The Hindu Business Line : String advertising

Star speak: Telecom service providers such as Idea are playing around with a series of advertising creatives carrying the theme forward with a story line.

If you are to identify one big trend in modern Indian advertising as of today, what is it?

- A. B. Joshipura, Indore

Joshipura-ji, many would point their trend-pointing fingers at the use of humour in Indian advertising as being something trendy. Many would talk of irreverent advertising that pokes fun at consumers and marketers alike. I will, however, point my trend-pointing finger at serial advertising.

Look at this new and happy trend in modern Indian advertising where the advertisements are boring no longer. Remember the times when within a cricket match telecast you had to see the same creative execution of Sehwag and his mother some twenty times over? How boring!

Not anymore, though. Look at the series of advertising creatives that telecom service providers are playing around in India today. Look at Airtel’s R Madhavan-Vidya Balan series. Look at the Idea Telecom series starring Abhishek Bachhan. Excellent sets of creatives. Each one carrying the theme forward with a story line.

Very little boredom, a lot of method-acting, good fine-tuned niceties that make you watch these advertisements again and again. All these creative executions carry the theme through very well with finesse.

This is a nice new trend. Expect lots more to jump in.

The gold-standard category in branding seems to be FMCG. Everyone defines branding from the perspective of FMCGs. Why?

- Revathi Balaraman, Chennai

Revathi, FMCG brands are essentially very hard-working brands. They are ubiquitous in their presence day in and day out. They need to be at hand, and they need to perform right every time. Their touch occasion in the average home is very high. This makes for FMCG brands the most acid-tested brands of them all.

When brands go through the acid test of use, customer touch, satisfaction and delight, they are bound to be that much more recalled.

FMCG brands are quite like your spouse. They are that much forever as compared to the acquaintances you meet now and then. The husband/wife (as the case may be) is therefore that much more admired. Albeit secretly, but nevertheless admired. This is, therefore, the gold-standard category as you call it. The FMCG category is seen, heard, felt and used literally everyday. For example, tooth-paste is used everyday at least once in every household by every single member of the family. Therefore, it is all touch-occasion related. More the touch occasion, more the acid-test occasions as well.

I have heard many definitions of a brand logo. What is it really? And why do companies change their logos frequently?

- Bipin Moriya, Mumbai

Bipin, a brand logo is a visual mnemonic. A visual that reminds consumers and indeed non-consumers alike of the brand, its offering, promise and specific appeal.

A logo is a quick and crisp reminder of the brand.

While in the beginning of a brand’s journey the logo may look cumbersome and ugly at times, over time, consumers associate closely with a brand logo. Logos help build brand passion.

At times logos get old. Consumers change faster than their brands and their attendant logos. In such situations brands want to get and look contemporary. In this quest for being contemporary, brands look at logo overhauls.

At other times logos tend to accumulate negative sentiment due to some brand mishap or the other. In such cases, logos are revamped due to a crisis state event.

Indian newspapers have remained static and boring while Indian television has stolen the thunder and audiences with it. Would you agree with me on this?

- Anand V. Sudarshan, Bangalore

Anand, print media in India is of reasonably old vintage. While television is all about 1969 onwards, print has a hoary heritage in the country. Print, as a medium, has always captured sentiments right from the old days involving itself in freedom struggle. The medium has always been associated with names of doyens on the Indian public firmament.

Television, on the other hand, is a newer medium. It has morphed continuously with the aspirations of its viewers and their life-styles. Print on the other hand, except for a few English publications, has remained rather static and still-born in its approach to the changing reader and his/her aspirations.

Particularly the regional press in India has been rather static in its approach to the market, its sets of consumers and their changing needs, wants, aspirations and desires. In many ways, readers of newspapers have changed at a much more rapid pace than the newspapers they read. In this sense, newspapers (regional ones) were left behind and saw readership numbers fall.

Readership fell first and circulation fell only much later. In many households, readership fell off and got shaved as early as eight to ten years before circulation fell. In the bargain, publications did not realise the change at all, till it was too late.

Most regional publications suffered this. So have many English language papers that have sat atop their perch of comfort ignored the consumer reader. This has been the bane of many print brands that ruled the roost once upon a time.

To that extent, Anand, you are absolutely right.

(Harish Bijoor is a business strategy specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.,)

E-mail to askharishbijoor@thehindu.co.in.

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