How Dare They?

Do you remember the Fair and Lovely air-hostess commercial? 

It was a commercial that hit complexion-conscious India in the gut as it also attacked the Indian predilection for a male child. Having grown up entirely in an environment where the colour of one’s skin was paramount, I could certainly relate to it. It did wonders for the brand and yet it raised the hackles of the educated, affluent Indian elite who had no use for the product.

“How dare they?” thundered the elite in their cocktail circuits. When I asked Balki (whose agency had created it), about the ad, he smilingly said “Pedder Road does not seem to like it”. I remember showing this to a delegation of international students and explained how the ad ran the risk of being banned because it had tackled sensitive issues head on. The global audience was really impressed as they believed controversy helped any ad and brand gain visibility by leaps and bounds.

Many of them were envious of the ad’s ability to evoke such strong reactions. “In the UK, if an ad is banned it is phenomenal, we would give an arm and leg for that,” said one very excitedly. I remembered this when I saw the new Airtel TV commercial.

Is the ad sexist?

 To my mind it is a needless controversy and probably an engineered one.

Why do I say this? I strongly believe in the communication principle “Either love me or hate me but for God’s sake don’t ignore me.” Today, with a smart social media strategy it is possible to ensure that an ad is not ignored. You can certainly pick up certain elements in the communication and create a controversy around it.

How can the wife be the boss? Why should she rush home to cook? Why are bosses like Hitler? We can certainly pick up enough angles and create a storm around a TV commercial, making even those who have not seen it go to YouTube to check it out.

Mobile ads set the tone

Having said all that, I still need to give credit where it is due. When I first entered advertising it was so long ago that I can’t even remember when cola advertising was the ‘hot’ category. Creative types yearned to work on Coke or Pepsi.

Today, mobile services are the colas of yesterday. Brands like Airtel, Vodafone and Tata Docomo keep us entertained with their charming, witty and, on occasion, controversial commercials. I am not complaining as often these commercials are a lot more interesting to watch than the programmes in which they are featured. But shouldn’t these companies that spend millions on advertising worry about their basic offering? Or is that asking for too much?

You can read the entire piece on the Hindu Business Line.

Sensory consumerism

Japanese scientists have developed a 'smelling screen' that allows you to see as well as smell the coffee or food displayed on it. It works by feeding odours from vaporising gel pellets into four air streams, one in each corner of the screen. The smell of Johnson’s baby lotion connects Jayanti Shroff, 43, to her daughter’s childhood instantly. “It has developed its signature years ago; the recall and association are instantaneous,” Shroff said. This signature baby products smell takes people back to their own childhood.

Software engineer Amulya Batra, 29, says, “The smell of coffee beans when I’m out on the roads or in a mall invites me to have a cup – I turn into a potential customer for the nearby coffee outlet.”

“In India, marketers are finding different ways to use smell. Coffee companies use the ‘beans’ aroma outside their outlets or in the mall, which instantly lets you know there’s a coffee shop nearby,” said Sandeep Kapoor, founder, RelioQuick, an integrated marketing communications agency.

“For a coffee chain like Tata Starbucks, the aroma of coffee lends our stores a strong and inviting appeal. A brand’s experience is not just about the medium but also about something less tangible and beyond the product offering,” said Sushant Dash, senior director, marketing and category, Tata Starbucks Limited.

Read more »

In praise of cute kids

People have an unreasonable liking for children and dogs and nowhere else does that liking make itself apparent more than in television commercials. Remember the McDonalds “swing’ commercial where the child smiles and cries with every movement of the swing as the signage keeps appearing and disappearing?

Read more »

Should Advertisements For Children Be Monitored? Experts Share their views.

(Ramanujam Sridhar is CEO, brand-comm, and the author of Googly: Branding on Indian Turf.)

Mani Ayer's two-word mantra

S. R. Mani Ayer,Former Managing Director, Ogilvy & Mather

Ayer was visiting Chennai. I presented with great enthusiasm a campaign we had developed for a client. Little did I know about the two-word weapon he would use to assess it.

Ayer put every advertisement to the ‘So what?' test. It was the quickest way to check for relevance. How does it matter to the audience? How does it matter to the client? Often, these two words removed the puff and helped us discover the essence of what we wanted to say. Much as we dreaded the sessions where we laid out advertising strategies and creative work to SRA, the discussions that ensued were enriching.

Ayer hired me at Ogilvy Benson & Mather in 1975. In my very first interview on December 2, 1974, he said, “I will hire you. I don't know when and where.”

I did not know how to react to this. I asked him if I could call up to find out. “Sure. Once a week.” Thereafter from December until March, I called him every Thursday at 9:15 a.m. sharp. The conversation was simple.
“Good Morning, Mr Ayer. Sridhar here. Any news for me, Mr Ayer?”
“Not yet. Keep in touch.”
Finally, he gave me my letter in March 1975. He sent me to Chennai soon thereafter.

October 11, 1976. Four of us from Chennai had come to Mumbai to attend an account management training programme. Three of my colleagues died in an air crash that morning. I had stayed back to visit my sister, but the Times of India had also carried my name in the list of passengers who were killed. On hearing the news, I rushed to Apeejay House.

Ayer was visibly relieved to see me. You could see he was disturbed but he had to take charge and move on. He asked me, “Is it OK for you to fly this evening?” I returned to Chennai and he arrived the next day.

I saw a great leader, a compassionate human in action in the days that followed. I accompanied him on his visits to the families. He quickly put together a team to run OBM, Chennai. Supriya Das from our Kolkata office moved in to run the office until we could hire a manager. Mohan Menon moved from Mumbai to look after the Creative Department.
Ayer would fly in every week to meet clients, spend time with us and keep us going.

