http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/catalyst/2008/05/15/stories/2008051550020200.htm
Brands need to continually reinvent themselves as they grow older but it does not stop with merely changing the identity and creating new commercials to announce it. Does it demonstrate a new focus to the customer, better customer service or more contemporary products?
Cricket has audiences who are glued onto the TV set for hours on end, starting with the pre-match build-up, the toss, the pitch report, the highlights at the end of each innings, the presentation ceremony, the concluding remarks and whatever else follows it. On one single match day, a consumer could end up seeing the same commercial 10 times.
It is 8:45 pm on Tuesday –May 6 – and yet another IPL match is being telecast. I watch religiously despite the mediocre fare being provided by the depleted Chennai kings who clearly miss the likes of Mathew Hayden (who has recently been a t his diplomatic best) and Mike Hussey (who continues to be Mr Cricket).
One more wicket falls as the home team struggles. As I wait for the replay, a commercial comes on air for the nth time.
The IPL has been a succession of TV commercials, several of ordinary quality, like some of the players on display, interspersed with some cricket, some of it lacklustre.
Even as I contemplate switching the channel, the phone rings. It is my friend who calls to tell me that a wicket has fallen in the Royal Challengers camp too as the CEO has just quit. The CEO later reiterates that he has been “summarily dismissed”!
What with the cheerleaders having to tone down their act and actually being made to wear some clothes, Harbhajan’s hand straying onto his India team mate’s cheek, the ‘excellent’ relations between Warne and Ganguly… the IPL has had its fair share of excitement. My regret, though, is that the advertising that has been the foundation for the entire economics of funding the IPL – barring a few exceptions – has been quite boring, at least for diehard viewers like me.
Opportunity to see. But what is there to see?
Media planners swear by OTS or ‘Opportunity to see’. They want consumers like you and me to see the commercials a few times at least, during the purchase cycle. But how many times can one see the same boring commercial which precedes, interrupts and follows a game, which also happens to be dull and one-sided on occasion?
So, here is my question to agency creative and strategic types: What is your view on ‘wear-out’ of TV commercials?
Cricket has audiences who are glued onto the TV set for hours on end, starting with the pre-match build-up, the toss, the pitch report, the highlights at the end of each innings, the presentation ceremony, the concluding remarks and whatever else follows it. On one single match day, a consumer could end up seeing the same commercial 10 times.
Clearly, some of us do not learn or are gluttons for punishment. I read somewhere that the IPL could well be the ‘Superbowl’ of India. Superbowl is a big event in the US, as most of us know, where several brands launch new, edgy commercials at a phenomenal cost. One recalls the impact made by the ‘1984’ commercial previewed by Apple when I was young and actually had hair on my head!
This tradition of launching commercials in the event continues. While the IPL may present a great opportunity for Indian advertisers to showcase their creative talent, one wonders if they have risen to the challenge or even understood the mindset of the viewer of 20-20 cricket.
My submission to advertisers, agencies and marketers is to watch both games on the weekend at 4 p.m. and 8 p.m., particularly the commercials, without switching the channel once and see their own commercials several times over to empathise with the viewer. They will quickly realise that their execution does not measure up to the challenges of repeated opportunities to see on the same day on the same channel.
Having said that, let’s take a look at some of the commercials that have been on air, not necessarily in any order.
Change for the sake of change
It is that time of year when companies seem to be dissatisfied with the way their brands look. Everybody wants to look younger, more with it, and in tune with what a younger audience wants. After all, we are a young country and even if we forget it for a moment, the agencies who have been behind these identity changes will quickly remind us! Ceat, one of the well-known if not iconic brands of my time, has suddenly woken up to the fact that younger customers do not even know it exists.
Marketing as we all know seems to be full of companies who ignore the importance of investing in their brands in a sustained manner! So, out goes the rhino, out goes the ‘born tough’ (a clear position if there was one) and in comes a new colourful logo which is announced with a lot of fanfare.
