From the Series
Part of the event
Pentagram’s very first communications and advertising partner, Naresh Ramchandani is something of a wordsmith. In his previous roles as copywriter and creative director, he has picked up numerous awards for his quick-witted one-liners and wickedly candid campaigns. Aside from his way with words, Ramchandani is particularly skilled at communicating through film. His Gamechanger rap-video for Pentagram is a testament to this.
Ramchandani created the Gamechanger video as a follow-up to the 2014 holiday card he and Marina Willer created for Pentagram. The rap calls for the downfall of corporate jargon and a return to plain, no-nonsense English. Pentagram brought in Drew Bierut to direct the film, Superseed Productions to produce it and Jesse Hackett to add the backing track. The film features actress Ngozi Y'ileese hurling jargon profanities at the screen in a two minute rap performance while animated titles by Steven Qua point out the intolerable corporate slang.
On Pentagram’s blog, Ramchandani explains why they felt the original Gamechanger poem needed a makeover:
“We originally published Gamechanger as an epic poem, a kind of anti-jargon Odyssey or Aeneid, a seven-verse entreaty to all agencies and execs who habitually assault the English language with their business buzzwords. But when it came to making a video, we realised that epic poems are so two millennia ago and that maybe a bit of H.O.V.A would work better than a bit of Homer. And so our rap video was born.”
Naresh Ramchandani will be speaking at Design Indaba Conference 2016. Book now.
Watch the Interview with Naresh Ramchandani