There used to be a Southern Railway Canteen opposite Higginbotham's. We used to have curd rice for lunch there. Ayer would join us for these curd rice lunches.

He and I used to visit Bangalore to meet Vijaya Bank and Binny's. We used to take the Bangalore mail and stay at Barton Court. Travelling with Ayer was an extraordinary experience. He was a fund of knowledge and a great storyteller. I remember one particular trip when we spoke throughout the night until we arrived in Bangalore.

As he helped me grow in the organisation, I began to understand this extraordinary person. Plagued by self-doubt, I often went to him with my resignation. He would listen to me with infinite patience, give me tips on what to do, and I would go back confident and happy. It was like talking to a therapist. He made me feel valued, respected and important. Many of us proudly call ourselves graduates of the Ayer school. He helped us realise our potential — he nurtured us as he would plants in a garden.

When Suresh Mullick passed away, he was keen to bring out a book on him and entrusted me with the task. The project did not take off for quite some time. I was embarrassed about my inaction but Ayer was kind and patient. Finally, we managed to put together an e-book on Suresh. I feel blessed he gave me a task that was dear to him.

He was a boss, a mentor, a coach, guru — no single word can describe my relationship with him. He lit a flame in each of us who worked with him. It is a flame eternal, that will continue. Those of us who were lucky enough to receive must be gracious enough to give. That is what he taught us.

(The writer is a graduate of the Ayer school.)

You win some, you lose some

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/catalyst/2008/11/27/stories/2008112750030200.htm

Handing over a passion does not come easy..

What happens when you lose a client?
You feel bad.
What happens when you lose an important, large client?
You feel worse.

What happens when you lose a client for whom you have worked for over four decades, done work that has pushed the brand to the next level of visibility and won every conceivable award for the work done for the brand?

A part of you dies.

I guess that is how BBDO must be feeling as it has lost the Pepsi account in North America to TBWA / Chiat Day which is part of the same Omnicom network. I am not going to sit here in India and make conjectures about what happened or make inane statements such as “You win clients with great creative and lose it by poor servicing”. But I am definitely going to talk about some of the outstanding work done for Pepsi over the years and relive the pleasure I got watching it not so much as a consumer but as an advertising professional who observed the work, always with a sense of wonder and at times with a touch of envy.

I spent five years in RK Swamy BBDO which was a part of the Omnicom group and six years with Mudra, also part of the Omnicom group, and whatever else I did in these two agencies I got to see some of the finest work produced for two brands – Pepsi by BBDO and Volkswagen by DDB Needham, both of which left a profound impression on me. But it’s Pepsi time right now.

The line for a generation

If you were to characterise Pepsi advertising over the years, it would be pretty simple. It is for the young and the young at heart. Way back in 1964, when Bobby Simpson’s Australians were retaining the Ashes, the Pepsi line was ‘Come alive, you’re in the Pepsi generation’. The famous line ‘Pepsi. The choice of a new generation’ came in 1984. It would return in 1990. A few years later came ‘Generation Next’. But whatever the tag line the brand featured some of the most memorable ads targeted at youth that I have seen and I know that I probably am not being objective about it as I am neither young nor a Pepsi drinker, but what the heck, even I am entitled to my view.

While there were several commercials that I can remember and will write about, the one I liked most was created specifically for the Super Bowl. It featured an archaeology professor explaining to his students how people lived in an earlier generation and age. He describes a baseball as a “spherical object that they used to hurl at each other while others watched” and an electric guitar as something that “produced excruciatingly loud noises” and when one of the students unearths a dusty Coke bottle and asks him what it is, the foxed professor has a blank expression on his face and says “I have no idea”. It was cheeky, irreverent, in your face if you will, but Pepsi all the way.

So you like celebrities?

Many brands use celebrities. Some, such as Pepsi, have used it to great effect and while there are several that I can recall let me mention a few. Perhaps the one I recall most was the one in an apartment where a beautiful woman knocks and asks for a diet Pepsi leading Michael J. Fox to climb down the fire escape, vault over cars, move heaven and earth to get a bottle of diet Pepsi only to find another beautiful woman coming into the apartment and asking for a diet Pepsi too. In case you recall, the same commercial was done in India with Aamir Khan, who later switched camps and bottles. But even this paled in comparison with the commercial for Michael Jackson, who was top of the pops then. The commercial, based on his own hit song Billie Jean was another smash hit, featuring more of his $10,000 diamond-studded glove and glares than it did his face! But boy, did it work! Another personal favourite was Cindy Crawford’s ‘Pepsi deprivation test’ where she grandiosely claims that she will do anything for science! She goes into isolation camp for a month and is deprived of her favourite Pepsi, comes out a month later asking for a Pepsi. The only difference is that the person who comes out of deprivation is the portly comedian Rodney Dangerfield!

Life comes full circle

Chiat Day, the agency which later became TBWA, is probably familiar with losing business despite doing great work for clients. Their ‘1984’ commercial for Apple was a landmark one, perhaps setting the trend for blockbuster commercials created specifically for the huge event in American sporting and viewing history. And ironically when John Sculley took over Apple computers from Steve Jobs he moved the account to BBDO, an agency that had done pathbreaking work in Sculley’s Pepsi days. When Chiat Day lost the business it had reason to be shattered and yet had the grace to release an ad with the headline, ‘Thanks Apple, seriously’. I wonder how many advertising agencies would have the courage to actually release an ad thanking the client who sacked them, for having given them an opportunity to produce great work. Most of them, I suspect, would quietly bury themselves in the sand.

