The AD-don
Presented hereunder are the excerpts from an interview that AD-chand recorded of the Managing Director of Srijan Advertising, Vijay Kalidhar, also known as Vijay Kalidhar to friends, a man who speaks prolifically about everything except himself and his dramatic achievements.

AD-chand: What drives Srijan?
AD-don: Srijan is driven by it’s people, by Team Srijan and collective vision to excel in innovation, creativity and solutions backed by individual desire to be the best in the world. Srijan is driven by the fuel called ambition.

AD-chand: What is your vision for Srijan?
AD-don: My vision is revision. Revision of a role of an agency. I believe that an agency should be a total solution provider and therefore I founded the advertising agency on strong marketing network, that reaches out to the clients with fast and viable solutions, cut according to their needs and budget. Back home, I have nurtured a talented creative team, that shares my vision of creating the most ingenious creatives fostered with a complete understanding of the client.
At Srijan, we don’t work for our clients, we work with our clients!

AD-chand: You have a wealth of experience from media and have successful marketing background. Can you sell a refrigerator to an Eskimo?
AD-don: As David Ogilvy said ‘ The consumer is not a moron, she is your wife’. In accordance with it I really do not believe in selling refrigerator to an Eskimo. Why I would rather AD-wise my client to go the greener pasture in Sahara desert, if you get the drift!
At Srijan, our ideology advocates that we see our clients’ consumers as our consumers and feel duty bound towards them. Welfare of consumers mean assured growth for our clients and us.

AD-chand: What in your opinion is ‘Good Advertising’?
AD-don: Anything that conveys my clients point of view, translates into sales and benefits the end-user of the product or service, is in my opinion good advertising. If it is required to deviate from conventions to accomplish this goal, then newer ways ought to be devised. That’s why we say that “We are iconoclasts”. If traditional doesn’t work, then innovation does. Good Advertising connects with the consumer.

Note: The interview lasted for about eight hours, but for your benefit we have edited the contents to acceptable length.