Read on to know about ‘what’ of an advertisement; and what works or doesn’t work,
in the ad sphere
One of the most abused jargons in management today is the
word “strategy”. Let me give you an example of how meaningless it has become
with today’s management students. That day as I was walking in the corridor of
the business school after a session I heard one guy asking another friend of
his an extremely difficult question “Bro, I want to meet that girl at 5 p.m.,
give me a strategy”. I tapped him on the shoulder and told him “Check the time
in your watch and land up at 5!” That’s an indication of how inappropriately
the word is being used. But seriously let’s talk about advertising and the use
of strategy in its making. So let me simplify this whole discussion and end
with an example to illustrate what I am saying. But before this I need to have a
fairly important task and that is to define strategy in advertising. Strategy
in advertising is ‘what’is being said about the brand in communication. You
could also use the word positioning and here I speak loosely as that subject
deserves another piece. So the strategy could be to describe a product as long
lasting or reliable or the lowest price. The execution of the advertising is
‘how’ it is being said. So you could use one of various advertising themes like
use of a celebrity or humour or emotion even. Here is a commercial about long
lasting Plywood with interesting creative.
Yet when you talk of great advertising you must remember that
it works because both the strategy is bang on and the execution brilliant. It
cannot work when only one of the two is effective but both have to work in
tandem. Let’s talk about one commercial, that is not so recent but useful
because it demonstrates the point I am trying to make.
We are the Blackberry boys
Here is another commercial that made some waves some time ago
as it was also a very visible campaign with lots of media weight behind it. If
my memory serves me right it even won a few awards. I am sure you do remember
the commercial as it is not very dated but before you see it let me give you a quick
preamble to this commercial. The traditional Blackberry user was someone like
me, older, who was using the phone for organisational needs like checking mails
and going online in addition to the traditional phone usage of calling and
messaging. He was hardly adventurous in the usage of the phone. My generation
does not download music, chat or use the phone for almost everything unlike my
children. Blackberry had a new phone and the objective was to change the
profile of users and get younger consumers who were not looking at Blackberry seriously.
This was for Vodafone users. Now let’s watch the commercial.
As you can doubtlessly see it is striking and I am sure the
agency would call it memorable. It has a jingle that is catchy and shows older
people like me who are watching in bewilderment as younger kids edge the older
people out of the frame as they claim that they do all the things with the
phone that older people like me are reluctant or do not know how to use. Let’s
revisit the objective and that was to get newer, smarter, younger users into
the user fold. This brings me to my major grouse with the commercial. Let me
ask you a simple question. How do you think brands gain market share? They do
so by holding on to existing customers and by getting new customers. They don’t
do this by alienating their existing customers as old, dumb or show them in a
poor light. This is like saying that my wife is old and haggard just because I
want a smart, young girlfriend. I remember a proverb in Tamil that translates
as “Giving up your husband so that you can get the king“. Never mind the fact
that the king does not want you in the first place! So strategically this commercial fails in my
opinion at least.
What should be different in your life now?
This is just a small piece to get you thinking. Think about
advertising now that you are management students. Hitherto you were mere consumers of
advertising. You could merely say “it’s cool” or “it sucks”. Not any more, hereafter
you must not only see advertising campaigns but analyse them. Discuss them
while you are at class or with your friends. Try to understand what brands are
doing and why. Critique them for soon you will be in marketing and others will
be evaluating your work as well.
Welcome to the big bad world of work!
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