Head to head with Coke

Some of the greatest ads that Pepsi did, in my opinion, at least, were those that cheekily knocked its rival Coke. The first one that I remember featured the famous singer MC Hammer who is belting away his fast numbers to a packed, raving audience when someone changes his Pepsi for a Coke. The singer resumes the performance and starts singing Frank Sinatra-style music. His audience is stunned till a kid has the presence of mind to hand him a glass of Pepsi which he guzzles thankfully and says “proper”. He goes back to his normal style of singing and the audience goes berserk. India too had a version of this featuring Akshay Kumar, in the days when the actor was neither as rich nor as famous as he is today.

Another comparison commercial features chimps, one of which keeps drinking Pepsi and another which thrives on Coke. The Coke-drinking chimp is predictable, boring even. At the end of the same experiment the Pepsi chimp is missing and is later found on the beach with a bevy of girls having a whale of time, clearly suggesting that while the Coke drinker is older and more staid, if not wiser, it is the Pepsi drinker who is having all the fun and is young and ‘with it’.

A more recent commercial featured two salesmen, one selling Coke and the other selling Pepsi who bump into each other at a restaurant, to the bemusement of the stewardesses. They make polite conversation, talk about how good the song which is playing is, till the big moment arrives. The Coke salesman pushes his can to the Pepsi salesman who has a swig surreptitiously and then slides his own can of Pepsi to him. Then the fun starts as the Coke salesman refuses to return the Pepsi can – so much does he like it!

Handing over

Now as one agency prepares to hand over the ownership and passion to another agency, it is perhaps time to recall a few things. The agency which has handled the business for over four decades must be complimented (what a weak word) for carefully maintaining a tone of voice that represents what the brand essentially is — youthful, irreverent and continuing to be contemporary to generations of cola drinkers. And it is time to remember the client too who approved great work not just once but time and again. As they say it takes two to tango. Maybe BBDO could release an ad saying ‘Thank you Pepsi, seriously’.

(Ramanujam Sridhar is CEO, brand-comm, and the author of One Land, One Billion Minds.)

‘Class of 2009’ think zhara hatke!

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/manager/2008/11/03/stories/2008110350311000.htm

As the placements season looms, some thoughts on expectations in changed times.

Do any of you remember the recent Virgin mobile commercial? Let me refresh your memory. A pretty young thing is talking to her parents and telling them that boys put her off and she just cannot handle them. Her parents are completely flustered and their imagination runs riot thinking about all the horrific implications of her statement. At which point of time a boy rings and the girl tells him brusquely that she cannot come to Goa. When the parents ask who is calling, she says it is Tensing, her MBA classmate who wants her to go to Goa with him, and her parents immediately pile on and tell her how she has to socialise and meet boys and she reluctantly agrees. Tensing calls back when she is alone and she tells him triumphantly that the Goa trip is on. The commercial ends with a cheeky line “think zhara hatke”. For those who do not share my prowess in Hindi (!), it simply means “think differently” which incidentally is an old Apple Computers line. No, this piece is not about advertising, but about the value of thinking differently for the class of 2009 which is probably looking at the placement scene with some sense of foreboding, given the overall sense of doom and gloom that seems to be top of mind for the economy and corporate India and indeed for the whole world at this particular point in time. Here are a few thoughts worth considering.

Don’t live in the past

Management students have a heritage which is guided by the experience of the institute whose portals they pass through and the jobs that their seniors have got, particularly over the last few boom years. There was a time when companies would come in and pick up students in hordes and if there were not a few weeks left for the completion of the course, I am quite sure they would have bundled all the recruits into a tempo and taken them away for induction! Those days are not likely to come back in a hurry and this is the first sobering realisation that youngsters must understand, accept and get ready to deal with.

The same applies to compensation packages as well, which may not have the same heady ring as in earlier years. It might not be a bad idea to read the business papers, to get a feel for the market and tone down expectations and maybe placement cells will have to cast their net much wider than ever before.

I was pleasantly surprised to get a placement brochure from IIM Ahmedabad, which has never happened in our company’s 10-year existence even though we have a reasonable track record and a team of 80 people. Maybe it is an indication of the times that we live in rather than any special achievement by us.

Be a versatilist

Management school often has debates about being a specialist or a generalist and that is not something to be sneered at. I remember that when we passed out of management school we did specialise in two streams, I personally specialised in both finance and marketing and ended up in advertising because I was passionate about the profession. I know for a fact that more and more students over the last few years have been looking at finance as a profession and some of them have achieved phenomenal success and earnings in a very short period in time. The reality, however, is that students cannot afford to strait-jacket themselves into particular disciplines in this era of uncertainty. They need the flexibility and the courage to look at their own skill sets differently and look at it also from the company’s point of view. It could also mean that they need to look at companies that are perhaps smaller and whose needs from MBAs could be very different from that of large well-established and well structured companies that usually come to campus.

You are the brand

Youngsters in general and young MBAs in particular place a great importance on the brand. The schools they go to, the college that they pass out of and the management institution that they graduate out of, all have value. Yet despite my preoccupation with brands, both as a profession and as an interest, I must caution youngsters, particularly those who pass out of institutes that are rated less by employers, to neither devalue themselves nor their institutes... Each and every one of us has the capability to become a brand and the tag of the institution that we pass through is just one aspect, albeit an important one, of the overall brand that each one of us ultimately becomes.

I have seen enough of life to know that the institution generally is important only for the first job, after that most management graduates move on based on their performance in the job. So don’t be disheartened if you are from a less reputed school, or become cocky just because you are from a famous school. You are the difference. And branding is all about being different even as you are relevant to your prospective employer.

