'Profit is ours, loss is mine'

"Plan B" - it's that dreaded alternative that most good planners always have in their kitty, but hope they never have to resort to. But, it is invariably Plan B, as we so often discover, that is more successful than the original.  Take the case of the current Pepsi TV ad playing on all the channels.

Well, like the rest of the country they too invested great hopes in the Indian team and created the traditional "big" ad full of confidence and hope along with a slogan "World Cup ko la"!  But then we all know what happened, and faced with slots to fill, they pulled out Plan B and created one of the best illustrations of turning adversity into opportunity with their "tailor ad" which perfectly captures the mood of the nation. 

Packaging the frustration of cricket fans in a humorous tongue-in-cheek story, the ad, in an admirably non-judgemental manner, makes light of the loss and echoes the sentiment running through everyone's heads - "What the heck, at this rate even I can have a shot at the Cup!"

What is clever about this approach is that even though it might be ironical, it could very well be true. Who knows four years down the line where our next World Cup hero will come from? In that sense, the ad throws the challenge at anyone who dares to pursue it. Yes, the invitation is out there, why even the uniforms are stitched; all it now needs is performance!

 What I've learned

What it takes to be responsible

Dhirubhai's terms to the people from whom he used to borrow money during his initial trading days used to be "Profit is ours, loss is mine". It might have been his terms, but for me that is the ultimate example of being responsible - admirably responsible - for the job.

Honestly, how many of us have the nerve to take responsibility for losses? Especially in business. It is always someone else's fault. Like in road accidents. It is faulty economy, trade laws, unscrupulous competition. You name it, the loss is never "ours".

I remember an old friend, Bobby Sistas of erstwhile Sistas Advertising, now Saatchi & Saatchi, making an observation that whenever his agency lost a pitch, his team would always say that it wasn't their fault - there was always an "X" factor, which was the vi