I learned about cars, robots, food, soap, toys, cigarettes, sweets, fountain pens, timber, fish, newspapers, oil, wine, nuclear fuel, the army, the police. I visited hospitals, refugee hostels, sweet factories, oil refineries and nuclear plants, was taught how to drive a Land Rover through a river, how to fire the cannon of a Centurion tank and have sat quaking in a police car during a high-speed chase. I learned how the insurance and banking systems work, as well as about human rights, our plundered environment and the scandal of places like Bhopal. Through my work l learned about the deep interconnectedness of these things. Society is a web of myriad causes and effects. Tugging at a thread on this side of the web can twitch apparently unrelated strands on the far side. Quite by accident l discovered that the copywriter has real power in the world.
In case you were wondering, this is Indra Sinha, one of the advertising greats from a powerful article he wrote: How copywriters can change the world.
