Global Theory and Local Reality
A case of misfit?
Advertising survives in a strange world. Consumers believe that advertisements are subtle ways to fool them while advertisers believe that it does not really work wonders. However, they believe that it works worse if they do not advertise - because someone else will.
By Abhaya Panday
Like any other discipline, advertising has some set rules, which are followed religiously. Most of these rules were borrowed from the West and all of us working in agencies and corporations are heavily influenced by western education. We have either studied abroad or we have read books written by people living abroad. I have no intention of challenging the validity of these rules but to simply question if there is another way of looking at them in our local context. We know for a fact that there is no absolute truth in marketing or advertising. Every rule is relative, time-specific and contextual.
Someone has rightly said that creativity is not about changing the world but changing the way you look at the world. Being a creative professional, I often ask questions which may sound foolish to people who believe that ‘they know’. But sometimes questions are more important than answers like — Are the exercises that we go through in agencies and corporations done in real faith or are they simply done for ritual’s sake?
USP? Why not GSP?
USP or Unique Selling Proposition is a commonly used and often abused term in marketing. Every marketer is trying to find a USP, which is mostly not there, like price, quality, and technology. However, if you pick any of these, you will find that almost all other brands have already harped about it. Finding a real USP requires a genuine and unique effort. But on paper, it is still considered unique.
The million dollar question is why concern oneself about USP when it is the farthest concern of our consumer society? We never buy a product for a unique reason. In fact we are a multi-utilitarian society where Coke or Horlicks are consumption items and their bottles storage items. A motorcycle is purchased for a variety of reasons — mileage, power, speed, durability, availability of parts, and above all price. To exaggerate a bit, I would say that it is not just a machine which transports people but goods too- from consumption items to construction materials. Therefore, marketers in Nepal will be better off forgetting about USP because the buyers don’t actually have a UBP (Unique Buying Proposition). Perhaps GSP (General Selling Proposition) could be a better proposition.
Demographic/psychographics of Actual Audience( AA)?
Clients and agencies spend a great deal of time sorting out the demography and psychography of their target consumer. Based on these findings, advertising campaigns are developed and placed on mass media vendors whose target audience’s demography and psychography is yet to be determined. Has anyone sorted out the demography and psychography of Kantipur Daily readers or, for that matter, the viewers of the prime time News of NTV? I doubt it. This raises an important question. Are the advertisements made for a specific target audience reaching the target? If yes, is the reach achieved in the most cost effective manner or there is any wastage due to a mismatch between the target audience of the brand in question and actual audience of media vendors? Has anyone watched a commercial which targets children in prime time news? I bet someone has.
Is Target Audience the Actual Buyer?
Every product has a Target Audience (TA) which may comprise of the entire population or a particular segment. Instant noodles have a TA so diverse that the very exercise of finding it is futile. Since the marketing literature says that every product should have a target consumer, they should have one as well. That is fair enough. But the basic question is whether the TA actually buy the product or do others do that? The company initially draws a picture of the TA, which, in the due course of time, may prove to be wishful thinking. Even if people outside the target group happen to be the actual buyers, companies will seldom redefine their actual buyers and continue believing that the people they first identified as the target audience will perpetually remain so. Take the recent example of the scheme carried out by a noodle company —the campaign mainly targeted women and children but the majority of the winners were male. Does that ring a bell?
Sometimes, the target audience itself becomes a mystery to viewers. A local cement company shows a foreigner in its commercials. Probably that was inspired by Indian commercials showing foreign locations and models. But this is mainly done for brands where the international appeal adds value to the product. But a khaire in a Nepali cement advert? Unless the company wants to sell its cement to embassies and foreigners (who, by law, cannot build or own a house in Nepal ), the exercise was futile. The foreign model neither demographically nor psychographically represents the target audience.
Can Brand Managers truly judge creativity?
They can, if they stop being a manager and start being a leader. But very few managers can become good leaders. ‘Manager’, for the purpose of this argument, is not a term that denotes a position but the mindset which is present in corporate executives. There are managers who lead and there are leaders who simply manage. Leaders break the path to create a new one. Managers simply take care of the old paths. The other characteristic of a manager is that he avoids risks (this is natural as otherwise he will no longer remain a manager).
The concept of branding has its roots in social science where human behaviour is a key component. On the other hand human behaviour is contextual and thus ever changing and it can only be approximated but never understood. Brand mangers, however, tend to judge creative ideas on the basis of what has been judged, tried or tested as this involves minimum risk and decisions.
But creativity is about redefining the world and presenting a different perspective of things — some unexplored angle, some truth yet to be found. Venturing into an untouched territory demands risk and brand managers will seldom take it due to their inherent nature. So how brand mangers test creative ideas and outputs is a very interesting phenomenon. Knowingly or otherwise they develop a mathematical measurement of creative outputs therefore quantifying something that is qualitative in nature. They break creative outputs into parts and each part is allotted a mathematical value. A 30 second TV commercial is broken into 750 frames. A 100 cc press advert is broken into various elements. Any creative idea or output whose parts do not add to give maximum value is not good enough. Is this the way audiences judge creative outputs? Absolutely not! For the audience it is not the perfect 750 frames of a TV commercial or the brand colour or the brand placement or the font size that matter. Whether they like the idea and its presentation, in totality, is what matters. For an audience every advert is just a single impression — either good or bad or just ok. For them, the sum is not the total of the parts. Clients and agencies need to understand that in mass communication, two plus two is sometimes five and sometimes just three. This is not physical science, it is social science.
