd.
• Post MBA, 1.5 years: Sr. Business Executive, Tata Info. Systems
• Next 13+ yrs: Grew through a variety of roles in Account Management & Account Planning at JWT. Last of which was as Regional Account Director on Ford, based out of Bangkok.
• Last 3+ years: With current company
Early days
When I was in high school, we had neither the variety of options available today, nor the exposure & access to information. The most sought after streams to pursue were engineering & medicine. Since I had a huge interest in machines - specifically automobiles - I opted for Mechanical Engineering.
During the course of my graduation, I realized that I didn't want to make a career out of engineering. It was due to a combination of circumstances. Firstly, I found engineering a little too quantitative in focus, which wasn’t my forte. Secondly, the great part of BITS was a 360-degree exposure to academics in the first two years, which included some courses on management which interested me.
I grew interested in the field of marketing and started reading up. Further, during my involvement in the cultural activities, I discovered that I liked working with people. So, while most of my batch-mates chose to go abroad for an MS/M. Tech, I chose to work in Sales and Marketing and figure out my post-graduation plans. I went for an MBA a year later to specialize in Marketing.
The turning points during my MBA
Prof. Subroto Sengupta, a legend who had authored books on the subject, taught us Advertising & Consumer Behavior. And I remember being completely blown away by the passion with which he presented case studies! It made me sit up & realize the power of communication, and how consumer insights were used to create landmark advertising campaigns that changed the fortunes of brands & companies. The way he brought advertising and marketing to life made me fall in love with it!
Even though I missed taking up an advertising position through the campus placements at IIM Calcutta because I got a sales job before an advertising one, I moved to advertising in less than two years.
My first brush with Advertising
My first two months in advertising were traumatic! From an orderly 9 to 6 job in sales, I was plunged into a chaos of working through the night, crazy deadlines, angry clients, and emotional co-workers. Soon though I started to thrive on the same chaos that unnerved me initially. It helped that I started working on an automobile brand. Automobiles were a childhood passion. The interest did contribute to my success on that brand and my immersion in the world of advertising.
Advice for aspiring Advertising Professionals
- Myth 1: It is a glamorous profession where you get to meet models & celebrities. This may be 0.01% of the time you spend on advertising. The rest is about meeting deadlines, handling client pressures & managing a diverse set of people.
- Myth 2: It is all about instinct & creative thinking. Actually it also involves a lot of data analysis, project management & cost consciousness (ensuring every rupee spent is effective for the brand).
- Big pluses: At advertising agencies, you get to work with lots of young, fun & talented people. Also, young people are given large responsibilities much earlier in advertising than in other professions. It's a fantastic training ground.
- Emerging opportunity: Digital marketing. Be it Social media, web or app development or digital media planning. These, in my opinion, need roughly the same skill sets, but applied to the fast-changing digital environment. The key skill set here is an aptitude for the online world & a never-ending curiosity to know what's happening out there!
