Episode 18: Devaiah Bopanna- The New Age Story Teller
About Devaiah Bopanna:
My next guest on The One Percent Project is the hilarious and talented Devaiah Bopanna, Co-Founder at All Things Small and Former Head writer at AlB. I was introduced to Devaiah and his work through an article about his recent nationally acclaimed CRED IPL Ad series that he co-wrote with his ex-AIB colleagues. The series is a bold attempt by CRED, the Celebrities and the Script-Writer using celebrities to poke fun at advertisers’ obsession with celebrity endorsements.”.
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In this conversation, he talks about:
His career from Engineering to Creative Writing.
How he failed his first interview with AIB and then went on to being AIB’s Head Writer.
What it takes to lead a group of highly talented and ambitious writers.
The impact of OTT platforms in the new media world.
His process of creative thinking and script writing.
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Transcript:
*The transcripts are not 100% accurate.
Devaiah: Hi, Pritish, thank you so much for having me. And I just see there's so much pressure by calling yourself the 1% project, and it's just like I have to be there now. Like I can't even be the top 2% like I have to be in the top 1%, high-pressure situation here.
Pritish: Well, all your work that you've done definitely puts you in the one percent.
Devaiah: I will tell that to all my clients when they come ask me for my invoice, that hey, I'm in the top 1%, so you better pay me like the top one percent.
Pritish: Great. So I was going through your profile, and what intrigued me is that you graduated as an engineer from Bangalore. And then landed up going to Ogilvy, and from there, you transition to be the head writer at AIB. And then, now you've co-founded all things small. So what did the seven years of Ogilvy teach you about advertising?
Devaiah: I went to Ogilvy in Bangalore. And I was in about three agencies in that seven years, like two were in Bangalore and one was in Bombay. So what did advertising, in general, teach me was it gave me a good regimental training towards creative thinking because you don't have the luxury of saying that I'm only going to work when inspiration strikes me, or I'm not feeling it today, so I don't think I can write. Because you can't bullshit your clients with those kinds of things. But if he calls me and says, hey, where's that ad, I'll say, man, I didn't find inspiration today, I won't find a job the next day. So what happens is with advertising, it gives you that regiment towards creativity, where you are forced to think and write no matter how you're feeling or what the situation is. And it teaches you to like respect deadlines, and be very professional about something as unburdened and irrational as the creative process is, makes it more professional and gives you that discipline in terms of writing. So that's what seven years of advertising taught me. It also taught me how to think in boxed environment because you have like a brief, you have like an image, you have like a brand tone, and then you have maybe 30 seconds. So that is a lot of conditions that go into before you put pen to paper. So putting all those conditions in place, and you still have to think creative, and it'll you in a box and say everything for the box. So that kind of teaches you a lot in those high-stress situations. So it teaches you how to deal with high pressure when you have a lot of conditions guiding what you will do.
Pritish: What does creativity mean to you?
Devaiah: Creativity, for me, is essentially a disciplined curiosity, where just being curious about things that exist and curious about things that don't exist. And you just keep asking yourself why, what, when, how do everything that you encounter in your life, and you just start looking for interesting answers. So for me, it's just as simple as that.
Pritish: In your seven years of your ad life, which were the most creative brands that you ever worked with? And why were the creative?
Devaiah: So to be very honest, the first seven years of my advertising career, right? I didn't do enough noticeable work. Like when I look back, it was like, I kind of failed in advertising the first seven years. I did a lot of work, I did like some really interesting work with some terrific people, but not enough of it came out. Like what happens is like you have a bunch of ads to go present to a client, and then it depends on the client's mood, and then you have your colleagues also presenting. And essentially, the client picks one of them. I just feel that most of the interesting work I did in my advertising years stayed back in my hard disk. So I feel there were creative times like I've worked with like some fascinating people, from whom I learned from everything I know about writing and creative thinking, and like branding and brand building. Like I worked with this guy called Vipul Thakar So we'll put them in Ogilvy and I worked under him, also in DDB withdraw. So, I mean, they were fun years. Like you are working with fun set of people, doing fun sets of things, and hoping the work gets on. But for me, none of my good work I thought got out. I mean, there were three campaigns that did get out, but nothing that was big, like nothing that captured people's imagination or any of that stuff.
