Red tape - old style seduction !!!

Now this is my answer every time I find a marxist/anti liberalisation expert (self declared or other wise) waxing about how after the 90's with the influx of foreign ideas, the whole of India got corrupted, its values saw a fall and how marketing and advertising( foreign style) landed you up in your bed with strangers !!!

Last day as I was speaking on globalisation and advertising to a global world, the same allegation came up and this was my answer..!

"Nike Curse" - of phobias and superstitions..! (part I)

What is common between Tiger Woods scandal, Wayne Rooni and his sex scandal, Henry’s infamous handball that took France to the last world cup, the Indian teams poor show in T 20 And Roger Federer loosing his cake walk in Wimbledon this year? 

For many the answer would be vague, for others (you) would have guessed it already… all of them are (were) celebrity endorsers of Nike and got INTO SOUP and thereby spoiling Nike image, this year.. They call it the Nike Curse and that made me sit and ponder a bit more on superstitions that rule my beloved industry… what the hell the brand has to do with the mistakes/errors/goof ups that its endorsers end up with?

A lot many factors affect (negatively) business performance like paraskevidekatriaphobia—(well that is fear of Friday the 13^th) if you go for a survey among people in the western world. Their fear and love (at the same time) of superstitions are well known secrets….But friends with experience of having done business with Americans tell me that a sizable number of the western folks have this fear. I searched for data and it says in US alone about $800 million to $900 million in business revenue is lost on that ‘ill-omened’ date. Indians aren’t that bad you say? Well let me tell you more…

In all probability all of us have in some ways or other, have indulged in some kind of superstitious behavior in a business settings and otherwise, be it starting to meetings on auspicious moments ( Muhurat ) , scheduling an important meeting in alignment with a our horoscope or by wearing a auspicious set of clothes to an interview. I know people who wear the same set of stuff for days together to win clients, their stars may smile at the them but the stink will stare the clients off for sure. It may sound irrational but it seems this whole lot of seemingly irrational stuff has reason behind this, according to psychologists. 

I had a friend in EURO RSCG who strongly believed that having a cup of coffee from a particular vending machine would help us win accounts… he not only propagated this ridiculous belief but also could win over followers with his evangelism. People made fun of him and yet when a D day approached the LUCKY vending machine had a long queue in its front …strange but true!!

I was never a proponent of such stupidity, I felt that pitching is won on merit and hard work, and some greasing and back door activities of course, but having coffee from a certain machine would be the last factor in getting an agency win an account.. I knew this, so did many others, and yet we all did the coffee ritual and the logic was,- Crazy or not, you feel better having done it/them… I admit to have had the coffee a couple of times and have won accounts,,,, HUH !

Just like Friday the 13 th is a bad day, there are some good days as well. Iceland air, for example, ran a promotion in 2007 allowing customers to add on excursions for $7 each, provided they booked by 7/7/07. Now that speaks how much ‘7’ is a lucky number. Another example of the clout of ‘7’ is Wal-Mart's "Lucky in Love Wedding Search," which granted seven couples a free wedding ceremony and reception for 77 guests on the lucky date. Bharti chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal and his fascination to the number 23 is famous. 

The more apt example in Indian scene would be of  jewelry sales and purchase of gold which rockets by at least 15-20% during Akshaya Tritiya, a day considered auspicious for the Hindus but lesser known till a couple of years back (at least in the south) ..Similarly during Dhanteras last year the car sales in India went up three times.. Good examples of how Marketing enters into a marriage of convenience with beliefs /superstition. 

In the west, hundreds of millions of dollars are lost on Friday the 13th because people (even the well read ones) are logically risk-averse. Just like in India people don’t like to buy metal on Saturday, so car sales ( and any metals) are usually low on Saturdays …I still remember that at my first agency in Chennai, the boss had wanted me to go back to office and start again after we had reached the main gates of our office , for a client meeting… the reason- a black cat which waded across our path unabashedly and seemingly unconcerned about Lowe or its client Saint Gobain…


Foot note :- I thank my lucky stars I’m not superstitious!
 
To be continued...>>>>>

Dish TV & SRK - old wine !

SRK has never disappointed me like this, or may be never after this much after the infamous bath tub where he sat among rose petals selling Lux. He has become so very boring and predictable and his once lovable, yummy and cute mannerisms now evoke certain kind of disdain among people. I am not talking about me as the sample, but yes I am in the search phase of my buying process for a suitable dish TV and hence totally and really qualify to be opining as a TG.

The idea remains the same… WE SAW it again and again as goals and balls that come out of the screen and on to the viewer during the world cup last. The viewer getting the FEEL of the character in the Ad sitting in the gallery and cheering and the last shot which zooms out will tell us that he is in his couch munching peanuts/chips/pop corn and the match is in this LCD TV/ 3D TV/ Dish TV. We have even seen the referee and his red card extended again to SRK (ZZZZZZZZ!) again for the same Dish tv….

