Revisiting Forgotten Ground Rules in Advertising

We are in the business to communicate effectively with our customers. Our all-important function is to understand our customer, to get to know her well, to like her and be his friend. Our business is to help her, inform her, and challenge her. Our mission is to make her feel good about us and our product and convince her with all enthusiasm and absolute honesty that we have something for her that she needs and wants. Something ( whether a product or a service ) that we believe in and are enthusiastic about, and want her to be enthusiastic about. So our as advertising people is to get results ; to sell a good product/ service to a good customer.

@ Step on the FIRST step
The most important and perhaps the most difficult part of evolving good advertising is finding out the Marketing Problem and then coming up with a brilliant creative way of solving it. What most fail to understand is that there is a difference between brilliant advertising that solves a problem and advertising that is just brilliant and does nothing to solve the marketing problem. These days a lot of foolish advertising is being done in the name of creativity, by a lot of foolish, indisciplined people.
What's worse, the once discerning band of brand managers and marketing managers have given way to irresponsible heads who allow these ads to be run with merely sappy, smart-aleck headlines and far-fetched ideas that have nothing to do with the product. Most of such ads can be recognised by the fact that your best friend or husband or wife thinks they saw a brilliant ad this so and so who...But if you ask them if they would buy they product, they look a little confused. These are the ads that make the person who did them look like a genius, but in market place, they make the advertiser who is paying big money to run them look like a fool.

@ Step Two: Step on the gas for strategic creativity
We are 100% for creativity in advertising, but but not total creativity. Lack of direction, strategy, thinking the problem through first, is like creating an ad in limbo rather than as a specific answer to a specific marketing problem.
The kind of creativity that works best is the one that begins with creating a creative selling strategy that has come out of marketing data and research data and has been agreed upon by the client. It is the one that is focussed, that covers ground with advertising ideas that aim at hitting the target aimed at.

@ Step Three: Define the problem
Having defined the problem and putting all wild creative thoughts on leash with focussed data before you, it's time to determine the creative selling strategy that can solve the marketing problem. To do this, just let go of all holds and allow your mind to flow free. With complete freedom, no restrictions, with all facts at hand, with all time you need backed with all encouragement that can help.

@Step Four: The Big job translating strategy into advertising
Now is the time to take a specific problem of translating a specific strategy into dynamic advertising. It's time to get people who think X to move to Y, to get that Y into the head of a lady whose brain is already clogged with a million messages. This is best done in the simplest, boldest, farthest, most original, most compelling,most memorable way possible. This is what gives away into brilliant advertising that is creative and yet sells the product. The directed kind of creativity that is brand of genius that some creative people have. They are the ones who keep coming up with wonderfully ingenious ways of getting there, again and again and again.

An open letter to Procter & Gamble

p‘baMQak

p‘ao@Tr eND gaOMbala haoma p‘aoD@Tsa ilaimaToD

mauMba[-

31.05.2010

ip‘ya p‘baMQak, gaularoja,

ipClao idnaaoM samaacaar-p~aoM maoM yao samaacaar doKnao kao imalaa ik mad‘asa ]cca nyaayalaya nao Aapkao inado-Sa ide hOM ik Aap, Apnao ]%pad .Ta[-D naOcaulasa-. ko iva&apnaaoM maoM yao saaf,-saaf, SabdaoM maoM ilaKoM AaOr khoM ik .Ta[-D naOcaulasa-. maoM naIMbaU AaOr caMdna nahIM hOM.