Pritish: How did you convince Tanmay Bhat to hire you?
Devaiah: Yes. So essentially, like I was saying, it was 2015, and I just felt that my advertising career was not going anywhere. I started off very promisingly, and all things were going good, and then essentially failed. I mean, I was just feeling that stagnation. And what happened was, and there was this small content, economy that was booming, content on the internet was doing supremely well. But the big advertising agencies just pretended like that didn't happen. And there was no interesting work happening in that sphere in mainland advertising. So I was kind of bored, and then AIB the roast had just come out, and they had blown up, and they were looking to expand and scale-up. And just the four of them and they are two editors, and they were looking for a writing team. And through the network, they just got referred to me by one other person who I had just hired as a writer. Then I met Tanmay and the team, and then they sent me a copy test, essentially like a comedy test, which I said in the first shot. I sent the test back, I worked on it for two weeks and then Tanmay replied saying, he called, and he said like honestly, it's not very good, kind of irritated me. And he's like, but this person who referred you feels that you're still really good, so I'll give you another test. I'll send that across; why don't you just do that. And that test I spent, I don't think I spent more than two, three hours on it. I was like, screw you. I spent two weeks, and you rejected two years to us, and I sent that and that he really liked. And then he called, and he said like, let's just make this happen. Why don't you move? And then I put in my papers, and like put in my papers. It was a big agency like everything was set like a pushy courier. I just put in my papers and decided to join this YouTube channel, which was run out of an apartment in Barcelona and Mumbai, and that's how it really happened.
Pritish: No way. You gave up on a comfortable life to join a YouTube startup?
Devaiah: Yes, it was, like I think my parents at that point were like this guy's lost his mind. First, he does engineering, gives that up, and joins advertising. And now, when things are pretty much set, the best part is that just my wife's father at that point I was dating her. So her dad was reluctant and all these things, and he had finally agreed to sort of meet me. Then I didn't tell him with advertising and enjoying firstly, to tell him like AIB is not the best thing to start up with the potential father-in-law. So I hid that little information from him, and I told him I'm still in advertising the first time I met him. But later on, I cleared up, but I still didn't come clean. I said I worked in this YouTube Company, like in this YouTube channel, which was run out of an apartment. We've never discussed this so far, but he knows where I worked for. It's like an open secret at home.
Pritish: That's very interesting. So why did you guys think that AIB is going to be a success?
Devaiah: I mean honestly, I didn't spot them or anything. Roast had come out and we saw what that did to the content atmosphere in the country. And I'm like you're all guys doing exciting work, which everyone is talking about. And I mean, they've done this one massive piece of content, which everyone is talking about, and they understand the internet. And when I met them, they are four supremely smart guys. And when you follow them on Twitter and read about their parts and takes on situations and things, you kind of figure out these are smart people. It was just that leap of faith. Four smart people starting a company, and they put something out that has done well. Like, how badly wrong can it go? I've always had this one filter through which I look at every new career opportunities. Like the mistakes shouldn't be boring, like what I'm saying? Like the boring mistake would have been joining another big ad agency if one ad agency is not working out. So even if this whole thing had blown up, it would have been a very interesting mistake. So I just like took that launch.
Pritish: After failing the first test, you landed up being the head writer at AIB. Is writing the great skill you need to be a head writer, or its people management?
