Of Kids, Dogs and Dirty buckets ... Part I

Last week an ad friend of mine, now with the other side, working as a brand manager of a leading FMCG firm told me a tale of how their agency took them for a ride at both the creative level and the strategy level but worse..... at the relationship level as well.. This at a time when every client is very very important for its agency and every penny counts….It doesn’t require any research to reveal number of Achilles' heel in the armour of advertising agencies. It is often discussed but then until it is repeated, as the ad dictum goes it doesn’t become the truth…. And until it is said again and again no one really listens to…

Ad agencies are often insulted and designated as ineffectual and incapable, are condemned for their reluctance to study and learn new things, update, change and renew old formula… How true it is that last one week during the IPL mela, I saw two different detergent powder ads with the age old- One dirty bucket – one clean bucket formula…. one was Tide and the other one.. I don’t remember but it doesn’t matter.. the formula is the question now….So perhaps, there is no better time than now for ad agencies to take a reality check….It is late but better late than never…..

Again one does not need do research to know that agencies which take inventiveness and action to make and maintain relationships are valued and regarded as great by clients. Termination of contracts, I have seen happening despite close working relationships, between the clients and its agencies and this despite the best of articulated client satisfaction, and the agency’s belief in its own performance. The more highly valued relationships are those with higher degrees of agency involvement in the client’s business and for this both of these parties have to think and act like one soul…..

In response to demands of an ever demanding markets (and marketers), agencies (large medium and small) are seeking to position themselves as strategic partners with clients. Most of them rebuff the “advertising agency” tag,in aspiration to change the position as “idea companies” or “solution providers”. A number of them are taking on “brand initiatives,” in which agencies become “business partners with their clients, not just advertising agents to their clients.” Some of them whom I work closely with, like to call themselves as "bliss-partners" ( now the interpretation is yours.. let loose your dirty mind!)

Before an agency aspires such great stuff as said above there are certain basics...

Hands-on response from an agency is what a client expect the foremost but alas that is a thing of the past….. At Euro RSCG London where I worked ten years back, (when internet was in but there were no blogs, twitter etc) at office one morning I saw a huge discussion about an article that appeared in a tabloid about an ad that the agency had made.. Good review but the credits were not given… I remember the efforts that was taken to find out the writer who said good words about the said ad and he was politely reminded that the credits if given would have been really great… and the same me now in 2010 to write some good stuff about an ad needed some more info and of course the credit part as well take pains to find the agencies Delhi number, call and talk to the larger than life executives, mail them , remind them and after waiting for two days decides to go on air without credits…. No reply so far and that I simply will call it ‘insensitivity’ on the agency’s part….

As a blogger I would anyways write what I want to, but if this is the response that some one gets to his calls and mails, from a main stream agency, I guess advertising is a lunatic and needs some real shock therapy

Proactive behavior is the need of the hour and it is not only with the existing world that the agency works, but should expand the prospect possibility beyond that dictated by its clients, current customers, products and business boundaries….. Such an approach involves making out and utilising new openings, leveraging resources, and creating new sources of value… But then they should be open… the agency world of today is more about talk and less about walk… after all if all the talk about strategy and such stuff where true, who do we see so many kids, dogs and dirty buckets in advertising?




Foot note :- "No road is long with good company". ~Turkish Proverb

the joy of kids !!!

I have read some where "if all this talk about strategy in advertising were true, we wouldnt be left to see so many kids parading, talking big things and selling anything from chocolates to underwears ''... well ....to an extent I agree to that, but this ad clearly is different, .... a cut above the rest... refreshing and rejuvenating .... how easy is it ,to communicate, if a right strategy is in place...!!!

Perfetti... perfect fun !!!

Its not long back that this ad made us laugh and giggle, made many a kids imitate such stuff in the name of "mentos...dimag ki batti jala de"....and even many brands imitatating ( the latest is Moroccan brand TAGGER having a ditto ad ,for instance),the sequels that followed was equal fun and together, this "exaggerated creatives" revolutionised the way candies and chocolates are advertised in India....




The centerfresh one that made us cackle and roll with laughter(right click here).....

And the Chattar pattar ad (right click here) which opened our mouth and senses......

and many more... thanks to Perfetti Van Melle and their roster agencies McCann Erickson
and O&M and the funfilled and naughty ads ( mostly) some of them are still kiddish like the Babool ones ,but then they sell to kids...PVM has a huge portfolio of brands( very confusing for me though) and the work on each brands seem to be going galore(separately)...... PVM though at the outset seem to be choking the pipeline with this parade of brands, the fact as it is revealing now, suggest otherwise. From a hugely undefined and unorganised market, where, candies meant comodities,and a huge huge market place with practically no Good brand name to write home about, PVM crafted a place of its own.... with just two brands when they came in to this confusing country and market place to this abundance that we see today,to choose from, with all the entry barriers as text books would have called it, looking like vistas of oppurtunity, PVM realised that in an impulse segment, promotion is the key and that too consumer promotion as the focus of its strategy is going to pay off.Of course there are exceptions like the one happened with the centerfresh ad and the hype and excitement build around the ad, but a bad tasting candy, did it do well? Atleast did it do well in comparison with the ad?

The category is growing....With international confectionery companies such as Lotte and JoyCo etc inflowing into the Indian market, and many Indian giants like ITC, HLL and Godrej displaying active interest in this segment and other companies such as Cadbury’s growing and going products beyond chocolates and products finaly perfecting into brands in terms of packaging, promotion and positioning, clearly an evolution is happening, or has it happened and over ?

In fact McCann and O&M India, is doing international work for many of PVM brands ,here in India. While that may not be a shock for the new gen ( the KPO/BPO gen) its is indeed a pleasure for the old gen to watch the ad industry in India making ads for brands regardless of whether they sell here or not. For Perfetti’s global brands, Daygum and Hingolia, which are not sold here,McCann India is creating the communication strategy. The Mentos commercial, that you see here (the first one) made waves not onlyhere but in a larger part of south east asia.. The Indian television commercial of Alpenliebe and Big Babol, have also been admired and accepted in Europe.(Hope on a later date ,we dont get to read and see reports of how they hate these'imported' ideas and commercials, like we did the Angrezi ads of candies in its initial years). McCann seems to have a strategy of circulating ideas and ads once it is made here and the country heads of respective agencies can choose the ones that fit their kind of culture and life. Well !!! when the world is a village, anything ,just anything seems to be possible..

After all here is a client who respects its agency/ies as their partners in progress and give due respect and credit, who have a vision about its products and lines ,who recognises what advertising can do and what the product should do, who is aware how far advertising can make people remember the brand ( in this case an array of brands) , and utmost give a reason to buy and the product/brand should takeover,who has taken the category from a mere commoditised one to a brand ised one and who seem to lead all the way....

Enough of Gyaan you say...? well, I retire but not before sharing the latest from them..titled Kabaddi.... the same platform, of fun, hyperbole and lack of logic....So far so good, but havent they all started looking the same? Is it not the right time to draw some thick lines of differentiation????