The Hindu Business Line : The subtle and the direct

THOUSANDS of advertisements rain on the consciousness of consumers. Most of them, like the innocuous waves attempting to reach the seashore, get lost even before creating the slightest dent. Only a few `touch' the consumer's mind; fewer still make any lasting impression. This article makes an attempt to examine advertisements through the eyes of `directness' and `subtlety.' The focus of the article is neither to discuss successful and unsuccessful advertisements, nor to address the `correctness of creation' of any advertisement. The intent is to identify and clarify some of the underlying distinctive features of advertisements. These features could supplement existing practices of marketers.

Directness and subtlety

Directness in advertising is any obvious reference to a product, service attributes, or a benefit. Supreme oil's tummy reduction advertisement focusing on the `tummy enlargement' syndrome is a high-visual direct advertisement. Onida's `Neighbor's envy owner's pride' - an advertisement that pioneered creating a status symbol out of a television - belongs to the subtle category. Most status-oriented brands adopt this subtle approach. Raymond's relationship, Titan's gift proposition and Samsung refrigerator's dependability (reflected through a modern housewife having a traditional outlook towards marriage) are a few in this category.

Direct advertisements are quite common in the fast moving consumer goods sector. However, there are a few exceptions. Tea brand Tata Chakra's recent TV spot exploiting the appeal of romance as a metaphor for taste, and the projection of Bru coffee as a mood elevator are some exceptions.

Both approaches have their own merits and demerits. Directness conveys product benefit without any distraction. It is effective in conveying the brand proposition. Shampoo brands adopt the direct approach by highlighting their benefits (though some of them do/may use celebrity-based romantic themes, such as the one adopted by Pantene). Directness is very effective when the brand (consumable or durable) has benefits significantly superior to those of competing brands. When it entered the Indian market, Hero Honda projected fuel economy as its proposition by claiming almost double the mileage of competing brands. Dove moisturising soap created a direct advertisement projecting its superiority over ordinary soaps.

However, directness may become ineffective when brands need to convey an emotional proposition. In the current competitive context, it becomes inevitable. Brands keep getting improved over a period of time and may find it difficult to sustain themselves on a functional platform alone. Hence, there may be a need to adopt a subtle approach. Moreover, premium brands normally emphasise `psychological exclusivity,' and this is easily possible through subtleties. Some brands like Titan create a strong psychological proposition (gifting) and make the brand a part of such a proposition.

Certain categories adopt the subtle approach due to difficulty in highlighting any strong benefit from inherent characteristics. Given the subjective nature of taste, it may be difficult to make taste a permanent proposition in categories such as soft drinks and chocolates. During the Eighties, even the well-known brand Cadbury projected warmth to co-exist with chocolate. Later, it projected "the joyous girl on the cricket ground" to reflect spontaneous celebration in everyday life, with Cadbury being a part of the celebration.

Is it possible to effectively interweave directness and subtlety in the same advertisement? Liril's classic TV spot having `girl-waterfall-freshness' linkages is one such. The waterfall advertisement had several research insights behind it. It was one of the few advertisements in Indian advertising history to move from cinema halls to household television (perhaps with some minor changes). The advertisement had directness - the freshness attribute being highlighted by the green soap used by the girl in the waterfall; the waterfall also conveying freshness in an indirect manner. It also had subtlety captured by the indulgence of the girl in the waterfall, and associating this indulgence with `freedom from daily chores' through the freshness of the brand. This illustration is just to illustrate the simultaneous presence of both the direct and the subtle. However, the most recent advertisement of Liril employs an overwhelming proportion of subtlety to communicate its freshness. The objective is not to compare the two advertisements in terms of effectiveness.

If subtleties fail to evoke any contrast with other brands, the advertisement may not have an impact on the target segment. For subtlety to succeed, its intensity should be in tune with the nature of benefits communicated by the advertisement and the type of target segment - this is a rarity. Subtleties formulated could also be closely related to the brand benefit. Johnson & Johnson's advertisement displaying warmth and love of a mother is a good fit with the brand's attribute of mildness - absence of any type of harshness to the baby's skin. The tender skin of a baby is generally associated with lovable warmth. There is a synergy of the various subtle elements here.

A novel benefit hitherto unknown to the market can also be conveyed through direct advertisements. Fair One (15-day fairness promise) in the fairness cream category and Colgate's Whitening variant (14-day whitening promise) are representative samples of recent origin.

Subtleties and celebrities

In recent times, marketers follow celebrity associations as common strategies. A celebrity could have expert opinion linked to the product category. The celebrity directly endorsing a brand attribute by virtue of this expertise in a specific field can be associated with the direct approach. Lux exemplifies this kind of approach. Across the globe and over the past several decades, it has been following this approach. Lux is associated with complexion care and the reigning celebrity is perfectly suited to endorse brand benefit by virtue of her success in an area where the brand's (projected) end benefit is cause for success. Sachin Tendulkar's "Boost is the success of my energy" is another such example.