Devaiah: That's a very interesting question. So the answer is, you need to be a good writer in any case because you are leading perhaps the smartest writing teams in the country. And you have exceptional writers who are working in the team, who I, see the thing is you need to be good for all of them to respect you. But very early on, I learned that I'm not better than most of them in the team. Some people are exceptionally talented, way better than me, but that is not what heading a team is about. Like heading a team can't be that you are the best person doing that job. It's more about like enabling everyone to do the job. So, I mean, you have to be like a certain threshold of talent for you to know, like if there is a mistake for you to spot the mistakes in writing, and be able to suggest some solutions. But to sit and solve the problem and actually write, you don't have to be the best writer in the room. And I've seen this because most of the people who work at AIB as writers are very good like they're very good at their job. And I think they're few of them are way better than me as writers, I mean, it's no false or fake humility, but that's genuinely the case. But people management skills are extremely important to make sure that these really talented people who have, especially in a creative field where they have their own set of opinions, their own egos, their own insecurities which also fuel every bit of creativity they have. So to manage all that, you don't have to be the best writer in the room. So I think it's a combination, it's more people management, but the foundation is you have to be good at your job.
Pritish: So you're saying that you are the Mahendra Singh Dhoni of the writer's room?
Devaiah: Well, I mean, I didn't make that much money, so.
Pritish:How do you know when you write a script that it will work?
Devaiah: It's through experience. So what happens is firstly, there is honestly, no one can tell you exactly if this is going to work or not, okay. So many times you've written scripts gone short and it has turned out as shit we have never uploaded. Okay. So many times you think how to script this file, I mean the schedule work and then it's gone, shorter come up really good, like extremely funny. Because there's a lot of variables at play, there is like acting; then there is like direction. There are so many variables at play for us for a script to pop. But you will after point start understanding when you look at the script if this is going to work or not, just to experience. Because you've trained yourself, reading, writing, reading, writing, and used to right framework 14, 15 hours every day. So you understand like the anatomy of a joke, like how a joke is structured. And you will know, like what kind of jokes will work, what kinds of jokes will not work? When you look at a script, you will, through experience, you can sort of be 70% accurate of this is going to do well or not do well. And that only comes through experience of writing, reading, writing, reading, shooting, and executing, and just through experience, you'll get to know. You'll be like, okay, this is hitting these beats, and this is going to land like. A job similar to this is something that we did in like a previous shoot, and it went well, so this is following that similar rhythm. So this is going to work well again, hopefully, this time. So you understand through experience.
Pritish: From AIB, you moved on to co-founding all things small. Where you focus actually on true stories within the Indian sub-continent, so what are these stories? What intrigues you? What is your team looking for?
Devaiah: We wound up things AIB, I was like okay, what next? I was doing freelancing for a bunch of clients. I was doing writing, directing, a bunch of videos there. That money was good, everything. But there was this freelancing is such a limbo, where it's very hard to gauge growth when you're freelance, right? Because you're more worried about landing gigs because of the uncertainty of the future as a freelancer. And there is very little growth it offers. So I was looking for something more stable, something more in terms of stability, in terms of career progression. And I was very clear about one thing; I don't want to do comedy. I don't want do anything related to anything I was doing at AIB because that will not be a change in chapter. It will really be me trying to rewrite the same things and the same chapter. So then this opportunity came up, and a bunch of my friends were setting up this company called all things small. And it really appealed to me what they were trying to do, so I said yes, let's do the same then I joined them. We want to basically be a content studio that finds researchers, everything that has got to do with true story content. It could be like a movie based on a true story, or it could be a PR play documentary. It could be a docu-series, it could be a sports documentary. It's anything that you learn through that, and our founding team has a couple of very senior journalists part of the founding team; like the founders, a couple of co-founders are senior journalists. So basically, leverage journalism and turned them into profitable IPS by sort of turning journalistic stories into profitable IPS, like a podcast series or like a docu-series, or like a full legit adaptation for the fiction movie. So that is what we want to do.
Pritish: How have OTT platforms transformed the entertainment landscape?
