The passing away of Mr.Mani Ayer has left shell shocked many advertising and communication professionals both in India and abroad. A great personality Mr. Ayer could speak impromptu on Advertising, PR or direct marketing. It was he who first introduced PR with in Ogilvy in a very professional manner and ensured that clients got more value beyond just doing vanilla advertising using the traditional medium. Remember in the mid 80’s advertising was still emerging in India and he took the first bold step to bring in PR to the Ogilvy fold.
Some time back I happened to read in one of the online media where Mr. Ayer mentioned in his speech to a group of communication students that “Technology cannot substitute human brains, you still need a great mind to come out with strong ideas.” While he was a great believer of technology but to him technology could never work in isolation in the communication business.
As a professional Mr Ayer believed in strong principles and transparency in what ever he did for the industry In fact I was once told by somebody that he never believed in going for speculative pitches and strongly believed that if you have a strong credential clients will automatically invite you. His mantra was always think long term and grow your business from existing clients. Although this has changed now but his strong guiding principles helped in cementing the foundation of Ogilvy. We need to salute him for this.
One can keep writing and saying what Ayer did for the industry endlessly. But to me I have lost a great teacher, mentor and a perfect gentleman. Attending meetings with Mr. Ayer was pure joy; every word he spoke during meetings was worth the weight of gold. Insights use to just overflow in those enlightening discussions and debates.
The entire industry will miss him. May his soul rest in peace.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
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