These are the most Exciting Times for Creativity: Prasoon Joshi

00:00:13 Speaker 1: Welcome to Goa Cast, the official podcast of Goa Fest. We're coming to you from right here at the festival, bringing you exclusive interviews with some of media and advertising's best and brightest. We'll be speaking with top executives, creative directors and thought leaders to get their insights on the latest trends, technologies and ideas shaping the industry. Mr Pras Joshi is an extraordinary creative force seamlessly branding, poetry, advertising, and film 00:00:40 Speaker 1: with his evocative words, groundbreaking advertising campaigns and memorable film compositions. Joshi has become a true icon of creativity, his ability to capture the essence of brands and connect with audiences on a deep level, has revolutionized the world of advertising with his thought provoking storytelling and impactful messages. Joshi's work has left an indelible mark on the industry, inspiring countless artists and setting new standards of excellence. Today on Goa Cast, we talk to Mr Praun Joshi. 00:01:09 Speaker 1: So welcome to the show, sir. Absolutely. Wonderful to have you with us. You've made significant contributions to the creative industry. But can you tell me about some of your hopes and your aspirations for the future of creativity? 00:01:21 Speaker 2: These are the most exciting times we are living in for creativity because uh you can see uh especially because of, you know, social media. And now a I there is uh something unprecedented which we see. 00:01:36 Speaker 2: Uh Well, every era, everybody feels that their era is most unique. This is how the world works, this is how the universe works. Everybody feels that your times are the most difficult or the most exceptional. But there is something true about this in this era you've seen, there is a huge amount of disruption which has happened. 00:01:57 Speaker 2: Uh for a long time, we hadn't seen this kind of technological interjection or inflection point which we are witnessing at this juncture that can be absolutely feared. You can, it can unsettle, of course, it, it, it changes the way you live, for example, uh we were used to getting our news and information in a very formatted curated way. There is a curated world we used to live in 00:02:23 Speaker 2: today. Everybody can broadcast. There is a democratization of platforms. So you are broadcasting yourself and that so is someone at home alone doing that. So this is a very different era and everything simultaneously is beamed at and then comes A I which is also the algorithms which are working and sort of doing sort of segmentation and targeting and, and and and and all all those kind of deep personalization of content. 00:02:53 Speaker 2: So all this together gives can excite, you can uh make you fearful. And um I think the biggest music comes out of tension. If you see you take a guitar, uh if if it is not properly tuned and you just, the tension is not there, the music is not there. The wire is incapable of producing music without that tension. So the right amount of tension which is there in our world is actually very, very fertile for creative people. 00:03:20 Speaker 2: And I think that's how I would look at it in a future that is, and all, all professions which are related to creativity would uh would definitely see challenging times and more fertile times more, more exciting times. I would say yes, there would be discomfort. Well, but we'll have to deal with 00:03:38 Speaker 1: it. I think that's a beautiful, beautiful analogy. So throughout your career, you have seamlessly blended various art forms such as poetry, advertising and film. 00:03:48 Speaker 1: How do you see the boundaries between these art forms blurring or evolving in the future? 00:03:54 Speaker 2: It's definitely, they are definitely blurring and I've been seeing it for a long time. I, in fact, people used to ask me, OK, so how different it is writing songs or writing film, scripts and uh 32nd verses uh because you know, people they in a hurry to define, we defined each other very fast. But if you don't define II, I don't know how to deal with something which I haven't defined. 00:04:17 Speaker 2: So I would ask you adequate amount of information about you or your, your name with your name. I'm trying to figure out, oh, what kind of name is this? Oh And then I'm saying where you were brought up what your family is. And gradually I'm trying to figure you out, that's how humans deal with each other. And this happens in the world everywhere, professional world. Also people are trying to deal with you with calling you. He's this type of a professional or this type of a creative person. 