Devaiah: They have transformed this whole thing in a massive way, to be honest, like they have completely changed the game in terms of they have democratized content. What was happening earlier was that it was, like India in the eighties, when there is this false sense that everyone is equal in socialism. But if you look at the industrialist of the eighties or nineties, you could open an industry or a factory or become big only if you were hand in glove with the government. Like it was the oldest license Raj kind of situation. So I feel the Indian entertainment industry was like that. Like you sort of put up piece of content out or to make a movie or to write a series or a show or whatever, they were just a few people doing it, and it was a very close circle of people, very hard to break into. But what happened when OTT came up? Is that it just democratized content, like the people get what they want to get. Like they want interesting stories, they will get interesting stories. What used to happen earlier is there are just a few families controlling the cinemas. So whatever they put out, you have to watch; there is no option other than that. Even as a consumer, if you demand something smart, if the whole market is producing a certain kind of content, you have to watch that there is no choice.
Pritish: Recently, co-wrote the cred IPL ads. What are you guys trying to communicate through the ad series?
Devaiah: Whatever is in the ad, like download grid. So essentially, I think it is a brand-building campaign, which is asking people to download cred and pay your credit card bills through cred; it's as simple as that. And that is exactly what the communication also asking people to do, and that is the idea behind the campaign.
Pritish: What do you think is the magic of the campaign? Is it that people don't get it at the first goal? Or is it the legendary actors and influencers in it?
Devaiah: I think it is, like personally if you ask me, I think it is why it has created such a huge buzz, it's because the way celebrity advertising is done in India is very different like so far. It almost paints the celebrity as the hero and a very revered figure even in the advertising that they do. But with this campaign, we sort of turn it on it's head and give it a very fresh, interesting spin on how celebrities can be part of our advertising campaigns. And I think that is what has kind of created this buzz around the campaign.
Pritish: And how did you guys come up with the idea?
Devaiah: To be honest, we were thinking of a lot of ideas, and this was just one of them. And honestly, I don't remember the exact moment the idea was cracked. Because we were cracking a lot of ideas. We went through the whole list, and then we had two routes of ideas that we liked. One was this: one was another route. And we took that to the client, and then we just rolled with this route. I think as far as I remember my memory might be a bit off, I think Tamar had something like this. We were discussing on a zoom call for a while, and Tamar had something like using a celebrity in a different way to sort of celebrate. I think it started from there, and then we were like, hey, what if we do it like this? if we do it like that? What if we write a song? What if we do this? What if we structure it like this? What if it's an audition? So we kind, like Tamar had this one part idea, and then we sort of use that as a springboard to create this.
Pritish: And what was Kunal’s first reaction when he heard that?
Devaiah: He just like, I feel he just liked it. Like I mean, he immediately likes how it sounded and what it was doing to the brand. Like a lot of people are like writing into us saying that this is so good and like so different and everything. But I think like I'm not just saying this because what are they our clients and they're paying us, but this is genuinely like a campaign like this would not have gone through in 2015 when I was in advertising. And even now, a campaign like this will not go through because they will over-analyze, over-intellectualize and just kill it. And to be honest, I thought that is what is going to happen to even this campaign. But I was just so shocked, like every one of the clients are yes, this is good write the script, yes, this is fine. Okay, let's go ahead and do it, oh, okay. I thought the edit is going to come out and on the edit they're going to be like lets change it, And it was blind trust and faith in what we were doing, and they just trusted us blindly with this. It was not just blind trust, but they got it, they immediately got the potential this had, and they backed it, and they backed it; they didn't cut corners at any point. So I mean extremely brave clients who didn't fear failure. Because what you can do an emotional ad, like most advertising out there, is very safe. That it is safe simply because the person who's heading the marketing department in that company wouldn't want to lose his own job, so what they will do is, they will go for something safe that will just work. But with campaigns like this, especially when humor is involved, if the joke doesn't land, you fail very publicly, and you will literally become the butt of all jokes. If the joke doesn't land, if it doesn't or not. So it's very risky that someone does very edgy, funny campaigns. But I think the CRED team, Kunal and Tripti everyone there, they just backed us. And thankfully, it's doing decently well.