A lot of the communication on TV is about change itself and how it is inevitable and necessary. There was a level of intrigue in the first commercial where a middle-aged man tries to take a picture of a young girl in a bikini (when will middle-aged men improve!) while a young man wearing a t-shirt with the caption ‘change’ is blocking the view. The other commercials, in my opinion, lack the same level of interest and intrigue.
Godrej, another ‘old’ brand, has reinvented itself in design and Shoppers Stop too has a new identity.
All these campaigns feature heavily on the IPL, some as ‘creepy crawlers’ below and on the side of the screen, which, instead of reminding, actually end up repelling me.
Rejuvenation is an important part of branding and brands need to constantly monitor themselves, keep measuring how consumers feel about them and look for ways to engage the customer.
But identity, however visible, is just one aspect of the brand. Brands need to continually reinvent themselves as they grow older but that does not stop with merely changing the identity and creating new commercials to announce it. Does it demonstrate a new focus to the customer, better customer service or more contemporary products?
My concern about all these identity changes is that there is a predictable pattern to it. The logo is changed, often without continuing any aspect of its past; it becomes a lot more vibrant and colourful; there is a high-profile ad campaign that touts the change and then life goes on. What has changed for the brand or the consumer?
Hawaai at your feet
When we were kids (there I go again!) we used to wear a brand of rubber chappals called Hawaii made by Bata. Every second person used to wear it. In fact, I later discovered that Hawaii had become a generic name and several other manufacturers sold their brands as Hawaii to unsuspecting and uniformed customers.
Paragon, a company that makes rubber chappals has a new commercial featuring actor Shriya (Rajnikant’s lady love in the film Shivaji) who is dancing in the streets with a group of people, one of whom is a lady with a broom! Another celebrity commercial without a script or an idea … quite like a formula film that cannot find the right formula.
In defence of the commercial, I must tell you that my 17-year-old nephew, who is visiting from Malaysia, wanted to buy the chappals because he likes Shriya … So there you go.
The agency might well say “you are not the target audience!” But I am the target audience for the commercials done by Citibank. Clearly, the bank seems to be stressed out because of all this sub-prime crisis and I do recall one commercial with a girl jogging, talking to the camera and I could not for the life of me figure out what she was saying. Citibank has a series of commercials which are not too different.
From banks, we move on to insurance and another commercial for Max NewYork Life which has a harried housewife whom we later discover is paranoid.
But I am getting ahead of myself. A lady enters an empty house and searches high and low for her husband. He is not answering his phone, his shoes are strewn carelessly on the floor and he is nowhere to be found. The tension increases for the lady as she rushes from pillar to post calling out to her husband and her panic increases. She finally finds him slumped in his chair and rushes to him, only to wake up the poor sleeping man who probably was having one of his few moments of peace undisturbed by his wife…
Yes, insurance is a difficult subject and fear is not an easy emotion to handle, but after all this build-up, staccato images, black and white treatment, all adding the tension, it’s a letdown as the film ends almost comically. As my nephew says, “God! She almost gave him a stroke waking him up like that!” Yes, advertising works differently for different folks I guess.
Love me, love my dog
Advertising uses the unnatural liking we have for children and dogs. I love dogs and children (especially when they are not my own) and I just love the Vodafone commercial which has a cute girl with curls and our pug which has now acquired celebrity status. The brand which used to talk about coverage is now talking about service and helping consumers.
The commercials are charming, to put it mildly, and restore my faith in the power of advertising to charm and sell. Being an Airtel consumer, I am unable to talk about their service. But being an avid television watcher, I can tell you that I do not mind ‘opportunities to see’ commercials like these.
Another interesting commercial is for the Moto Yuva where a middle-aged father apes his teenage son while his family watches in amusement. While I have discussed a few commercials that were sad, weird even, there is nothing to beat the Animal Welfare Board which claims that the dog has been mistreated and the ad should be pulled off air!
So, here’s hoping that we get better cricket breaks!
(Ramanujam Sridhar is CEO,brand-comm, and the author of One Land, One Billion Minds.)
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