Marketers are not Entertainers
More and more, trend is towards ‘entertaining’ advertisements. The ads are so fascinating that many people like me, prefer watching these ads to any of those ‘Ekta Kapoor’ K-series.
But then, is that the objective of marketers – “to provide entertainment to ‘poor’ people, who are not finding good entertaining soaps these days”. OR is it something more?
Is an entertaining ad necessarily a good ad?
Shall the success of an ad be judged by the ‘best ad nominations’ or the sales figures?
Let me take example of one of the ugliest ads you would have seen. People claim that they switch channel instantaneously as the ad starts………the “beautiful Harpic ad” – in which they show a (really) dirty commode closely and Harpic claims to turn it into a shining one (there had been different versions of the ad - the commodes and the proud owners of the commodes keep changing but the basic theme remains the same)
What’s the outcome of this repulsive ad – ‘lovely, wonderful, mind-blowing’ – says the marketing folks at Reckitt Benkiser – the sales for Harpic was increased by 40% after the ad was aired, and mind it, 40% is a big number by any means.
Another ad – one of the most popular ads - ‘Badiya hai’ - everybody remembers and likes the ad - ‘Badiya hai’ became the most used phrase. But when I asked people the brand name, hardly 50% of the audience could tell me Asian Paints. Though most of them could recall that it is a paint ad, but the worst part was around 30% people said Nerolac.
(note that the sample consisted of common people, and not those MBAs whose hobby is to track ads :-)
So as a marketer, what will you go for - an entertaining ad or an ugly ad – take your pick.
But make sure the ad does its job – and that’s definitely not entertaining people.
If it can do both, like ‘Fevicol’ ads, nothing like it……..
posted by Shilpi @ 5:20 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Hmm.. Advertising gyan.... I don't know much about this. I will try to comment with the limited marketing gyan I have-
1. Maybe entertaining is not the direct motive of any ad. But one fact cannot be denied - you need to keep the viewer interested to convey your message. Most of the the times, you keep him/her interested by entertaining. Sometimes like the harpic ad, the reverse holds true. You keep the viewer interested by the sheer grotesqueness of the ad.
2. There was a very important need to make the harpic ad ugly - the nature of the product itself implies that it is used in repulsive conditions. Moreover the format of the ad is the tried and tested demonstration model used by Tele shopping guys for years. You know those waist belt ads that show repulsive looking fat bellies and the flat sweaty ones after use of the latest sauna belt. It looks disgusting. But imagine a person with a real belly problem - he/she will watch it with full interest. The same holds true for the harpic ad. A harried housewife who has exhausted all options of keeping her commode clean suddenly discovers this revolutionary new product. She is definitely going to watch it. About all the people who switch channel when the ad starts, the ad was never really meant for them. So it doesn't matter whether they watch or not. I guess the good ol mark funda of STP holds true here too. We can call this concept as "precision targetting".
3. I guess the "pleasentness" of the ad becomes important in certain categories of product. The harpic ad was successful because the ad suited the kind of product it promoted. Consider an ugly ad for say a bottle of perfume. I dont think it will work then. So sometimes we need an entertaining or pleasant ad to do the job, sometimes not. Maybe the positioning of the ad is not only based on target segment, but also kind of product.
Another classic example is people started associating Amitabh with asian paints though he ws promoting nerolac.
The reason cited was since Amitabh is No1 so he shall promote a brand which is a leader in that category and the sales of asian paints increased as a consequence.
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