Pritish: Doing incredibly well. But the most interesting piece of it is that how did you guys convince the actors to do this?
Devaiah: I mean, I honestly don't know because the scripts were sent to the actors, and they all agreed. And then there was no change from anybody's end. So I'm just guessing they also look at the script, and they also felt it was funny. And they were like hey, this is funny, it's coming from a good place, and the script is very good, so why not? I'm guessing they're just being pitched bad advertising scripts all these years. And we've just assumed that most celebrities don't have a sense of humor, but like it clearly shows that all, I mean, most of them do because they agreed to be a part of this campaign. Like obviously, the campaign is directed fantastically. It was directed by Iapapa, who's easily the best ad film maker in the country now. Perhaps like one of the best like there with everyone at a global level as well, he's won the CAN before. I don't know if you've seen, his work is phenomenal. Have you seen Khali Ads
Pritish: Yes.
Devaiah: I mean, he's been consistently doing standard breaking work for ten years now. So we were very lucky when he came on board to direct us. And I mean, the minute he agreed to direct this, I knew that this was going to turn out right, so yes. So everything kind of fell into place, the director, the client, the actors, the jokes. So it was just like good alignment of stars.
Pritish: Sure. You mean the literal stars?
Devaiah: Metaphorical starts, I will say.
Pritish: What is the process behind writing a script for you?
Devaiah: For me, the most important thing is I will not put pen to paper until I have an insightful idea. Also, it depends what I'm writing for. If I'm writing for a client or if I'm writing for myself, or if I'm writing for like write sketches for the AIB. I think everything needs to be rooted in a truthful observation. Like I think then you get a very thoughtful, unique, fresh observation into a particular situation, I will not put pen to paper. So even if it takes a day, two days, three days, go through 50, 60 ideas thinking still that fruitful observation sort of comes and stares at you in the face, you don't like put pen to paper. So for me that finding that truth, even in it might be like, it doesn't depend on the genre. Like it could be emotional, it could be serious, it could be funny, but like it has to be rooted in the truth. So that for me is the most important thing before I start.
Pritish: So, which is one ad from the yesteryears you appreciate, and you think was amazing?
Devaiah: Oh, so many like. Like I love the bingo ads, which came on from 2008 right up to 2011. Bingo commercials are very good. Then I liked. Obviously, the legendary Fevicol Ad, which is like just continues to be played even today. I mean, a lot of what Piyush Pandey used to do was just like phenomenal advertising. But like the Vodaphone Ads are really good, the ZoZo campaign is particularly amazing. There are so many of them, so many good ads and ad campaigns have come out of India.
Pritish: So now we're going to head into a rapid-fire. So one word or one sentence.
Devaiah: Do I get a coffee hamper at the end of this?
Pritish: Sure. Though I'm not KaranJohar So I will send you a virtual one.
Devaiah: Done.
Pritish: So the Hardest thing about your job?
Devaiah: Thinking.
Pritish: One book or a blog that has influenced you?
Devaiah: The Illicit happiness of other people.
Pritish: Your favorite superhero.
Devaiah: I don't watch superhero movies or read superhero fantasy comic books at all.
Pritish: But you are into creative writing, amazing.
Devaiah: Yes.
Pritish: The most creative person you have ever worked with?
Devaiah: Everyone at AIB. Tanmay Bhat
Pritish: Defined Tanmay Bhat in one word
Devaiah: Relentless.
Pritish: How would you define your career in one word in the next ten years?
Devaiah: Interesting, yes.
Pritish: It was amazing talking to you; thank you for your time.
Devaiah: Thank you so much for your time. I hope it turns out well, and I hope it's the top 1% in the top 1% podcast series that you have.
Pritish: Absolutely, it is. It is the topmost, the most hilarious for sure.
Devaiah: Thank you, thank you so much.