Arrogance is out, humility is in

I know for a fact that institutes and placement cells have the capability to behave arrogantly towards employers and have done it in the past. We too have experienced this is in the recent past. I know of big companies too who have been treated badly at placement time. But remember this is all a question of demand and supply.

In 2009 I suspect the supply of good management students is far more than the jobs that are likely to be on offer. Even large corporations are contemplating a recruitment freeze and sectors such as financial services, investment banking, and equity research are all likely to be recruiting only at their peril. Individually students too need to scan the net and look for wider opportunities than the institutes have been hitherto looking at.

Think long-term

Managers and management education is preoccupied with quarterly performance and the immediate short-term. I have a sobering thought for the class of 2009. They have to work for a small matter of 35 years more at least, so why worry unduly about the first one. Remember a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush so just take the job that comes your way and work your way upwards. Remember that neither good times nor bad times last for ever. And finally remember the words of Rudyard Kipling:

“If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too…

If you can still fill the unforgiving sixty seconds worth of distance run -

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And which is more - you’ll be a Man my son”

I am sure the class of 2009 will have a fair share of men and women who will take Indian business to new heights and I wish each and every one of them the very best of luck.

(The writer is CEO of brand-comm and the author of One Land, One Billion Minds.)

The trouble with ethics

I was recently asked to speak at a seminar on ethics in marketing and communication by a leading business school and that got me thinking. Strange though it may seem, I do it on occasion, thinking I mean! But my first reaction was one of almost total incredulity — “Ethics in marketing communications … these guys must be joking!” Advertising, which is perhaps the most visible form of communication, has hardly ever been known for its ethical practices and this is not a new problem.

Historically advertising professionals have only been marginally ahead of used car salesmen when it comes to reputation, so there is a problem here. While this has been pretty well established in the West, in India we do not seem to be so much in the public eye as guys with shady reputations. But what actually constitutes ethical practices? What actually happens in India? Is there a better way? What can and must consumers do? Let me try to address some of these issues in this piece.

Multiple hats, double standards

All of us wear multiple hats and an important one is that of a consumer. All of us consume goods and services. When we wear this hat of a consumer we are discerning, demanding even! If the valet in the five-star hotel does not come rushing to open our car door we quickly categorise the service as poor. We expect the bank clerk in State Bank of Mysore to have the same poise, elegance and panache of the Kingfisher Airlines stewardess!

Yet, when we don the hat of the service provider in our own professions, we go into our shells and forget our own behaviour and expectations as customers. So clearly we have a problem and a lot of marketing suffers from this problem. I thought that it is important to table this fact before we get into the thorny issue of ethics.

What exactly is acceptable quality?
In India, many brands have been successful because they have delivered acceptable quality at affordable prices. Mind you, not over-engineered quality but acceptable quality, and herein lies the rub. I would suspect that some of these hugely successful products, like the Bajaj Scooter, left a lot to be desired on the quality front. I remember also that Bajaj had iconic advertising by way of the ‘Hamara Bajaj’ campaign. Wherever I went clients in the mid-Nineties would ask me “Why don’t you do a Hamara Bajaj for me?” “Hello, since when did you start manufacturing scooters?” is what I thought, but being a true blue advertising client service executive {read spineless} I smiled weakly and mumbled something.

The Bajaj scooter was something that people waited for seven years to get and sold it seven years later at the same price that they had bought it for. Bajaj got away for many years with passable quality (at best) and the brand lost its opportunity to be the Volkswagen (a true icon) of India simply because it thought it could get away with a product that just about made the quality cut. I really think the way forward for consumers to get the best quality is increased competition.

Take another vehicle of our time, the Ambassador car. It was a functional car and had its admirers as well. But as someone said, though India might be religiously inclined, the amount of religious fervour that this car raised had to be believed. Let me clarify. The first statement that anyone who got into the Ambassador car made was “Oh God!”, so comfortable was the ride!

Would anyone buy this car today when one has a choice of 721 automobile options in the country? I wonder! The choice will ensure that shoddy quality is a thing of the past. To repeat, the choice that consumers have today in a liberalised economy is also ensuring that they are getting better quality.

“Solpa adjust maadi!”
This is something that people in Bangalore are very familiar with. Translated it simply means “kindly adjust”. Have you seen the commercial for VIP underwear where people get pushed and put up with it? Sometimes as consumers we put up with a lot of nonsense and manufacturers take advantage of this. Manufacturers, if given a chance, will stretch ethics to the limit.

I was talking to a promoter of a large mall in Bangalore where tremendous footfalls were expected. What about the parking? Well, there was provision only for 200 cars, which to me at least seemed woefully inadequate.

To my protest, the client said, “Arre Yaar Shiridhar, people will find a way, why are you getting hassled? This is India.” Yes, I am hassled because I am also a consumer but people are able to get away because they know that I will not push them.

So if we want things to get better than we should not adjust when it comes to comforts or requirements. We should not be patient or stoical as Indians are supposed to be but vocal and demanding when it comes to our rights as consumers. That will push manufacturers and service providers on the ethical path.

Promise them anything
A lot of advertising today is creative, clever and clutter-breaking. Let me take one category that I am familiar with - mobile services. If my monthly bills are any indication I am certainly a heavy user. The advertising in the category has been clutter-breaking and award-winning.

I am sure all of us like the Hutch advertising where the dog keeps following the little boy everywhere. Wonderful advertising! But is the coverage really anywhere as good as the advertising makes it out to be? Well, whenever I do visit Mumbai I seem to be a little more on my toes, thanks to the coverage. The moment the phone rings I have to run out of office so that I can hear the caller!