Every one has the same thing to sell, pretty understandable but can you not tell it differently … Even the LG Infinia ads that seem to be full of creative differentiation elsewhere (see it here), get into a truism and formula mode here in our country where talent galore in Advertising…. (See it here)

When everyone says the same thing in a group, it just adds on to the noise, it is like a novice walking into a Friday night pub.. The lights, the colours, the characters and all the noise…. nothing more, nothing less!

Or is it that our beloved industry is ( to quote Harold MacMillan) forever poised between the cliché and the indiscretion?

The best of Advertising - ' 09

2009 was not just another year for business- the business of advertising in particular…recession spell a shock wave and the cost cutting that ensued first affected (who else but advertising?) and affected bad …. the scene looked doomed as more brands cut advertising , more brands managers talked accountability, more demands for faster results and flab cuts made life miserable for ad guys.. Branches closed down and all of a sudden all the jargons evaporated into thin air..talk and quest for metals at Cannes and wherever they give them came to an end…. Suddenly the industry became realistic; it required a crash landing though!

Advertising and its spell on me happened way back in 1996 and to this day it continues… when we say a good bye to 2009 let me just look back and scan through all those ,whom and what made advertising happening for the last 365 days !!!

Advertising does not cause people to buy bad products. Nothing will put a bad product out of business faster than a good advertising campaign as said by ad guru’s who walked ahead of their times…. And particularly in testing times when people got choosy it really required good ads to sell good produce… the ad world requires a kudos for keeping up the spirit and going on, fallen and tired at times though !!!

Thanks to the great launches of Docomo doing the new, the closer to nature stuff from Saint juice and the parking fee ad ( even though it wasn’t up to the brand’s magic) from VW Beetle..

Pepsi and their youngistan variants (with confusion and color spread alike) amused me while by leaving SRK alone half way through in their long drive ,Hyundai amazed me, but so did Toyota when they did leave Amir, so did Katrina who unseated Aishwarya and Sushmita from Nakshatra and Pantene ads respectively….Deepika, Genelia , Asin and Dhoni ( the cricketer) were the faces that came for many brands , God knows which all ,in the last one year…( and who cares?)

Garnier and John did connect to me and a large number of men whom it was aimed at, Quacker Oats struck with the Good morning heart campaign and the novelty in it was quite awesome… Mont blank left a lot of smiles with Anil Kapoor and his daughter Sonam and the good ad that made some waves but let some eyebrows high with the Gandhi pen… Cadbury’s and its classic diary milk failed to impress me (a non existent arm chair critic that is) with its Pehli Tareek Hai ads that left bad taste in me long after the first time I saw it on the first day of its launch…Surf and its daag ache hai has reached a level where a drunkard would typically say, the fourth beer is never as good as the first one…

Videocon oscillated and came up with a new logo only to walk to oblivion again … Geojith BNP pissed me off with their transparency ad which was a sheer and pure copy cat… Bekar ads were not that churned out making the industry look stupid, dumb and senseless about the clients money,(thanks to recession)…. Creatives stopped talking to themselves and/or to the competitors creative (to a large extent that is !!!), formulae and cliché were kept in the shelves, the industry of course indulged in some self pat , and bestowed awards on itself with a comical grace that is very own to us and us only but lesser than it got so self used to,,,,...

Onida killed its devil once again and so did Hamara Bajaj scooters.. The Hole came back to the mint called Polo in a new form but...Pulsar DTSI called itself the fastest Indian but for me the Indian looked like a Mexican and quite a confused one at that… Yeah ! India was fast- to forget this ad… Bingo red chilli and its hyperbole entertained me and my class while jago re kept me thinking and even vote.. but did I start buying Tata tea? The TOI Lead India campaign struck like lighting on a lonely tree while virgin and its naughtiness gave me back my lost college days partly ( I work in a college as a Prof so I haven’t lost it totally )

Airtel and its magic realism with the boy and his toy phone made life look beautiful, the Fiat Linea creative got my admiration for guaranteed and Visa way to go assured me that it really is going to go places…. The ING blow horn ad blew my laughter lid off and the Centerfresh ( Zubaan par rakhe lagaam) ones made me talk and talk about it in my lectures while the Fevicol 50 years moochwali ad left me wondering- is there an end to creative thinking in advertising?

Idea took the walk and talk idea to newer levels and kept it good , while Zoo Zoo lead the pack with its sheer simplicity and awesome innovation that made people wait for the Zoo Zoo ads in commercial breaks than the programmes that interrupted …. Programmes in TV remained the same, the same christmas tree like heroines, the deceit and betrayal, the vidhai and balika vadhu’s , the vamps who look like painted scare crows… Ekta Kapoors made more money and so did cricketers and movie stars who endorsed anything from under garments to under eye gels….

This is just a list of most seen TV ads.. out door, digital ,internet and the likes are untouched… The boom in the new found social media( Twitter/FB and the likes) is amazing but I will wait for 2010 to take on it more...While this list is not entirely final and exhaustive, this is what I got in my top of the mind recall.. in Advertising ultimately that is what matters isn’t it?

Advertising amuses , totally !!!

Adformula wishes a very happy new year to all its readers !!!!