]saI samaacaar maoM nyaayalaya ko AadoSa ko saMdBa- maoM yao BaI kha gayaa hO ik [sa sao phlao BaI Aapkao 1 maaca-2010 ko AadoSaanausaar Apnao iva&apnaaoM maoM yao saaf,-saaf, taOr pr khnaa qaa ik Aapko ]%pad .Ta[-D naOcaulasa-. maoM AsalaI naIMbaU AaOr caMdna ka kao[- AMSa nahIM hO, AaOr Aapkao Apnao iva&apnaoaM maoM sao vaao saaro saIna BaI kaTnao kao kha gayaa hO, jahaM maihlaaAaoM kao naIMbaU kaTto AaOr caMdna iGasato hue idKayaa gayaa hO.

ja,aihr hO ik ]cca nyaayalaya nao yao AadoSa, [saIilae ide haoMgao taik Baaolao-Baalao ]pBaao@taAaoM kao Ba‘imat haonao sao bacaayaa jaa sakoM.

hmaara Aapsao p‘Sna yao hO ik @yaa yao samaacaar saca hO ? yaid saca hO tao Aapkao ]pBaao@taAaoM kao Ba‘imat krnao ko ilae dMD @yaaoM nahI imalanaa caaihe?

ek jaaga$k ga‘ahk haonao ko naato, hmaara Aap sao yao savaala hO ik Agar Aapnao ek ]%pad ko baaro maoM Jauz baaola kr gaumarah ikyaa hO tao Aapko AaOr ]%padaoM pr AaOr Aapko Anya iva&apnaoaM, Anya ]%padaoM ko davaaoM pr AaMK baMd krko Baraosaa kOsao kr ilayaa jaayaoM ?

Agar Aap ek ]%pad ko baaro maoM JaUz baaola sakto hOM tao yao samaJanao maoM dor nahIM laganaI caaihe ik Aap Apnao Anya ]%padaoM ko baaro maoM BaI JaUz hI baaola rho haoMgao.

hma, Aapkao mahInaaoM tk JaUzo vaado pr Apnaa ]%pad .Ta[-D naOcaulasa-. Baaolao-Baalao g‘aahkaoM kao baocanao ko ApraQa ko ilae Adalat maoM lao jaanao pr ivacaar kr rho hO.

Aapnao Baaolao-Baalao g‘aahkaoM ko saaqa QaaoKa-QaDI kI hO AaOr hma Aap pr [inDyana pInala kaoD kI Qaar 420 ko tht Aap pr AapraiQak maamalaa calaanao kao lao kr gaMBaIrta sao ivacaar kr rho hO.

yao p~ ilaK kr hma Aap sao .karNa bataAao. jaananaa caahto hOM ik @yaaoM naa AapkI kMpnaI pr Qaara 420 ko tht mauk,dmaa dayar ikyaa jaae?

Agar Aap ka khnaa hO ik AapkI kMpnaI inadao-Ya hO tao [sa p~ ko imalanao ko saat idnaaoM maoM ivastar sao karNa samaJaa[yao. [sa p~ ka ], hma yao maana laoMgao ik Aapkao Apnaa ApraQa svaIkar hO AaOr hma kanaUnaI karvaa[- Sau$ kr doMgao.

BaaovadIya

jamaIla gaularoja,

TIDEWAALON KI SACCHAI MAAR GAYI…

I heard our 20 year old maid Meena asking my wife “aunty is baar haldi, chandan wala tide leke aayenge?” She continued “us se haath naram ho jaayenge, aisa tv mein ad aata hain na, us mein bol rahe the… aunty sach mein tide se kapde dhoyenge to haath naram rahenge kya?” My ears perked up… ‘haldi’ ‘chandan’? in a detergent? And such consumer believability in advertising… wow…Next what?

I thought she might have got the ad wrong and would have let this pass, had I, during my vicious channel surfing not see the ‘tide’ commercial, that seemed to have tided her mind. As the New Tide Naturals detergent ad unfolded, I could see why our innocent Meena asked for the product. The jingle (which as an advertising form was summarised by an ad legend as- when you have nothing to say, sing it...) that was very originally set to the tune of a famous song from Roti, Kapda aur Makaan song, showed women fed up of having to scrub hard to get clothes clean and bright, and in the process lamenting the loss of softness of their hands. Herein comes the detergent that startles them, with a swish of whiteness across their grayish sarees. And then I see what grabbed our Meena’s eye balls… shots of chandan being ground, slices of lime which all become the pack at the end with a very attractive, tough on dirt but soft on hands for just Rs. 10/- proposition. Great.. good.. effective…