The Airtel commercial with the grandson and the granddad playing chess, while one of them is on the train and the other is at home in his village, is another creative ad which in no way represents the truth of the coverage. Surely this is not the same service provider that I am using day in and day out to my great frustration, with call drops being as frequent as Australian test victories!

Advertising, in India at least, seems to be independent of the product and service quality. So we have great ads extolling the quality even if the product has indifferent quality. Obviously one of these two parties has a convenient view of ethics and the person who faces the consequences is the consumer and that is you and me, my friend.

Ethics and the media
What about the media? The media has a major role to play in a developing economy like ours. Yet, I remember when all the confusion with NBFCs was happening the crisis was actually worsened because of the media. Let me explain.

Do you remember all those companies that were offering fancy rates of interest including those that sold you teak trees? Doordarshan, whatever its failings as an entertainment medium, had one virtue: It did not run the ads of these companies. But the private television channels had no such compunctions and soon consumers were bombarded with a host of creative ads that promised the customers the moon. The results, sadly, were there for all of us to see and many retired people saw their lifetime’s savings being wiped out by these dubious companies.

Neither the advertising agency nor the channel bothered to check if these claims were true. And quite rightly, some of the agencies lost their money even as consumers lost their shirts.

Today we have a larger problem confronting us as some media will write anything about your company as long as you pay for it. Sad but true? Whatever happened to editorial integrity and ethics? Thankfully there are exceptions like the newspaper you are currently reading that value their integrity and may their tribe increase!

However, one must, even at the risk of sounding like a prophet of doom, mention that this is a serious problem and is getting worse. I really feel sorry for consumers of these media who have no way of knowing that all that they are reading in the newspaper is not necessarily true. It does not even look like advertising for them to be on their guard. Under the garb of editorial it is paid for advertising! Imagine the hazards. You think a restaurant that has actually paid for the write-up is top of the line; a company is worth investing in. As P.G. Wodehouse wrote “imagination boggles”. Yes, Sir, it does!

So what must we do?
I believe that self-help is an amazing philosophy, more so at a time and age when most people seem to have a convenient view of ethics. In India, most people in power, whether in government or corporations believe that they can get away with anything and sadly enough they usually do! So we must be on our guard as consumers.

Remember caveat emptor? We do see service providers stretching the limits of ethics and shortchanging us. What do we do? Some of us protest quietly. We take it up with the offender and may even get it resolved. Rarely ever do we escalate it. We do not talk about it, or if we do, we only do with our spouses who in any case are not listening to us. Yet many of us are educated, powerful individuals whose words carry some if not enormous weight. Why don’t we use the power that we have?

There is a breed of people who passionately write Letters to the Editor. While we may smile about this, they actually do a valuable service. They usually write about public utilities and services. But today we have more choices available to us.

The Net is a powerful medium. Today irate customers can create a lot of attention for their problems to a host of strangers even thanks to this wonderful medium.

Let’s take our responsibilities seriously. Let us stop thinking only about ourselves and our immediate family for a change. Let us remember that we can make a difference to everyone’s lives if we just take our responsibilities as citizens seriously. That will ensure that our rights as consumers continue even if the people around us are not ethical.

(Ramanujam Sridhar is CEO, brand-comm, and the author of One Land, One Billion Minds.)

The “New”, “Improved” Integration!

Advertising, even if it does not reinvent itself, certainly discovers new concepts, theories and schools of thought that give the industry fresh leases of life. These also are gentle reminders to the marketing world that advertising is alive and kicking. The first breakthrough if you could call it that, was provided by Rosser Reeves of the Ted Bates agency who coined the term “unique selling proposition”. David Ogilvy created a ripple with his advertising built around brand image. His “Man in the Hathaway shirt” followed by the campaign for Schweppes with the picture of the Chairman of the company Commander Edward Whitehead created more than a ripple. It set the stage for the formation of a major agency group. And David Ogilvy did something more. His “Confessions of an Advertising Man” which sold over a million copies probably did more for the advertising industry worldwide than the Volkswagen campaign which was arguably the greatest campaign the world has seen. This campaign and a few others like Avis, Alka Seltzer and Polaroid created by Bill Bernbach’s agency spawned a new style of advertising that was “substance with style”. Bernbach’s advertising was like a breath of fresh air and his legacy lives on. His principle of “rewarding the reader” is perhaps even more relevant now given the enormous clutter that today’s advertising has to contend with. The next big impact was by Al Ries and Jack Trout who proposed a new approach to marketing and communication packaged as “positioning”. Their scientific papers and book “Positioning: The battle for your mind” ratified what advertising agencies had been doing and highlighted the strategy crucial to the success of advertising campaigns. The next big development in advertising to my mind at least has been the emergence of integrated marketing communications (or IMC) which started with a bang and runs the risk of ending with a whimper. And yet to me IMC seems to provide a great opportunity in today’s cluttered world to make the brand stand out. But the agency needs to re-orient itself to the new realities and the new challenges. The question of course, is simple. Is the agency prepared for this challenge?

