Impression

So after my much ranting about the ad industry, i made a switch (inevitably) to the marketing/branding side of things. The industry that i am now working for is the travel and tourism sector, which is by no means an easy category to be in. With the recent sale of Thomas Cook India stake to Fairbridge capital, it is evident that the margins in this industry are slim and an expensive business model alongside poor receivables showing, are some of the obvious unfavourable signals in this industry. Another thing that i personally feel that hampers the sale is that the travellers today are extremely informed and aware about the best deals and places to go. Plus dont we all love to plan our own holidays? What bothers me is that except for the airfare, stay and few basic travel information, i personally will never go for a tour operator to decide my stay abroad (since i only take care of outbound, i will continue to talk about it). There is a huge unorganised market out there but...

Now that I am on my way out of this industry, let me take this opportunity to bring out some of the hidden facts of this industry. So after thinking for 5 mins, let me start by saying that in advertising  there are certain myths that non-advertising professional has. They are broadly - Ad people create TVCs and cool campaigns Our meetings are largely about the next big campaign idea and no number crunching involved Agency decides the creative We can rest our feet on our tables We work late and we enter late the next day We can pass slang words easily to anyone We get to meet celebrities  We have an amazing social life We can wear Tshirts and 3/4ths Every agency has a Piyush Pandey None of these are true. Far from it. Ya, you keep your feet on ur table when no one is around or there is no client in the office but most of these myths are rightly myths. Instead, this is what we do - we don't create only TVCs - we go on to design a flyer or even a tende...