The Hindu Business Line : Love-hate relationship with advertising

THE big picture that Sanjay Tiwari paints in The (un)Common Sense of Advertising is that when ad agencies work like factories, they deliver advertising that looks like products from factories — similar, `standard' ideas and ads. They could then be more legitimately called `copies' rather than originals. Also, "Good advertising cannot help sell bad products for long." As a corollary, bad advertising can keep a good product down for long. The book published by Response Books (www.indiasage.com) is about `getting the basics right.' "If common sense is about `reading the lines,' then insight is about `reading between the lines," states the back cover. "Insight often strikes one as common sense in hindsight."

For most people, it's a love-hate relationship as regards advertising, writes Tiwari. "They love its gloss and sparkle, the imageries, the aspirations of a better life, the indulgence with the self, the feel-good factor, the way it touches their senses and inner emotions." Where is the hate, then? "Yet they hate it for its power to influence, for making them want more and spend more, for making them impulsively buy things that they may later have second thoughts on, and for its intrusion in their private space and favourite pastimes."

Going to the root of the word, the author explains that ad verter (Latin) means `to draw attention to.' But this is "as natural a phenomenon on earth as life": We advertise ourselves through our behaviour, mannerisms, and body language. Flowers and fruits of a plant are often the most colourful and attractive; a parallel example in the animal kingdom is the mating call. Well, that's the author's call on the issue.

There are no shortcuts, and marketing is no quick sprint. "Building brands is about running a marathon. And it makes huge business sense to invest in brand building." What is a brand? Here are a few simple definitions: It is a consumer's idea of a product; it is a perceived experience; it makes the product uniquely identifiable. Despite semantics, the common thread in these descriptions is the emphasis on consumers' perspective, observes Tiwari. "Brands exist in consumer's minds."

A chapter is titled, "Who's the date? To be a bullfighter, you must first learn to be a bull!" What's this bull stuff, you wonder, and the author explains: "If wooing people is what advertising is all about, then knowing what will interest and excite them is a must to win them over." The message is simple: Be prepared for the date.

How do you define a successful advertising? Not in terms of its creativity, but in terms of its effectiveness. "Did it work or not?" Creative ads stand a better chance of working, because of better recall. There could, however, be a problem when you hear, "That was a nice one, what's the product?" If only the ad is recalled and not the brand along with it, then the creative solution is not a good one, is the verdict of the book. "It is a must that creativity in advertising should work towards building brand identify and brand preference."

`Out of sight, out of mind' is an old proverb, but what it means for the marketer is, "being visible may mean selling more." A thumb rule, therefore, to measure advertising effectiveness is to divide share of market by share of voice. There is another equation too: "Brand momentum = market share x share of mind x share of voice." However, one caution to exercise is to let voice not become noise and create fatigue and disinterest.

The book concludes that there is but one law in advertising: Apply common sense. "It often helps to look for the `obvious' and the `not so obvious' experiences by searching for parallels in other walks of life. After, all a lot of advertising sense originates from personal experiences and common sense, as it is about common people."

BookMark@thehindu.co.in

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