IMC? What it is?
Integrated marketing communication is based on the principle that a single strong brand idea will be the basis for every possible communication to the consumers. This will be exploded across every possible medium and will explore every possible consumer touch point. So it is not only the high budget TV commercial but outdoor, sales promotion, merchandising, direct response and public relations that carries the same brand idea. Nor is this a completely new concept. Agencies globally and in India have used this concept to great effect. One of my favourites is Britannia 50-50. The interesting brand name already gives a lot of creative scope not only for creating striking ads but also for tremendous integration as well. All the situation of the numerous commercials are humorous depicting situations which are 50-50 in nature. But the piece de resistance (or the pinnacle if you will) of integration is the sponsoring of the 3rd Umpire’s decision as to whether the batsman has made his ground or not. Other brands like VIP with the campaign line “happy journey” and the jingle “bye bye” sponsored travelogues, baggage tags, etc to demonstrate that integration is beyond mass media. We too were involved with an extremely successful IMC campaign for Dalmia Vajram built around the key thought “100/100”. The brand idea was exploded across multiple media vehicles and extended to dealer and mason meets. The campaign has continued for several years even as the brand enjoys tremendous success and visibility across the Tamilnadu and Kerala markets. Yes, integration has delivered and will continue to deliver if handled intelligently.


So, what’s the problem?
IMC as a concept and a strategic tool continues to offer a great opportunity to advertising agencies. But one wonders if it has delivered its potential. The reasons for that vary. Whilst a few advertising agencies have realised its value and capitalised on its potential there is a reasonable amount of ignorance about its capabilities and a fair amount of laziness about its implementation that is shared by quite a few advertising agencies. Agencies sadly seem to believe that what they don’t know can’t hurt them. In actual fact their ignorance is hurting their clients more. The next major problem seems to be the agency’s pre-occupation with mass media and the almost child like faith in the power of the 30 sec commercial. TV is a powerful medium and quite a few brands owe their success to this powerful medium. Yet the situation has change quite dramatically. The proliferation of channels, changing media habits particularly of young customers and declining advertising budges of companies forces agencies to rethink their old strategies. And yet how many of us are willing to look at change even more when a lot of agency revenue seems to come from this medium. Yes we live in our comfort zones. And we are better at controlling and directing media that are within our control – TV, Press, Outdoor, Point of Sale, etc. Today a big opportunity for brands presents itself in public relations. Advertising agencies have a very limited understanding of the power of public relations. PR firms too on occasion do not understand the value of integrating the brand idea with their public relations programe. So a large section of the communication is outside of the integration net. Today there is another complication as well. Completely new media like the internet, affinity groups and modes of self-expression like blogging have begun to assert themselves. How clued in are agencies on these? How do they integrate these new media with the brand idea? Can it be done?

The way ahead:
Agencies are challenged today. They have been constrained to move away from the “full service” model. They have unbundled – stand alone media agencies are just one example of this specialization. The agency is realizing that even if it wants to integrate less and less is within its control. Today clients are working with multiple partners (or is it the right expression vendors)? In addition to the creative agency, a packing specialist, a brand consultant, a PR company, a direct response agency, an events company and a merchandising expert….. Can you imagine the complexity of the client’s job? And to add to all this, integration has now become the brand manager’s job. Does she have the skill sets, the desire and most of all the energy? What does the agency do? Take the data at least resistance and say "every client gets what he deserves." That would be an easy way out but not a genuine option.
The brand belongs to the client (and yes, the consumer) but the responsibility for the brand in terms of setting its creative direction has to be with the agency. It must take the lead. Integration has gone through a difficult time and the marketing discipline runs the risk of missing out on this important strategic tool completely if it is not careful. For too long, advertising agencies have followed their clients. The client said: "Open an office in Timbuktoo," and the agency obliged. Now is the time for the agency to follow consumers. If the consumer is going online the agency needs to build competencies there. If the consumer is guided by editorial then how can the agency use this knowledge?
Agencies have to lead rather than follow. Integrate even as they create. Create what the consumer wants, and not what they are comfortable doing. Move out of their comfort zone. And that will be a great source of comfort for the client.

(Ramanujam Sridhar is CEO of Brandcomm.)

2006 – Hardly a defining year

There are a few moments in life that are definitive. My life seems to revolve around cricket and advertising. A few defining moments in my life? It was 7.36 p.m. on 4th June, 1993. I was sitting in the bar stool of the Bangalore Club watching the Old Trafford Ashes test on TV. And Warne bowled Gatting with a ball that turned two feet and clipped the off bail. I was watching the ball that would soon be dubbed the “ball of the century”. I just yelled in amazement. I rudely woke up the oldest member who was quietly dozing in his favourite stool who must have wondered at the falling standards of behaviour of new club members. (Another sobering moment as the spin wizard announces retirement just now). England in 1999. Herschelle Gibbs drops Steve Waugh and the World Cup. To me watching from the stands, it was another defining moment. 2003, South Africa, and the World Cup final. Zaheer Khan’s first over cost 15 runs and cost India the cup. Another defining moment. The 23rd of November, 2006. It is 5.30 a.m. and Steve Harmison came into tremendous applause to deliver the first ball of the most anticipated series in recent times – the Ashes. I am right there in front of the TV. He started with a huge wide to second slip which started England’s slide to a 3-0 Ashes defeat (at the time of writing). Another defining moment. All these moments had the capacity to move and shake me and made a profound impression on me and made me believe that I was seeing something unique, different and unforgettable. Did I have one such moment in advertising in 2006? The answer is a quick if a somewhat sad “no”. 2006 was one of those years. One of those commercials that you see and yet don’t notice. One of those ships that pass you by in the night.