Creativity or Absurdity?
The cornerstone of advertising is creativity and sometimes there is a thin line between it and absurdity. My personal observation about the two kinds of advertisements is—creative adverts evoke human emotions while absurd ones provoke human intelligence. There is a huge difference between ramailo bigyapan and hasyaspad bigyapan.
We sometimes see unusual and bizarre commercials in Indian and foreign television. They are, however, presented so artistically that it does not belittle human intelligence. The Fevicol commercials show situations which make no sense, yet the communication is firmly grounded on the product’s essence. Fevicol is about ‘bonding’ and the commercials brilliantly showcase the theme. However, the essence of steel is not about having a Midas touch, yet a local steel commercial portrays this sentiment. This is the difference between creativity and absurdity.
Why copy testing?
Research works well in many areas of advertising but there is a limit to which it can be used. It cannot and should not be a solution to a brand manager’s dilemma while making choices in relation to creative ideas or outputs. But managers rely on research because it acts as an excuse in case a campaign fails. Once the research is done or a consensus is reached between executives, a single person cannot be blamed. Blame the research’s results. It is no wonder that a creative idea or output is discussed, analysed, and dissected (and mostly disfigured) as it passes each echelon of corporate hierarchy. But research cannot be much of a help in terms of copy testing.
Firstly, people do not read or watch adverts in the environment in which copy testing is done. For them it is just a single impression. The average time one spends on a press advertisement is six seconds. And TV is a very low involvement medium. They don’t sit down and discuss the technicalities like brand managers do. They simply like or dislike what they read, see or hear. Advertisements are like a person walking on the road that one comes across, and an opinion about the person’s beauty is formed (and forgotten) within a few seconds. Only great looking people are remembered, unless one sees another person regularly. This opinion is not a mathematical evaluation of different components of looks and physique.
Secondly, brand mangers and corporate employees have a conditioned mind when questioned about their brand. And, people with pre-conditioned minds cannot look at things in the proper perspective. To do that, one should decondition the mind and unlearn what has been learned. That is difficult, if not impossible.
What tagline is it anyway?
Every product has a tagline. Some make sense, most of them don’t. And consumers probably just remember a few. Yet our clients are very possessive about their taglines. It has to be there in big fonts, loud and clear in every communication even though the actual content of the communication may be distantly related. One instant noodles advert talks about it being wonderful. Only God knows what is wonderful about instant noodles. Will the clients change it? Most probably no. Even if no one remembers the tagline and changing it wouldn’t get noticed, it is as difficult to amend as the constitution of a country.
Coke and Pepsi change their taglines every now and then. Wai Wai rightly abandoned their slogan Hami Sabaiko Wai Wai. With their naturally shrinking market share and not enjoying the monopoly they once did, Wai Wai no longer remained Sabaiako. If the tagline doesn’t make any sense at all or no longer makes sense, it should be changed. And in most cases, only the competitors will notice the change. The consumer will not and even if they do, they will not really care. Taglines are so poorly written that they have no relation whatsoever with the product in consideration and since they do not connect with the product, they do not connect with people either.
Selling brand or scheme?
Consumer schemes: It initially started with instant noodles and now it has spread to other categories -- not only in FMCG but also to commodities like cement, steel and even banking services. Since there are myriads of schemes being constantly presented to consumers, sooner or later, they will forget the brands and remember the schemes’ names only. They will be asking for Note Barsha noodles or a Chandi Ko Jutta shoes. There are also cases where companies are selling schemes and the products simply happen to be a part of those schemes. No wonder schemes sell better than the so-called brands. With the proliferation of these schemes and their power to swing sales, I sometimes wonder why companies don’t get rid of their sales departments and hire cheaper delivery boys instead.
Are Nepali audiences double brained?
Clients are very possessive about their brand and when it comes to their own brands, they are rarely bold. The grass may be greener on the other side of the fence but the turf this side is much safer. Between ‘better’ and ‘safer’, most clients will opt for the latter. ‘Better’ is always different and different is risky. So, no matter how much the client may appreciate conceptually superior foreign commercials, companies will not dare make similar advertisements (by similar I mean unconventional). The reasoning behind this is the belief that the Nepali audience is not yet ready to understand or appreciate unconventional commercials. But that is not true. If the Nepali audience is intelligent enough to understand and appreciate path breaking commercials in foreign channels, there is no reason why they won’t react in the same way to Nepali advertisements. It is difficult to accept the hypothesis that Nepali viewers have two separate brains —one is used while watching foreign adverts and the other while watching Nepali adverts.
Clients definitely, however, want their commercials to look as technically good as the Indian advertisements, which is a bit farfetched. Consider the fact that the total budget that the clients are willing to spare for a TV commercial is way less than the money a voice over artist would charge in India. Are we kidding when we says we want international quality advertisement for peanuts?
(Panday is Creative Head of Advertising Avenues Nepal Ltd.)
