24 Hours With… Pia Chaudhuri, creative director, One Green Bean
24 Hours With… spotlights the working day of some of the most interesting people in Mumbrella’s world. Today we speak with Pia Chaudhuri, creative director at One Green Bean.
Morning: Where am I? This is neither a philosophical question, nor a case of ‘dirty stop-out-ism’. Rather, this morning I’ve awoken in an AirBnb in Redfern. My boyfriend and I are staying here while we wait to settle on our first home. I hate it. But I’ll probably still write a rave review when we leave.
On my walk to work, I listen to an episode of This American Life. Ira Glass is quite possibly my hero.
Number 362 is called ‘I’ve Got You Pegged’. It’s about how everyone is judgemental, whether we care to admit it or not. Being British, I guffaw at the observations the first guest makes about Germans. Why is heavy metal still so popular there?
He also uses the word ‘factoid’, which I decide will be my word of the day.
The office is already brimming with activity when I arrive. Until I worked at a PR agency, I’d never experienced such business before 10:00am. But these guys have been selling the shit out of stuff since 6:00. It’s making me tired just looking at them.
The creative team greet me with smiles. There are seven of us now. And I love them all. Fact(oid).
At the head of the table is our inimitable CEO, Carl Ratcliff. Or as I like to call him, Carlos, sometimes Carlito. I’m not sure why I’ve denounced the English original for these Latin American dancer versions, but they seem to have stuck and he doesn’t seem to mind.
Carlos strikes a Carlito pose
Carlito asks me to look at a presentation he’s doing on the importance of sustained creativity for brands. I nod. ‘This is why I work for him’, I think to myself.
The first meeting of the day is in the queue at Bourke Street Bakery. “While I’ve got you”, a member of the client service team asks, “what are your thoughts on using parody for a serious client?”
“Flat white?”
Today is an exciting day. We’re having a ‘world premiere’ of a launch piece I’ve been working on since February for Maurice Blackburn, one of our newest clients. It’s at 5:00pm over beer and popcorn, and is distracting me from more immediate tasks.
I throw myself into meeting two. We’re trialling a new style of working, developed by our resident oracle and head of strategy, Matt Kendall. It’s called a Creative Sprint and it’s how the world’s most successful businesses get from problem to solution in no time.
It’s based on diverse minds collaborating from start to finish, rather than using a ‘pass the baton’ approach like at most traditional agencies. It’s how I like working best, and the style I’ve been championing since becoming CD at OGB.
Today’s session is chaired by our managing director extraordinaire, Claire Salvetti. I call her Sensei because she’s so wise.
Sensei Salvetti
The Sprint rolls into lunch, by which point, we have several robust campaign ideas that members of strategy, creative, PR, digital, client service, production and management are all happy with. Job done.
Lunch
I eat my lunch in front of my laptop, catching up on emails and laughing out loud at cat GIFs delivered by animatedtabs.com.
Yes, I am a cat person.
Afternoon
Meeting three is with Jess Cluff. She began life at OGB in the PR team but having demonstrated an amazing creative streak, she was transitioned into mine. Creatives that get earned media are a rare and elusive creature in this town.
I work with her on a content idea for NBN. I say it should include some factoids… Then proceed to tell her that’s my word of the day. She laughs at me but agrees that it should indeed include some factoids.
One Green Bean’s creative team
My social content creatives are brainstorming fruits that look like breasts for posts about breast cancer. They laugh at my suggestion of using the “nubbin end of an orange”. You know how one side sticks out and the other goes in? A bit like innie and outie belly buttons…
My partner in crime and ACD, Kat Topp, says she’ll never forget me saying that. I wonder what she means. It was a serious suggestion. Also, ‘nubbin’ is an amazing yet underused word. Perhaps it will be my word of the day tomorrow…
Later
World Premiere time has arrived! We pile into the Pool Room to the smell of just popped corn.
I talk the agency through the Australian odyssey that was this project.
The brief from Maurice Blackburn was to communicate their views on social justice. Despite fighting for the rights of ordinary Australians since 1919, they’ve never led their advertising with a social justice message.
Through research, we discovered that most people don’t understand what social justice is, let alone appreciate its importance to their own lives.
But many of us are already standing up for it, whether we realise it or not. It might be as small as changing our Facebook profile picture, or as big as organising a rally. Either way, we’re all part of the fight for fairness, and in turn, social justice.
And that’s how the concept was born. We wanted to feature some of the amazing people who are fighting for theirs and other people’s rights, every single day.
32 real people. 17 locations. 12 shoot days. Multiple topical issues. And the agency’s first official TVC later, Your Right Is My Right was born.
The lights are dimmed and the launch film plays on our excessively large television.
I’m humbled by my colleagues’ reactions. I feel lucky to work in such a supportive environment.
The day draws to a close and I finish my drink with friend and legend, Nicole Thurston, at the agency bar. We discuss the trials and tribulations of being a fake grown-up. Too many glasses of wine later, I head home.
Night
My boyfriend and I are watching Stranger Things. I regard it as the best show I’ve ever seen.
As a kid, I searched for E.T., rode alongside my Goonies, lived and breathed Stand By Me, and stayed awake for Alien. For me, this series is nostalgia at its absolute best.
I Google the show’s creators, the Duffer Brothers, and marvel at their work. Where did these guys come from and why had I never heard of them before this? I read about their decade-long struggle to get a creative break and feel inspired by their achievements.
I got my first real break from our fearless founder, Kat Thomas, when I joined OGB. It’s different here to anywhere I’ve ever worked. It believes in creativity above all else. It believes in me.
As the tale of the strange little girl called Eleven nears an end, so does today. I tell my boyfriend a factoid about the Duffer Brothers. He nods. It’s time for bed. I look forward to more of the same tomorrow.
8.00am Wake up as late as possible whilst ensuring I still get to work on time.
9.00am Arrive in the office. Someone has a birthday so we all stand around awkwardly half singing to someone we barely really know.
9.01am – 7pm A blur. It’s all a blur of disaster, triumph, fear, bravery, authority, helplessness, creativity, hope, friendship, hatred, inspiration and chore. I’m scared, ebullient, and I am five different people in the course of one day. Most everyone I know feels the same.
7.30 pm Get home, order food and do as little as possible on my sofa.
10pm Read a ridiculously curated post on an industry website, clearly meant to cover selected areas that require some
PR around them, from an agency type who uses more superlatives about co workers than I have ever read before. Understanding that this is calculated PR from an agency, still wonder if the agency has any self awareness and understanding of their place in the industry let alone the world. Decide that the word braggadocio is my word of the day. Create a response meant to inject some humour and reality, and perhaps even ensure some introspection by the PR agency. Goodnight.
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Likeable person. As @My Day highlighted, a bit contrived.
But my reason for posting is really to ask, to beg…bring back Kerwin Rae!! Why can’t we have 48 hours, or even a whole week, in his life? Please.
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The Maurice Blackburn video is spot on and so powerful. Congratulations on capturing the spirit of social justice so well.
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24 hours with…..is my favourite part of mumbrella. Sure it has an element of self/agency promotion. But it takes guts to put yourself out there. Good on you Pia and keep them coming mumbrella!
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