The business of advertising
“Advertising” somebody said “is the business of producing ads and TV commercials”. And the business of advertising by all accounts has been good, whether your agency is ranked No.1, No.8 or No.30. A whole host of categories have discovered the power of advertising. The automotive industry is booming and as a consequence the advertising spends. Never mind the fact that every car ad reminds you of some other car ad that you have seen before. The roads are clogged with two wheelers and the networks jammed with two wheeler ads, each of which tries desperately to be like its competition. Mobile services it seems has lost its pre-occupation with tariff plans. Thank God for small mercies! And in the same breath we must thank clients and agencies for continuing campaigns in the mobile space. The ‘pug’ dog continues to charm us magically! From dogs to monkey. Idea Cellular’s tune of an Ilayaraja hit has a monkey running helter- skelter but the network follows. One of the few nice ads I saw this year. If mobile services are heavy spenders, can mobile phones be far behind? One saw a lot of advertising that was hip for mobile phones. And yet to me the stand out was Motorola’s ad for MotoFlip W220, which features a young boy being grilled by his parents for having what they believe is a horrendously expensive phone. What a brilliant way of saying that the sleek phone costs only Rs.3990! FMCG continues to alternate between brand building and price cutting. Lots of advertising, not too much worthy of recall. And yet I must recall the Surf Excel commercial in Tamil with a foreign kid eating with great relish with his “hands” watched by his horrified parents. And a reassuring old lady who says that in India, we not only eat with our hands but wash with our hands as well. Banks continue to provide mediocre service but the advertising has improved dramatically. SBI stopped being “Surprisingly” diffident but had an interesting range of commercials. HSBC had some different advertising as had Bank of India. We all live in hope and one day the service of banks will match the advertising! Education (thoroughly fragmented) has still become a large consumer of space. IIPM continues to release ads that are in your face. I don’t wish to comment on how bad they are as I thankfully am not applying to management school and am therefore not the target audience. Mutual funds is another category that has advertised heavily. HDFC Standard Life Insurance had a very insightful ad for pension plans. The retail boom is yet to result in brand building advertising which seems to be still obsessed with “sales and price-offs”. Someone has to start building retail brands harnessing advertising.

Some trends
The ad industry has announced its “unbundling” of services with great fanfare. Today agencies offer specialised services and I guess this in turn makes the client’s job more challenging. He has to be strong (and if one may add enormously patient) to deal with the creative agency, the stand-alone media agency, the PR agency, the MR agency, the events agency and the sales promotion agency. Is the client man or superman, only time will tell! And yet I think there is an increasing disconnect between creative agencies and media agencies and clients are feeling the pinch. Today agencies are a lot more focused on the bottom line. And the direct reaction is declining salaries at entry levels and increasing disenchantment at the middle level. The advertising industry is growing – but where are the people? Which bright young kid in his right senses would like to join us?

The year in perspective
I remember seeing a commercial for RIKK Bank that reminds me of Indian advertising in 2006 “The most boring bank in the world” was the descriptor. “The people are working. The money is working and that’s all”. Yes people are working in advertising and agencies are making money. But we need to introspect. If we don’t get the right people, we just won’t make any money. Let 2007 be the year of talent. And may it be the year where India’s defining moment could be winning the Cricket World Cup! At least it would make it worth my while to travel all the way to Barbados!


The author is Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO of Brand-comm.

Feedback can be mailed to sridhar@brand-comm.com

Is daddy cool?

The setting is a primary school classroom. The children are all busy listening to their teacher. Outside the class a parent (father) is trying desperately to catch the eye of his child who is equally desperately trying to avoid his eye. The kid’s friends also draw attention to the gesticulating parent and reluctantly the boy comes out of the class. His animated father asks him how to get the cricket score on his mobile and how he can get to R World. The exasperated son looks at his father with barely concealed scorn and tells him “just press the button”, gets him the score and goes back to class. The film ends with the father’s delighted, albeit ill-timed jig at the Indian score and at Dhoni’s six. Two nuns, who are passing by, wonder what’s happening. I like this commercial for a number of reasons not the least of which is my own anxiety to know the cricket score, sometimes when I am in alien lands like Thailand where cricket is nowhere in the scheme of things. But back to school and our commercial.

Execution – only half the story
At the risk of carrying coal to Newcastle, I must repeat that there are two components to any communication. The execution is that which we finally see, love, hate or are indifferent too. It is difficult not to like the Reliance R World commercial. Key to the executional success is a cute kid whose histrionics holds the commercial together. I am sure many of us have noticed the bevy of cute kids that waltz into our living rooms emoting for one brand or the other. This kid is one such. Let’s move on to the other part which is the strategy or ‘what’ is being said: This precedes the ‘how’ that you and I get to see.

The ‘parity economy’ we live in
One of the most abused clichés of our times is the statement that we live in a competitive world with multiple brands in every category. Every product is depressingly similar to its competition and there are so many of them whether it is soaps, shampoos, detergents… You name the category and I would be hard pressed to name the brands within it. So unique selling propositions like ‘bottles washed in steam’ or ‘only toothpaste with clove oil’ are increasingly difficult to come by in this day and age of product parity. The solution is not within the product but within the consumer. However difficult it is we must strive to find a consumer insight that strikes a chord in the viewer’s heart and moves the brand’s sales graph up. This commercial has one such insight. It’s not the ‘R World’ feature. Airtel offers value-added services too as I am sure does Hutch. And I am sure all these brands are powered by a website like Cricinfo. So there is no differentiator there. But the difference is that this commercial strikes a chord through its understanding of its consumers.


Daddy is a technophobe!
Just look around you and you will be amazed at how technologically challenged most consumers are. Nor is it a new phenomenon. In the eighties and nineties, one out of every two middle class Indian households bought a VCR but few among them ever used the ‘record’ switch, perhaps even more infrequently when a program that was scheduled for later had to be recorded in absentia. Even today people seem to be more comfortable ‘forwarding’ e-mails than composing them. People who own the snazziest LCD TV’s do not know how to tune the various channels that are beamed off the cable network. Owners of satellite radio do not know how to feed the password to get it on air and most relevantly many of us have fancy mobile phones with umpteen features that we haven’t the foggiest notion about. I wonder how many people above 40 who have cell phones with camera can actually take a picture and use that visual as wall paper. I for one cant! So what do we do? We enlist the support of our children who thankfully don’t suffer from our technological deficiency. These kids can delete our unnecessary messages, store important numbers, tell us how to activate voice mail and use call waiting facility. And they barely need to be out of their diapers to do all these seemingly mind boggling things.
It is this insight that drives the ‘R World’ commercial.

