Copy for ‘COMMENTARAO’ in ‘The Telegraph” of September 26 2005
Advertising That Works by S L Rao
Advertising was regarded as wasteful expenditure, driving up prices, till the early 1980’s
criticized as encouraging ‘consumerism’, for its influence in persuading people to buy
things they did not really need and doing this to children as well.
T T Krishnamachari and H M Patel as Finance Ministers proposed to tax advertising but
withdrew when newspapers protested the revenue loss. These actions were part of the
austerity and anti-consumption culture of that command and control era.
My learning about marketing and advertising was through selling soaps and food
products in Indian towns and villages, and working on brands in England. The ideas that
impressed me were in Peter Drucker’s “The Practice of Management”. He said famously:
‘There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer” and
“Marketing is the distinguishing, the unique function of the business…It encompasses the
entire business. It is the whole business seen from the point of view of its final result, that
is, from the customer’s point of view”.
Vance Packard’s “The Hidden Persuaders” introduced the many overt and covert
(subliminal) ways in which advertising is used to influence the customer to choose
between alternative purchases. In “The Status Seekers” he argued that people are
continually straining to surround themselves with visible evidence of their superior rank
in relation to others. Inequality is what drives people to hard work. Rosser Reeves in his
“Reality in Advertising”, David Ogilvy in his books “Confessions of an Advertising
Man” and others, and Martin Mayer in “Madison Avenue” described advertising creation
and how it works.
Advertising must define and target the consumer group it is aiming to persuade. This
must be as close as can be. It must develop a unique selling proposition to attract him/her
and tell its proposition in as clear and explicit terms as possible. The chauvinistic advice
to new advertising people was “ The consumer is not a moron; she is your wife”, i.e.,
don’t talk down to consumers but reach out rationally, emotionally, humorously and in
every other way that might attract his attention and persuade her. These and other such
rules are as valid today in designing advertising that works.
Advertising till the 1970’s mostly made well-reasoned arguments to the consumer, stating
a problem that most consumers faced and showing why the product advertised was the
best answer. When we launched chewing gum, a new habit then, I decided to target
children. There was no television. No specialist medium existed to reach children directly
en masse. Instead of using rational claims, we tried to develop the idea that it was “fun”
to chew gum. We used a circus clown as a symbol of “fun” for children. It worked well.
When introducing a new throat lozenge to compete with “Vicks”, we used the thought
that adults love candies but are embarrassed to buy for themselves (which is why they eat
up what they buy for their children!). Also, a throat lozenge also has a boy-girl
connotation because of the effect on cleaning the breath and the sucking action. The idea
was executed into press and film but did not sell much product. Soon the idea was
changed to a rational one: the product offered, “vapour action” to clear nasal passages.
In the 21st century, I wonder at some advertising messages beamed at the consumer.
Attracting attention, pausing to see it and understand the message, and then go to buy the
product, are more difficult. Unusual methods are used to attract the consumer. But many
advertisements today are unclear as to the target consumer and the message. Humour is
many times very forced and difficult to understand. The models are unlike the majority of
consumers. Since advertising now costs a fortune and failure could ruin the company, the
irrelevance of these advertisements seems suicidal.
There have been great advertisements in the last few years on Indian television, for
example, the light hearted and very effective ones for FEVICOL. The brilliant
advertisements for Coca Cola with Amir Khan in different roles must have sold a lot
more Coke. Here, the models were either “like one of us” prospective buyers or
recognized as such because of the brilliance of the actor.
But how does one explain the long and inexplicable advertisements for Pepsi as a
“bubbly” drink, using the extremely expensive Shah Rukh Khan, a celebrity model who
always acts only as himself? Despite its length the product promise is indecipherable. The
lengthy, frequently repeated and hence hugely expensive advertising for a single jewelry
store in Delhi named “PP Jewelers”is unclear on message and the target consumers. The
bunch of girls dancing and singing a jingle has no connection with “real” people. On the
other hand, “Chirag Din” has built a reputation for being an exclusive, up market men’s
clothing shop in Bombay. It makes a virtue out of not having branches anywhere else.
Advertising has helped to give its clothing a cachet and the Bombay label.
Of course, many advertisements today replicate the bland upper class models that act in
Indian television “soaps”, with similar stories, one cast looking and behaving no
differently from another, and with equally expressionless acting. The stories are
uniformly set in wealthy urban households. The models, their makeup, dress, articulation,
are familiar to the better off households in large cities. But do other income groups relate
to them at all?
Advertising ignores people that in the consumption pyramid I developed to illustrate the
NCAER consumption surveys, are at the bottom of the pyramid, (the “aspirants” and the
“climbers”), poor but interested in consuming manufactured goods provided they were
presented in a way that was affordable for them. Our television models have nothing in
common with them-not the homes, furniture, clothing, articulation or any other
parameter. In the West, advertisers are beginning to feature people who are not all young
and svelte, but more like “us”. Indian advertisers must rethink the models they feature in
their advertising if they are to target lower levels of the ‘consumption pyramid’.
This is important because the Indian consumer today is savvier. In the early 1990’s,
NCAER surveys found the consumer believing in advertising claims and buying products
as a result. He was thus also very brand conscious, in rural as in urban India. But over the
decade of an open economy, the consumer seems to have crossed the threshold and now
understands that almost all products perform their functions equally. The consumer now
looks at the price and buys the product that offers its functions at a lower price.
The task of advertising to persuade the consumer has become more difficult, because of
the ‘noise’ of so much other advertising, its high costs that make failure very expensive,
and because the consumer is less easy to persuade to pay extra for a ‘premium’ product.
That might explain the decline in recent years of Hindustan Lever in the foods business
including famous brands like Lipton, Brooke Bond, Bru, Kissan, Kwality and Modern
Bread, as also some high margin personal care products.
Naomi Klein in her book “No Logo” looked at the globalization of brands and advertising
and the subordination of the brand to the product. You bought McDonald, not just a
burger, you bought Coke, not a soft drink. She criticized the globalization of production
as American marketers moved production to low cost countries using sweated labour.
But India is showing that Indian products can stand up against foreign ones. Nirma,
Dabur, Himalaya, Balsara, Anchor, Videocon, Voltas air conditioners, and many others,
have done so. Advertising is essential but the medium has changed. So must the models
that give the message. Even more important is the identification of targets and message
that must be clear and unambiguous. (1283)