June 2012
AuthorSpeak
Advertisement should be seen as investment
The industry is yet to come to terms with
handling the new media ... but then, this is
something the entire world is struggling with!
Why has niche publications not taken off in India
unlike the developed markets? What are your
suggestions to make it vibrant?z
‘Niche’ to me, means ‘specialized’, not
‘small’. A publication can only survive if
either the readers are willing to pay for
the content or it attracts enough readers
to make money from advertising.
If a niche publication is small, it will not
attract advertisers. I believe readers will pay for
very specialized content such as, say,
architects paying for a magazine about
new materials, construction methods, etc.
The key to making a niche publication
successful is ensuring it is ‘indispensable’ to a
few, rather than being ‘interesting’ to many.
The top 50 or so advertisers are crowding out others. What are the options for medium size
companies to use this medium?
I believe that if you have pots of money, you can get by with bad advertising and bad strategy. A
smaller company has to be more innovative. For example, some years ago, Chloromint
distributed samples of the product through the dabbawalas in Mumbai. The prospects
could try the product after lunch and experience its mouth-freshening quality! Simple and smart!
Or Meru cabs which worked out a plan with customers at bars, who were given coasters with the
message that they should not drive after drinking – and use a meru cab instead. When you have
fewer resources you have to work smarter!
The Indian advertising industry has come a long way and is showing signs of maturity. What are
the top three challenges facing the sector today and what solutions do you suggest in tackling
them?
It has certainly come a long way, but if you look at measures such as the ratio of advertising to
GDP, we are far from a ‘mature’ advertising market. Nonetheless, the challenges that face
the industry are: • Being able to demonstrate the ROI that advertising delivers. The industry
needs to develop these metrics, so that advertising spends are seen as an investment, not an
expense. • The above will help the industry to improve its profitability, which will make it
affordable for the industry to attract and retain better talent, which is the second challenge the
industry faces.
What’s your view on 360 degree advertising?
The way the sales person talks to me in a shop is advertising. If an air hostess says ‘Namaste‘
v/s ‘Hi’, she is conveying a different advertising message, and the décor is an advertisement for
a restaurant! Marketers and communicators must remember that advertising is more than
TV commercials and hoardings and radio spots.
What’s the thought behind naming your book ‘Darwin’s Brands’?
Brands, like species, need to adapt and evolve. Charles Darwin pointed out that: “It is not the
strongest of the species nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most
adaptable to change.” The book has twelve stories about brands that faced the changed
marketing and consumer environments and adapted their way to success. Since they have
'followed' Darwin's observation, I have called them 'Darwin's Brands'.
Your book reads like a collection of case studies on advertisement history of India. What’s your
primary objective of writing the book?
Marketing strategies for brands exist in office documents; what consumers see is the advertising
for those brands. The stories in the book trace this most visible aspect of the brands over the
years. One can only see patterns in hindsight. By understanding the elements that comprise the
pattern of communication decisions of successful brands, the reader can learn what to think
about in managing the advertising of their own brands. It is meant for people who want
to understand how well successful brands use advertising.
Anand Halve’s book Darwin’s Brands – Adapting for Success looks at the insights that can be
leaned from some effective campaigns in India. Here he shares his thoughts on the focus of the
book and what it is meant for with ManagementNext
ManagementNext | June 2012
21