The Hindu Business Line : Waiting for opportunity to knock?

IN the summer of 1975, I left the city of Madras (as it used to be known then) for a job in unknown territory. To someone who had lived a sheltered (and often) pampered life, it was quite an experience and even more a startling revelation.

I started my work life (career?) in a small town called Manipal in South Kanara, which has since become famous for its opportunities in education. My entire exposure thus far had been to similar-thinking, similar-speaking people. The experience of meeting so many different people (from the same country) with diverse customs, languages and eating (or is it drinking?) habits was quite an eye opener. Imagine my horror the following morning, when I saw one of my batchmates (who was from Tallegaon) dipping his biscuit into his cup of tea! I looked at him as though he were an alien. This seemed to me even more crass than drinking tea from a saucer! Thirty years later, I know that lots of Indians dip their biscuits in their chai while sipping it. And my years in advertising have taught me that if you strike a chord in your prospect's mind, you are home and dry. This is precisely what the Britannia Mariegold commercial does.

The riveting commercial of the wife asking for the biscuit for her chai and the husband dashing off to get it and handing it to her in a heroic effort even as he misses the train, to the amusement of the porters, is cute and has lots of recall value. "Dip nahi kiya tho chai kya piya," says the line. Thankfully, the writer was not being judgmental about consumers like I was in my own experience of witnessing the biscuit-dipping-into-tea scene. Instead, he observed what they did and used this to reach out to them. How often do we observe life around us? And how often does it reflect in advertising concepts and ideas?

You can see a lot just by observing

People in advertising very often get carried away by the power of their own rhetoric. They tend to complicate simple things. And because their clients use jargons, they too believe that is the only way to go. They talk about key consumer insight and glamorise it. "People are spending more." They state the fact as though it were a revelation. How profound! How incisive!

Insight or otherwise, the key to producing memorable advertising is observation of human behaviour. As Yogi Berra said, "You can observe a lot just by watching." And my advice to young writers is to watch people around you, however simplistic that may sound. Observe life around yourself, including what happens to you. And you could have the beginnings of a great commercial, which is anchored on experience.

Retire from work, not from life

Have you recently met someone who is 45-years-old? Well, I have, and let me share my experiences. Invariably people of this age group are tired. You can hear them saying, "I am tired of this rat race." "If only I had the money I'd retire." "You need Rs 2 crore to hang up your boots ... " "I want to teach ... " Sounds familiar? Crucial to peaceful retirement is financial security that comes with judicious investment and careful (not extravagant) spending. It means quality time with family, time for indulging in childlike pursuits and generally living without a care in the world because you are secure - financially. Again, this commercial for ICICI Prudential addresses this yearning that most of us have to take it easy and to take a sabbatical from the fast lane if we can. "Retire from work, not from life" is the line of this commercial, which encapsulates the aspirations of a lot of people. Again, an example of observation of human behaviour at work which produces a warm TV commercial that works with someone like me, who desperately yearns to retire.

Do you have a Titanic `paunch'?

What is the first thing that you notice about a man? Quite clearly, his paunch. Today paunches come in all sizes, shapes and dimensions and this is what the Supreme Oil commercials depict. Looking at the commercial, I am hard-pressed to figure out which one is mine! I am sure my wife has a point of view on the subject. And that is the point about the commercial - it addresses wives who have a role to play in (the reduction of) their husbands' paunch. And cholesterol and heart disease have been done to death (forgive the pun). The paunch is the most visible part of people, often the most embarrassing. Can you cue health in a light-hearted and effective way? Or must you bludgeon the prospect with fear? It's a no-brainer if you go by the two commercials for Supreme Oil. I loved them and maybe the next time around you will see a leaner, meaner me writing vitriolic columns!

Different Sardar, same Savithri!

There is this cute Sardar kid who shrieks "Stop the bus!" in Tamil. He enters the house where he used to live in his previous life, recognises the ancient table in which he used to write, and which even has Savitri's name inscribed on it. Strands of M. K. Thyagaraja Bhagavatar-style music blend with images of him curled up on a grandfather chair in this single-minded commercial for Greenply. Reincarnation is an Indian concept as old as the hills. Films like The Reincarnation of Peter Proud and Karz have popularised it and books such as Many Lives, Many Masters (by Brian L. Weiss) have made reincarnation top-of-mind. But it is something that most Indians are familiar with. The seemingly incongruous match of a Sardar boy with a conservative Tamilian is perhaps the charm of this commercial, but the key thought is the longevity of the plywood.

Are you missing an opportunity?

William Faulkner wrote, "A writer needs three things, experience, observation and imagination, any two of which, at times one of which, can supply the lack of the others." Soak in experiences. See how you can use them. Your experiences, properly presented, can strike a chord in your consumer's mind. Unfortunately, many of us are like this patient on a couch telling his psychiatrist, "Opportunity paged me, beeped me, linked me, e-mailed me, faxed me and spammed me, but I was expecting it to knock." I am sure you will create your own opportunities and not wait for them to knock.

(The author is CEO of Brand-comm.)

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