What is your daily newspaper full of? I’m sure you will say ‘scandals,
rape and crime’. But let’s leave out these titbits for now, and focus on
the ads. While there may be hundreds of ads of various sizes and
shapes, conveying a variety of messages and offers, two categories —
e-commerce portals and real estate — have dominated the spending with
full-pages, pull-outs, jackets, special positions, front-page soluses
and what have you. Why are these two categories dominating the spending?
One suspects that e-commerce companies are flush with funds and keen on
expanding their market share, while real estate developers are probably a
bit desperate, considering they are sitting on inventory and
home-buyers don’t seem to share their sense of urgency in grabbing the
keys.
How effective are these ads? Do they actually work or are companies
going overboard with their spending? The best judges of the
effectiveness of an advertisement are the clients, who release the ads,
and agencies that create them. Success, or otherwise, depends on the
objectives set — awareness levels, footfalls, enquiries and maybe even
sales. And yet, even without the information required to form a
judgement, one could make a call based on one’s intuition and experience
as a consultant and, more important, as a consumer. Let me start with
the e-commerce example, even if it is a bit dated.
Flipkart’s Big Billion Day struggles
Last year, around this time, Flipkart created a tremor in the market by
announcing the Big Billion sale with huge ads, TV commercials, teasers,
radio spots, hoardings and online ads. The build-up was phenomenal and
the response, overwhelming from the length and breadth of India. As a
consequence, in a couple of hours, the server crashed, igniting much
hostility and anger on social media, as disgruntled and unhappy
customers went to town with their complaints. The promoters then
apologised to the public at large.
While the apology might have retrieved the retailer from a sticky
situation, it brings us to the original premise: was the adspend wasted?
Could the same results have been achieved with less spending?
The advertiser must, no doubt, have asked himself/herself this after the
event. Having said that, however, I must mention that I have a lot of
admiration for Flipkart as a company, for having expanded the market for
online goods across the country. Today, online buying is not only a
phenomenon in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore, but also in smaller towns.
Flipkart must take the credit for that.
Even the fiasco has to be understood from this perspective. I am told
that Flipkart had planned and rehearsed for an excess of demand of a few
hundred times, but who could expect an excess of several thousand
times? It is difficult to plan for events such as these, but better
planning can lead to better results, as I will attempt to demonstrate.
Why is Sunday an off day?
Two Sundays ago, I was sitting at home when a two page ad of Grofers hit
my eye. How could it not? It was so big and they promised to deliver
before the ice cream melts. I ordered nine items — nothing exotic, but
simple stuff like papaya and pomegranate. As luck would have it, they
only had five of the nine items I had ordered. What is the point of all
that advertising if the back office is not in place? Wasn’t that
advertising wasted, even if only partially?
This is the point I am making, which leads me to the second category I
spoke about in the beginning of this piece — real estate. Every Sunday,
they release huge ads, more in hope than anything else, I guess. Be that
as it may, I see the ad at 6.30 am and call the number which is boldly
listed on the ad — invariably there is no one to answer the phone at
6.30 am. At that time, this property is on top of my mind and if the
call had been answered, chances are I would have even seen the apartment
by 10 am. But it did not happen, and the company called me at 3 pm.
Tell me, who is awake at 3 pm on a Sunday afternoon?
So that’s the story of different ads at different
points in time, for different products and services with varying degrees
of success. The question I ask is simple — have you got your back
office and support services ready before you release those big ads?
Advertising is glamorous - sexy even - but it can be wasted. Don’t let
that happen to your advertising.
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