Foolish – Rewriting the history of advertising
Advertising isn’t what it once used to be. Year on year of technical correctness and client appeasing strategies have faded out its vibrant, free spirit. At a time when advertising desperately needs trouble makers and monotony haters, one company is making some serious noise. Previously known as Adept Media, Foolish, a member at InstaOffice coworking Golf course road, has fixated on a name that they find best defines their love for advertising. Founded by Vandan Chopra in 2006, then a newbie to the advertising industry, Foolish has been in the making, now for more than a decade. It’s only been christened now.
Advertising used to be more than just TV commercials and clever catch lines
Foolish maybe an unusual choice for a name but 5 minutes with it’s CEO Vandan and you would be convinced of his reasons. He reflects on the current scenario of the Ad World and how money calls the shots today.
“Advertising used to be more than just TV commercials and clever catch lines”, says Vandan.
He believes things have been too straight in the advertising world since quite a while and its time for some disruption. Their belief: “We have spent 10 years learning the rules of this industry and now its time to change them”. Foolish aims to restore the advertising industry to its former glory, like in the days of Bernbach.
Some might call this idea foolish but then some called it Foolish when Vandan started adept media despite zero experience in advertising. But after spending 10 years in the advertising, it’s clearly time to shake things up a little.
So What’s Inside Foolish?
Something truly unique. Their team consists of a blend of people from different backgrounds, like someone makes manga art, someone reads obsolete books, and so on. They all have something different to bring to the table. According to Vandan regular, mainstream people can’t survive in their agency, they need to be crazy and twisted. He admits building an organisation is hard work, “The bars are too high, and everyday presents itself with new challenges, we fail every day.”, says Vandan. He explains, that failure is a regular feature when you are building something bigger than yourself but at Foolish they celebrate failure. Each failure is like a learning opportunity for them that drives them harder towards success.
“The bars are too high, and everyday presents itself with new challenges, we fail every day.”, says Vandan.
He explains, that failure is a regular feature when you are building something bigger than yourself but at Foolish they celebrate failure. Each failure is like a learning opportunity for them that drives them harder towards success.
Business As Usual …
One incident that illustrates this belief is when 6 years back when their office in Green Park burned to ashes taking everything down with it except their spirits. The very next day their 10 member team resumed work from a make shift office. What’s more, their clients didn’t even get to know about the incident. It was business as usual. This level of zeal and drive is what brought to them reputed clients such as: HP, Blackberry smartphones, Adobe, NDTV, Park Hotel, Goodyear, India Gate Basmati, Shangri-la, Café Coffee Day, Grover Vineyards, California Almonds, Plan International, Brindco Wines, Xerox, United HealthGroup, to name a few.
Vandan strongly believes in culture as the binding force for any organization, in his words
“systems, processes, people, everything falls in place if culture is taken care of.” Click To Tweet
The Head Turning Things About Foolish
They take fun very seriously. Notoriety is the way of life at Foolish. One example of this would be their campaign where they’re calling for copywriters by trolling advertising’s bigwigs like McCann’s Prasoon Joshi, SapientNitro’s KV Sridhar, Taproot’s Agnello Dias, among others. As per them,
“The industry needs a shaking up. And if it’s gotta be us to do it, then that’s the burden we’re willing to bear”
Another interesting thing about Foolish is the different oaths by its employees mentioned at their website. All the oaths are about quitting something – a habit that holds you back from success, a dogma, a belief, a rule or just monotony. It’s all about taking a step further through personal reform. Maybe that’s the ideology that binds them all together, the belief to shake things up and be a better version of now.
With their never give up, bull headed philosophy who knows maybe in a few more years Foolish is able to give the ad world the makeover they desire and people something more to talk about. Foolish’s revolutionary ideas have sure made a ripple in this vast ocean and we hope it turns into a wave soon.
Foolish( www.getfoolish.com ) is one of the happy members at InstaOffice coworking – Golf course centre. Looking for an office space, visit our website www.instaoffice.in or call us at +91-995 856 3555.