The Hindu Business Line : Yesterday, today, tomorrow

"The challenge is not merely in creating a great campaign but in sustaining it in an environment that is constantly changing and becoming increasingly competitive."

Dettol is a brand that has succeeded in maintaining the clarity and continuity in positioning and execution over the years.

I came to advertising (yawn) in 1983. The hottest advertising agency of that era was Rediffusion. It was the `agency of choice.' Clients watched the agency and its work with interest while agencies watched it with fear. Rediffusion had confident MBAs from top-flight business schools and some outstanding creative talent. It worked on big brands like Colgate and did path-breaking work, like the Congress (I) campaign, the Garden Swing commercial and Eveready's `Give me Red' commercial. Its work was cutting-edge, stylish, contemporary and sophisticated. And yet it is worthwhile to remember that we are talking of execution that is over two decades old, and as Bill Bernbach said, "Today's smartest advertising style is tomorrow's corn." And yet one must mention that Eveready's original `Give me Red' commercial was truly stand-out.

Give me Red

`Give me Red' was an amazing commercial for an ordinary, low-involvement product - the battery. The commercial, in case you remember it, had a racy music track, a succession of psychedelic images, a preponderance of red and the killing signature line `Give me Red.' The commercial must have probably won awards outside of Kolkata as well and in my mind at least, served as a benchmark of advertising that was young, aspirational and had a strong property in `red.' And yet, often, the challenge is not merely in creating a great campaign but in sustaining it in an environment that is constantly changing and becoming increasingly competitive. And this is a challenge that the brand and its advertising have struggled to cope with over the years. In my opinion, the brand has lost its original advertising appeal.

Same line, different strategy

The sad reality is that clients and agencies tend to get tired of their own advertising campaigns long before consumers do, and change from a great advertising campaign like this isn't usually for the better. Eveready changed its campaign, had the same line but with a different execution. The brand's advertising, to my mind at least, had lost its earlier zing. And then the brand signed on Amitabh. Amitabh, I think, has amazing saleability and terrific histrionic ability. But he was not young and `Give me red' was an active, young line. And now the brand's current advertising featuring the same Amitabh talks of extra power. The line `Kuch to hai extra' is dramatically different in tone of voice and treatment from the original winner. The company claims the brand's market share has increased due to the presence of the celebrity who makes a major connect with a rural audience. A gain for marketing and market share at the cost of creativity!

Riding on trust

Another originally great advertising campaign was `Hamara Bajaj.' A benchmark campaign, if there ever was one! It created lots of heartburn for other agencies as well, as every second client kept asking his agency `why can't we do a Hamara Bajaj?' (The agency would smile sheepishly even as they were thinking `because we don't make two-wheelers.') But there is no taking away from the value of that slice-of-life commercial. Several years later, the client and the agency decided to do another Hamara Bajaj and the rest, as they say, is history. The second Hamara Bajaj had the same lyrics or a variant of it set to more contemporary music. The ad featured young men and women who represented current India - modern in outlook and yet traditional in values. The company's emphasis on motorcycles was in evidence. The company had changed over the years and the later advertising campaign reflected this change as well.

So what's new?

I used to have this message on my screen saver for a long time which read as follows:

`The customer is changing perceptibly.

Technology is changing dramatically.

Markets are changing globally.

Companies are changing structurally.

And you are still the same?'

And this is probably something that marketers need to introspect about. Whilst everything around them is changing, how can the product alone continue to be constant and unchanging? What improvements are being made, or are we leaving too much to advertising? Bajaj has evolved over the years, in its product line and its competitiveness giving the agency some fresh fuel for thought. Maybe Eveready has not, so why blame the agency?

Another interesting long-term campaign features the tabla player Ustad Zakir Hussain. The `Wah Taj!' campaign for Taj Mahal Tea has had multiple executions featuring the same celebrity. It is one of my favourite campaigns that has endured despite having multiple executions over the years. The product, the packaging and the advertising have evolved. For the better. Not so lucky have been brands like Cherry Blossom which had a great campaign in Charlie Chaplin. And yet subsequent executions tried valiantly to match the original high standards without success. Other brands like Dettol have maintained clarity in position and continuity in execution over several years now.

And now to the present. A young brand like Fastrack, which launched a racy new campaign with the `How many you have?' has changed its campaign. The new rendition with the same line featuring a young girl and admiring young men had me foxed at first. Why are they changing, I asked myself. They are on to a good thing. And yet, a few exposures later, it is growing on me as it is on my sons who are 22 and 19 and who, actually speaking, are the real target audience.

Brand equity not a burden

Sir Donald Bradman is well known, to put it mildly. But what is not so well known is the fact that his son John found being son of a famous father so much of a burden that he actually changed his name. Thankfully, a great advertising campaign is not so much of a burden but a benchmark. I remember in Mudra we used to handle two big brands, Vimal and Rasna. And the challenge each year was to produce a campaign that was definitely better than the previous one even while maintaining the continuity, tone of voice and brand properties. It is difficult but not impossible. It is worthwhile, though, to ask yourself the following questions:

Who is tired of the campaign, you or the consumer?

Is the new campaign at least as good as the earlier one?

What properties, like the tag line, are being carried forward?

Is it adding to the brand's equity or eroding it?

And finally, is too much being expected of the advertising because nothing else has changed?

We live in times of great and continuous change. A great advertising campaign that is built in the past on a great idea and modernised today for the changing consumer will stand the test of time and continue to deliver results tomorrow. As said by Nigel Bogle, BBH, "A really powerful idea is the last remaining unfair advantage in business." So how many you have, man?

( Ramanujam Sridhar is CEO of Brand-comm.)

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