Mastering Mediocrity: Wake, bake, filmmake
By Zeeshan Akram Jabeer
The eighth episode of Mastering Mediocrity premiered on 3 November 2020, featuring filmmaker and baker Nandula Gamage. Here are a few catchy moments from our conversation with Nandula on this episode of Mastering Mediocrity.
- Creative bakers today – overrated?
It is well known that there is no such thing as a “perfect job” or a “perfect lifestyle”, and yet, societal expectations tend to push people to such a great extent that they feel like they should have everything figured out by their mid-20s. Times have changed, and so have the people.
The younger generation today is more focused on following their passion and working towards making it a profession. They are occupying themselves with sharpening their skills rather than dwelling solely on their academics. Baking during free time has always been a passion to many, and of course there are countless foodies out there who are passionate about eating them. Unfortunately, it has come to a point where starting up your own bakery at home is just about launching an Instagram page for it and getting a few hundred followers.
Nandula believes that the market for baked goods has therefore become saturated, especially during the Covid pandemic. When the supply for a certain good exceeds its demand, businesses must compete for customers. This has in turn created a high sense of competitiveness within the industry itself and has made the title “creative baker” overrated.
- Social media marketing – its importance
We live in a world where we see constant progress in technology on a daily basis. Businesses are now investing more of their time and energy into curating creative advertisements on social media than advertisements on television. It certainly isn’t an easy task to promote your business on apps such as Facebook and Instagram either.
Social media companies use a certain algorithm in order to make their apps as user-friendly as possible. The more the users comment and share a certain post, the more boost that respective account receives. Zeeshan mentioned the importance of posting content which you specialise in – content which makes you different from the rest of the pack. They also discussed certain start-ups also known as “social media agencies” which charge small businesses very high amounts just for a few posts on their Instagram feed. This is rather witnessed as a scam in the corporate world, considering how little it takes to launch such social media agencies.
Nandula and Zeeshan continued to converse on the ignorant nature of many employees in the marketing sector who usually hire production companies to shoot their videos but are unsatisfied with the end product. This duo loves what they do but has also learnt to be patient with their clients, who, most of the time, do not have a knack for strategic thinking on how they want their product promoted to existing and potential customers.
Profitability is the motive for most businesses, but it is also important not to lose our morality on the way. This episode was all about helping us get a closer look into the creative industry while giving us a few tips on how to boost our social media pages.
Episode transcribed by Amani Najumudeen.
Watch Episode 8 of Mastering Mediocrity in its entirety here: https://youtu.be/TT7h62YHgl4.