But wait, about 2 months down the line, what do I see? A fine print super at the bottom of the TVC.This super comes onto screen every time chandan and lime are shown. The disclaimer, which I could gather only after watching the ad over 5 times to catch it all, says ‘Does Not Contain Lemon and Chandan’! To our 4^th class, Marathi medium failed Meena (1) the super did not even register (2) even if it did, it ironically is in English in a Hindi commercial that seemed to be aimed at lower SEC consumer segment. All that she is absorbing is the visuals. The fine nuances in VO ‘chandan aur nimbu jaise gunon se bhara’ is lost on her. The impactful shot of chandan being ground on the stone and the lime and chandan on hands morphing into pack are too good for my maid to be left uninfluenced…and me searching for an answer as to who lost the ethical rule-book that once bound advertising?

It took me back to the nineties, when a friend laughingly recounted what her mom had said was reported in a local UP paper “Mother feeds child Camay because it has doodh-malai…” Although I have never been able to figure out if that story was ever true, but it does not take away from what would happen in an India that is not as wired and as aware as the cities we live in? Tide brings back that question, and even more forcefully, having witnessed the influence of the ad on a not so wired young girl’s mind. If she being in a ‘fast’ city like Mumbai (where even an average individual’s awareness is supposedly better than hinterland India) can get carried away, it is easy to see how a mom, if at all she did, can feed her child Camay soap, or buy Tide believing it has chandan and lime that will give her soft hands.

Can’t a housewife unknowingly pick up a pack of Tide in the vast landscape of small towns and rural India across the hinterland believing that Tide is natural (an abused, misleading and forgotten-the-ad-rules word in this case)? Worse, imagine such a woman who is suffering from an allergy or has contact dermatitis, and whose doctor has asked her to stay away from synthetic detergents and soaps until the condition improves, goes into a shop asks for ‘Chandanwala natural tide’ and a week later goes back with bleeding hands, as Tide naturals, is hardly natural.

In over 30 years of working in advertising and having built some of India’s best loved brands like Limca, Maaza, Bisleri, Amul, I had worked with colleagues and friends who used to treat advertising as their religion, and the advertising ethics and code plus the various acts enacted by the Govt of India used to be sacrosanct. It is appalling how to see how the young marketing and advertising Turks today are charging on, regardless of rules, ethics and above all responsibility that gets manifested in ads such as Tide’s. And what is sad is that most will not even know of these code and acts if asked impromptu and since they seem to live in a world where ignorance is bliss, they create communication that drives the ignorant towards their brand, albeit causing distress and nor bliss.

While I do not see the ad anymore on TV, Tide Naturals might have achieved what it had intended…. sell a lie about being ‘natural’ to the unwitting buyer. The big ethical point that remains is that they will continue to occupy prominent space in display across the country, with their pack BOLDLY proclaiming ‘NATURALS’. In a country where English is spoken by less than 5% of its population, it is not a rare sight to see consumers identifying brands by the colour of their packaging, a picture or a symbol. As such Tide can go on increasing its sales by continuing to con consumers who will keep identifying the ‘naturals’ pack as ‘chandan wala’ or in a desi ‘nachral wala’, all in happy ignorance!!! Wah..re wah… Tide Naturals, teri sacchai maar gayi, sachhai maar gayi…

About The Writer:

Jameel Gulrays

M: 9821144203

Communications consultant who started the first ever advertising training for ad professionals; crated a an unbeaten record of holding 52 back-to-back workshops for AAAI across Media, Creative and Account Planning

Won the President’s award for writing the first ever book on Advertising in Hindi to help those coming from the hinterland, who found it a challenge to follow the dominantly English books, authored by advertising legends

what does India need

India needs commimtment,commitment from eacch citizen.
Each citizen of India must commit that he/she will
not allow fanatics around.
India needs its every citizen to be vigiliant
against corruption.I may sound too obvious,
too A for Apple type but unless we start
from basics we will never be able to proceed
further.