Ha ha. You can’t get a question as pointed as this. Right? But not so with our Wizard with Words. Here’s Dr Bhaskar Das with the August 12 edition of Das ka Dum. Read on…

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Q. Apropos the Rediff ad, it’s so good to see an agency talk about someone who is now with a rival. Can one ever expect this in the news media? Or a marketer? A P&G ad acknowledging a former exec who is now in HUL or some such?

A. You are in a mood to migrate to Aristotle’s ideal state (only as a literal pun). In life everything is a matter of choice. There is nothing right or wrong about anything. These observations are always post-facto, when data points are different. If a certain creative initiative is taken by an organisation, it could be evaluated, but if it is found to be distinctive, it can’t be extrapolated to a normative behaviour for others to adopt. Usually that’s called a ‘copy’. Others can always execute another distinctive initiative to take up the overall level of creativity of the industry. I am sure every organisation has its share of an ‘aha’ moment in its business journey.