Au naturel: Adman Sumanto Chattopadhyay doesn't believe in combing hair; is fascinated with the term ‘marketed manhoods’

What was your worst haircut?...

...and other questions for Sumanto Chattopadhyay, Chairman & Chief Creative Officer, 82.5 Communications, Ogilvy Group. The adman tackles questions on some hairy territory.

Q. Jim Morrison once said, “Some of my worst mistakes in life were haircuts” What was the worst haircut you ever got?
So I’ve had long hair for as long as I can remember. I acted as Buddha in a play and that’s when I was asked to grow my hair and I’ve never cut it since. So I think that the worst style mistake for hair would be facial hair. So only once I shaved my beard and kept my moustache and I looked really terrible so I couldn’t wait for my beard to grow back.

Q. How do you manage your hair on a day-to-day basis?
I don’t. My colleagues all laugh at me because I’m very bad. I don’t shampoo my hair very often and things like that. Today, because I had to come here, I’m very well-groomed but otherwise no. And my look is that, I don’t comb my hair and all that. So this is the look and it stays that way naturally till the next time I wash and condition my hair.

Q. One grooming term that really caught your attention
Marketed manhoods. So ‘marketed manhoods’ because I think that everything, all the trends and everything that we’re talking about, the fact that men today are so into buying products for grooming and using them is because largely due to marketing efforts.

Even some of these things like metrosexual or spornosexual, there’s a lot of marketing and advertising that goes behind creating these. Consumers think that they came up with these things on their own and they don’t realise that people are creating communication and brands which subliminally encourage you to do these things.