00:04:44 Speaker 2: So I always was asked. So you are a short format person or a long format person. What is the difference between writing a 2.5 hour film versus writing 32nd must be challenging, must be altering your mind. 00:04:58 Speaker 2: It's nothing like that. See, eventually you're trying to communicate and thing when you approach a subject or a message which you want to communicate has a certain need that my ultimate goal is to communicate that sometimes I feel a song is enough, you don't require a fulfill one song is enough to communicate. The entire a montage of it communicates everything. Sometimes you feel it's not enough, 00:05:25 Speaker 2: this needs to be episodic. So I think I always felt that there shouldn't be any boundaries. When you're communicating, you can communicate through cinema, you can communicate through music, you can communicate through short stories, you can communicate through body language, you can communicate through anything. I always thought creativity is like that. So for me, blurring of these boundaries is actually I've been always like that. 00:05:51 Speaker 2: But yes, for the world at large, these compartments which are breaking 00:05:56 Speaker 2: is somehow making people uncomfortable that uh today's uh cinema also needs to be used or, or, or, or, or podcast use needs to be used of influencers or youtube videos or personal videos. I think that the world today is telling us, stop thinking like that, stop thinking silos. You should never think of silos. You should know the ultimate goal. What is that you are intending? You are intending to communicate. It's not important to make an ad always to communicate. 00:06:25 Speaker 2: You might not, sometimes silence could be the biggest point you can make through by not saying you can say a lot. So you have to understand the ultimate goal is what you want to communicate. Absence could be huge amount of presence, isn't it that you are not there? 00:06:43 Speaker 2: If your ultimate goal was that in somebody's house or some of your friend group? You are. I'm saying if your target is that you want to be discussed, you want to be most popular, most talked about. You decided not to go for a very important congregation. And everybody said, where is he? And they made 20 calls to you. If your idea was to be discussed to be top of the mind, you have become top of the mind as a communication professional, you should know 00:07:12 Speaker 2: just by being there and saying that I have. So all my clients also at times, I tell that it's not just by spending money or being there that I have sponsored the particular event or a cricket event or a match or something. Very big. Sometimes not sponsoring could be the idea. Yeah, because the idea is not to be there ideas to dominate the share of mind. Yeah. And how do you achieve that? 00:07:37 Speaker 2: That's this new world which is telling us that being, making an ad is not the only way of communication. 00:07:44 Speaker 1: So it's interesting that you bring up this point of the need to categorize and the need to categorize people. So we have so many target points of data. People are data nowadays. So because we do need have a need to categorize. Do you think that this growing focus on data and with is losing an emotional connect with the consumer in the advertising industry is creativity, losing that emotional connect. 00:08:11 Speaker 2: If you are obsessed with it, yes. If you think that data is an end in itself, then yes. But if data is a means to an end, if data is empowerment, it's like I was saying yesterday that you're shooting uh with a boy in an arrow. Yeah. And you're shooting in the dark and you're imagining something out there. Suddenly a shaft of light falls on that darkness and there is a target you see. Wouldn't that be 00:08:39 Speaker 2: easier for me now to shoot that arrow? So that's how I will see data. Data data is illuminated that particular darkness to me, that black hole for me, which is very, you know, fuzzy in nature to begin with. That fuzziness has been that those clouds have been removed and I've got a clarity. So I think certain clarity which data brings in. 00:09:02 Speaker 2: I welcome that. But you've obsess over data and you think that you will remove, I'm not trying to save creative people's job here. But I if you think that by removing me on my ilk of people, you will be able to get across to the consumer. That's where you're mistaken because advertising and communication is as much as an art, art form or art as it is science. 00:09:29 Speaker 2: So if you think it's only science and data will so you need a machine which will, you know, take the data and reach out to the consumer. So then the fundamental of this model are that humans are not emotional means, the factual information of a kind will do. 00:09:48 Speaker 2: It's a very different assumption and the assumption which you asked me just a question that are we becoming less emotional? So, emotion is very important to you. So as as far as today's human being is concerned, the way human race is today, emotion is a very important part of the decisions are instinctive. Yes, they might be evaluating it. So that's how far I'll go with data. I will not obs be obsessed with data 00:10:15 Speaker 2: and remove this art from there. 