Insights are pure gold
Phil Dusenberry, the advertising great who was behind some of BBDO’s path breaking campaigns has this to say, “Good research demands brilliant analysis which inspires blazing insights that lead to ground breaking strategies and award winning executions.” Traditionally we have believed in the power of ideas. I am not knocking ideas. They have their use- but insights are long term and far more valuable. GE’s ‘We bring good things to life’ based on a strong insight ran for 24 years. The starting point is research. And research does not mean tons of spreadsheets or mountains of data. It is understanding the consumer, her motivations and problems. It is time spent intelligently at the consumer’s house or at the retail outlet or at the pub if beer is our product. Insights have been discovered before by observant marketers. And will continue to be discovered in future too. If you want to secure your brand’s future have no stone unturned. Just unearth that insight!

The author is Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO of Brand-comm

Back to the future

I recall a famous Tamil film song penned by the immortal lyricist Kannadasan which when translated reads as follows “Feet that stray from the right path don’t reach the destination”. And yet I believe it is possible for people and brands to get back on track with a little introspection. Brands stray when they try to be different for the sake of being different. The desire to be different is pretty common in advertising. And this desire to be different usually means a break from the past. If only the agency were to listen to the “echoes” of the past – a term that the famous advertising person David N. Martin (the founder of the Martin agency) was fond of using – it could build on the framework of the past, rather than creating from scratch.

A.R. Rahman resurfaces for Airtel
Airtel is an amazingly successful brand. It has very visible advertising, with a fairly high share of voice. As mobile services is an extremely competitive (cut throat?) category, there are a number of advertising renditions that happen. And yet one of the most interesting ones for me as a consumer was the one with A.R. Rahman in Hyde Park (was it) playing with an assortment of musicians even as an adoring recording artist listens to the music that is carried through Airtel mobile’s service. Well, I know that I can’t be exactly objective about A.R. Rahman but it was a brilliant track. Airtel had integrated this piece of communication making it a fairly popular ring tone. Every second Airtel user was having this ring tone and enthusiastic guys even used it in their cars as they reversed. I am not sure if Airtel has been using this tune in all their advertising. Some of their schemes like Rs.199/- set in paan shops and barber saloons certainly did not. But I was pleasantly reassured to see the Airtel music shop commercial with a predominance of red (the Airtel logo and colours) and A.R. Rahman’s music track again – in the forefront where it belongs. Their other black and white commercial too which is on air which I shall refer to as the “Berlin Wall” commercial has a strand of this music as it ends.

I will not forget A.R. Rahman
Indians love music. Its one of the great unifiers of this diverse country. Music too provides a great “opportunity to hear” (OTH) if you are not in the same room as the TV set. Airtel’s music track has the potency of being a ‘brand property’ if it isn’t already. Titan has had the same music track for a small matter of 19 years. I remember the commentator David Lloyd asking errant bowlers to write 100 lines – “I will not bowl short to Ricky Ponting”, I am sure bowlers would do well to remember this as well – “I will not bowl on Rahul Dravid’s pads” and Airtel’s agency would do well to memorise this “I will not forget A.R. Rahman”. And I wonder if it is politically correct for me to write about this interesting call I received from Hutch saying that they had an unbeatable offer for Airtel’s privileged customers. This deserves another column so I should desist for the present. Ashes to Ashes, dust to dust, if Airtel doesn’t get you then Hutch must!

“Thanda” returns to a hot country
Summer time is cola time – or at least cool drink time. A couple of years ago Coke had this wonderful “thanda” campaign with Aamir Khan, which was a break from their global advertising position and stance. Their line “Thanda matlab coca cola” warmed my heart at least. It was an attempt to own the word “thanda” which most of India (read Hindi heartland) could relate to. Then Coke lost its way (or so I said in one of my columns in this august newspaper) and said “Sar Utha Ke”. Clearly Coke was throwing out the baby with the bath water in its quest for change. And now Coke is back – if not with a bang – at least with Thanda. The new campaign with Aishwarya Rai is not my favourite – it’s too Delhi University centric, relies too much on Aishwarya’s histrionics (what are they) but is still built on “Thanda”. Coke, you are getting there. But where is Aamir? Probably in Gujarat….

“The king of good times”
Let’s get back to our original concept, music. Kingfisher first launched their Calypso tune when they sponsored the West Indian Cricket team. Arguably the West Indian Cricket team was the worst then. It is getting there even now but Kingfisher had a good thing going with its music track. The calypso beat had people humming when they were not guzzling. I particularly like Kingfisher’s recent shower commercial with Michael Vaughan and Freddie Flintoff. An interesting use of international cricketers while they are touring. (Perhaps the only worthwhile thing Vaughan has done in India on their recent tour is shoot this commercial!). And an interesting replay of the tune. The same “good times” thought is airborne with Kingfisher airlines as well. Yes, music will work. The question is can we see beyond the tips of our noses? Can we recognize the good thing that we own? Sadly we miss the obvious trick when it comes to brands and branding. So, whenever you are stumped to find a solution at present, just look backwards. You just might find your pot of gold. Your brand’s past could well guide your future.

The author is Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO of Brand-comm