The subtle approach is adopted when celebrity association is not overtly connected with the benefit. Santro initially used a celebrity to showcase the brand attributes (direct approach). Later, it brought in another celebrity to join him and projected the product as `the sunshine car.' Sunshine has an intuitive association with brightness, joy, new hope and perhaps success (`shine' and `success' have close cognitive association). Santro was projected to symbolise sunshine resulting in the usage of subtle analogy in its advertisement.

There are some celebrity-based advertisements that follow neither of the approaches. They bank more on the charisma of the celebrity. Amitabh's association with Parker pen and Cadbury's chocolates belongs to this genre. If a brand attempts to win back the goodwill after being in a contentious phase (like Cadbury), then there may not be any need to apply either of the approaches. However, if the brand has the long-term objective of creating a brand personality (like that of Thums up), subtleties may be used effectively. In order to be different from competing aerated soft drinks, Thums up employed a celebrity to create a macho and adventure association. In this kind of approach, success is likely only after a prolonged period of advertising. Normally the various campaigns of a brand launched over a period of time should have synergy.

Consider Airtel and Thums up. It will be an interesting exercise to identify the type of association created by topical celebrities projected by the respective brands. Subtleties need to be linked with a theme to ensure an association unique to the brand. It may not be a good idea to use a diverse set of unconnected visuals to advertise the brand, even if subtleties are employed to focus on specific associations. A brand attempting to create long-term associations by employing either of the two approaches may find its frequent sales promotion announcements inhibiting its attempts. This may be due to the non-reinforcing advertisements utilised for the announcements.

Projection of a celebrity along with subtleties may not be appropriate for a brand belonging to the durable category, especially when the brand is attempting to position itself in a low-growth market. Take the case of washing machines. A new brand needs to put across its attributes/benefits to the respective target segment in a convincing manner. This is all the more important in case the brand lacks any cumulative association in the minds of consumers due to its being totally new to the market. In this case, it may not be appropriate to use a celebrity and weave subtleties around the celebrity. However, in the case of conspicuous categories such as passenger car, subtleties involving celebrities may have impact because of reference group appeal. This is more likely of brands perceived to be having strong attributes. Skoda's advertisement makes use of subtleties to convey its internal space. On the contrary, washing machines necessitate a shift in focus to features and intrinsic product-related aspects.

Embedding subtleties in a cultural context

In any social context, culture influences marketing communication to a great degree. Further, emerging markets may have several kinds of cultural dimensions. In the Indian context, for a large number of product categories, traditional culture has an impact on the psyche of a large proportion of consumers. The high degree of consumerism fuelled by the nouveau riche culture and the emerging youth culture-related product categories, to name a few, are stark realities. Marketers will need to examine ways of exploiting the various approaches discussed here in the context of relevant culture settings.

Coke's thanda TV commercial exemplifies the usage of a cultural habit in taking a brand to the masses. The commercial makes use of a movie-based celebrity popular with the masses. The TV spot also takes advantage of the practice of cooling fruits and soft drinks in a bucket of water. This depiction identifies itself with the masses by empathising with their non-affordability of a refrigerator. The `cold habit' (with the brand in it) along with a `story' woven around the theme, is the gluing of subtleties with a cultural habit. Vicco Turmeric Vanishing Cream that probably created the fairness cream market (though not positioned as a fairness cream) took advantage of marriage as a culture-based association to position itself. Special and traditional cosmetic offerings were a part of the culture of the masses at the time of launching the brand, and they continue to be so even to this day.

Given the urban youth population and its fancy for cameras and the Walkman, Eveready created the `Give me Red' campaign for a low-involvement product such as the dry cell battery. Red has a cognitive association with `being adventurous.' It also stands for `energy,' a concept closely associated with both the active youth and batteries. Duracell has launched a campaign in India with its `rabbits' story,' in which the rabbit associated with the brand keeps up its physical activity nonchalantly while other rabbits get tired. While the cultural aspect may not come to the fore as in Coke and Vicco, the need for energy in a fast-paced culture is well captured, and associated with the brand of battery. It may be interesting to note that, in a number of mundane products, such subtleties in synergy with the familiarity of well-known brand names yield effective advertisements.

Creativity in marketing is not based on any phenomenal breakthrough. It is based on dimensions of non-linear thinking. Differentiating between directness and subtlety may be one of them.

(Kumar is Professor of Marketing and Shekar is Professor of Quantitative Methods and Information Systems at IIM, Bangalore.)

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