00:10:18 Speaker 1: So that was wonderfully put. I want to shift to change the subject a little bit and talk a little bit about A, I wanted your opinion. If I suppose a piece of art is created using A I can it still be judged on its own merit? Is it still considered art in your mind? These 00:10:35 Speaker 2: are debatable points and as, as we evolve, ethical questions will emerge and ethical filters will come. 00:10:41 Speaker 2: But if you ask me today, if a piece of work has come from A I, I will consider A, I also see we all are as creative people influenced by what we see as a painter, as a writer, as a poet, as a music, music director or as a film director. 00:10:56 Speaker 2: Um you are constantly absorbing influences. Nobody can say that I have just said, nobody can say I've just dropped from the sky. Now I've started creating, there's no influence on me. I am like absolutely near a car. I have no influence. I have no, no, nothing has touched me. We all as we go along, 00:11:23 Speaker 2: we start acquiring things, we start getting influenced by the work other people have done. The sounds we hear is a I is a collective if A I is getting influenced by a lot of work and after that, it's producing something I would consider it a piece of work. Yeah. Now let's judge it on its merit. What are the merits? 00:11:44 Speaker 2: Who, how do we judge art. That's where humans emotions come. The the the dimension of X Factor emotion like we're judging the Raj was that we're just judging the music, you know, performances. And there was a column for X Factor in our, you know, world the way we are today, as I say, we are evolving. So I I'm not, you know, I'm not giving you a forecast for 1000 years from now. I'm saying as we are today, emotions are very important for us. Even the art 00:12:14 Speaker 2: which she has to do something to us. It did something to me. Something unexplainable. It did to me. That's where art resides. Yeah, you don't dissect every piece of art or poetry or music and say, OK, I like the uh after 2.3 seconds, I hate the song before 2.8 seconds. I liked it or only like from 2.8 to 3.2. 00:12:36 Speaker 2: This is not how you appreciate art and pieces of work on of music, art and poetry and all that. This do something to you. And if a piece of A I work does something to you, I will respect it as an artist 00:12:48 Speaker 1: wonderfully. Put just one final question for you, sir. Before I let you go, what are your thoughts on Goa Fest? And the role that it's played historically in pushing the advertising space forward? 00:13:00 Speaker 2: Goa Fest was a kind of coming together of two entities. 00:13:04 Speaker 2: I was part of instrument in that when we did that. Ok. So there is to be Bombay at club and then need to be three years of five 00:13:13 Speaker 2: and some of us very eminent leagues of mine at that time gone together. I remember Pande myself, some others who got in together and we decided we felt that these two bodies should come together. And that's the time the goa festival start started years back, I think 2006, 2007, that's the time it started. And since then, yes, we've been in and out there have been a fair share of ups and downs with the festival. 00:13:39 Speaker 2: What is important is that it has survived till now. What is important that even after a few years of absolute darkness of pandemic time is back on his feet and in today's world is uh for the industry. I think it has got more significance because, you know, we, we promise to meet each other a lot. And today's social media and technology has made us feel quasi feel or pseudo feel that we are in touch with each other. 00:14:10 Speaker 2: And uh but we are not, I believe me, we are not. And the amount of connection I felt after coming here, Raji, I mean, he was a good friend and we keep talking on the phone at times, but I don't think we would have, you know, sort of shared a stage together and looked at uh you know, creative talent like that, we promise that we'll do it. And we also feel that we are doing it because we feel that we technology has connected us, but actually technology has uh not connected us, it has disconnected us. We are lost in our own worlds. 00:14:38 Speaker 2: We are um you know, spread so thin in our lives everywhere that this kind of festival and significance of goa festival today is much more, not from any other point of view and from the point of view of sharing in congregation and, and, and, and sort of coming together of our industry. 00:14:56 Speaker 1: Well, on that note, sir, thank you so much for joining us. 00:14:59 Speaker 2: Thank you very much. Really a pleasure. 00:15:01 Speaker 1: Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Goa Cast. We hope you enjoyed listening to some of the best and brightest minds from Indian advertising for more episodes, follow the podcast on Bing Spot, Spotify Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast.