What The Eyes Don't See

1 | The Invisible Man

In that glass-walled conference room, three pairs of eyes were riveted to the large monitor on the wall. There was another pair of eyes, carefully scrutinizing the other three. As the video began to play, this young man, Anay Ghosh, wheeled his swivel chair back by a few inches. His intention was to get to a suitable vantage point to observe the others. And as each frame of the clip played, that was exactly what he did. Observe.

The older man in the group seemed to be enthusiastic. He was Mr Sen, the client who had to be impressed for the deal. The signs were positive. Sen peered at the faces of the characters in the video with narrowed eyes; always a good indication of engrossment.

His younger colleague did not seem so impressed, though. He watched with the disapproving glare of a hawk, eager to point out a mistake. He took silent notes. His mental cogwheels seemed to turn so furiously that it caused some worry in the observer. But then the observer knew an important dynamic—the younger disapproving colleague was a junior. All his diligence in nitpicking flaws in the clip weren't aimed at any quest for creative analysis. They were only to earn brownie points with his boss.

Anay brushed the younger associate aside. He did not matter.

The third pair of eyes was Anay's boss, Salil Jani, the creative director of the company. He, of course, mattered. Prospective clients like Sen would come and go, but the boss had to be kept happy always. And he seemed to be! Anay did a little jig in his mind when his boss swayed his head in tune with the final jingle.

"Excellent work, if I say so myself," said Salil, practically beaming at his protégé. "Didn't I tell you, Mr Sen, that our Anay is the best?"

Anay purred like a well-fed kitten. For him, the stakes were higher than anyone else in the room.

Sen's associate, the super eager junior, leaned forward. "Yes, no doubt it's a brilliant ad for our cat food product, but I think there are not enough cats in the ad. Did you not think so too, sir?"

Sen frowned. It was the beginning of a thought, implanted in his head by his junior. An associate who wasn't supposed to matter. As Anay held his breath, Sen made a slight nod. "Come to think of it, there should be more cats. It's a cat food commercial, after all!"

Salil's face lost color. His smug smile vanished. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he could see the client closing this meeting too without arriving at a decision. He could see another week of harrowing brainstorming and then the work that would follow—rewriting the script, getting the actors, reshooting the ad. He balked at the further expense that would entail; they had already overshot the development fee. "Of course, Mr Sen. If that's your concern, it must be addressed," he said. "What do you say to that, Anay?"

Anay, who had his arms folded until now, unfolded them and assumed the stance of a person who had a confident reply to a puzzling conundrum. "I agree, Salil sir, that is a justified question!" he said with the smile intact on his face. "It is kind of Milind to point it out, for it gives me a chance to explain my position." It was a calculated trick. Address the junior by his first name so that he feels important. Concur with him so that he feels validated and can go back and brag to his colleagues about his valuable contribution to the meeting. But don't append his name with 'sir' to show that he's just an equal. "So, you see, we arrived at this decision to have only three cats in the ad after much thought. We focused on the owners of the cats rather than the cats themselves. The ad follows the issues of the cat-owners and addresses them in a funny way, as you might have observed. The worry when there's no cat food in the house, the cat food is not nutritious enough, where to go to get it... all these are common pet-owner questions. And that is what our ad answers instead of showing cutesy cats in every frame, which every mediocre ad-maker will do, because that's the first thought that pops in the head."