Who is a woman who has inspired your career?
This one’s too easy.
I could have picked a “famous” name. But the real answer is Archana. Mere liye toh rockstar hai woh!
Not because she’s my better half (though that’s a solid bonus), but because she’s the kind of person who makes you question your own excuses.
She’s faced more unexpected twists and turns in her life than most people I know. But instead of stopping and crying about it, she’s built, rebuilt and reimagined her path. Each and every time.
She’s kept pushing herself, learned new skills, taken risks, while dragging me out of my doubts more than once.
Jokar exists because she refuses to settle. Because she sees something bigger for us, even when on some days I am unable to.
So yes, I didn’t have to think too hard about this one.
Here’s to the women who make things possible—even when the world throws everything at them.
Category: Business
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Every day should be women’s day
Written by Karthik Meenakshisundaram. He is a writer, designer, and creative strategist with 20+ years in advertising, branding, and content. As Jokar’s Co-founder, he explores storytelling, design, and tech—when not overthinking or dabbling in side projects.
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Feedbacks—Client POV
Round 1:
“Ek toh banta hai boss!”
Round 2:
“Ek se humara kya hoga?”
Round 3:
“Brief pe mat jao, apni akal lagao.”
Round 4:
“Picture abhi baaki hai mere dost.”
Round 5:
“Sun raha hoon main, ro raha hai tu.”
Round 6:
“Aise bade bade campaignon mein aise choti choti baatein hoti rehti hai.”
Round 7:
“Feedback dena mera janm siddh aadhikaar hai. Aur woh main dekar rahunga!”
Aagey ka mat poocho.
Badi sad story hai.
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Pyaar ke side effects
Getting paid for what you love to do sometimes takes the love out of what you do. It happens. You have to understand that we are in the business of creativity. There’ll be days when the former takes over.
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Make the logo disappear
Make the logo disappear. The goal with your branding game shouldn’t be a big visible logo. People should recognise your brand when there isn’t one. That’s success.
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What happens when AI hits the world’s largest film industry?
If you have strong opinions or curiosity around AI and have 15 minutes to spare, watch this video by BBC on AI and its impact on the world’s largest movie industry. Shekhar Kapur has some very interesting observations and inferences on the topic.
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Who is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is the junior copywriter every Creative Director wanted.
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Grow on social media with these useful tips
Here are six simple tips to succeed in the Social age:*
1. Try and try till something works.*
2. Do more and more of that till it stops working.*
3. Tweak here and there to make it work again.*
4. Do this and that when it isn’t working anymore.*
5. Try more and more till something starts working again.*
6. Go to step 2.*
* Drop it when it stops making sense. Return to the real world.
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Bottoms up
Quite a few times, we read the brief in reverse. In our experience, we have always found the main points buried at the bottom.
What we like to absorb first is what is to be done, the main message, and when is it needed?
This way, we don’t get tired by the time we reach the essence of the brief.
Once we take in the main points, we can relax and read the context written in the beginning. Situation background, brand updates, business objectives and then some.
As for the buzzwords and other big terms used, that’s a separate article in itself.
We are in a time-starved work culture. Everything is needed “yesterday”.
So until the time briefs adapt to that*, this bottoms-up strategy works for us. If you find yourself nodding your head while reading this, I guess it might work for you too.
*One-liner briefs not applicable.
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The W, W, W and W
Many moons ago, a brilliant strategist and a fun human being once shared this gem: Whenever you come across a project with an unclear brief, remember to extract answers for the four main Ws: What, Who, Why and Where.
1. What are you aiming to do: sell, solve, tap, make?
2. Who will be seeing, reading, listening to this?
3. Why now?
4. Where will you use it?
This basic structure still comes in handy. And surprisingly, quite often. Especially useful during verbal and one-line briefs, which is quite the norm nowadays.
There are times when we insert an additional W between What and Who—When do you want this?
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Very important questions
John Maeda has noted two Georges’ way of thinking about problems in their respective fields–Mathematics and Research. We see both these sets of questions fitting perfectly with marketing, business and life too.
George Pólya’s questions for problem solving in mathematics:
Understand the problem
• What is the unknown?
• What are the data?
• What is the condition?
• Can the problem be solved?Assumptions
• What can you or need you assume?
• What shouldn’t you assume?
• Have you made subconscious assumptions?Devising a plan of attack
• Have you seen this or a related problem before?
• Have you seen a similar unknown before?
• Can you restate the problem?
• If you can’t solve this problem, can you solve a similar or simpler problem?Aftermath
• Are you sure of the solution? Can you see it at a glance?
• Did you use all the data? the whole condition?
• Can you get the same solution another way?
• Are there other valid solutions?
• Can you apply the solution or method to another problem?
• Was this a satisfying problem to solve?.
George Heilmeier’s list of questions for solving research challenges:
- What are you trying to do? Articulate your objectives using absolutely no jargon.
- How is it done today, and what are the limits of current practice?
- What is new in your approach and why do you think it will be successful?
- Who cares? If you are successful, what difference will it make?
- What are the risks?
- How much will it cost?
- How long will it take?
- What are the mid-term and final “exams” to check for success?