"L" The ‘L’ WORD in Advertising – DOES IT WORK?

 4Ps B&M's Monojit Lahiri examines the intriguing “ying-yang” between the most heavenly emotion on earth and the persuasion industry... Welcome to some deliciously startling facts...

 Okay guys, chew on this: What is the single most powerful emotion on planet earth that has inspired dreamers, lovers and poets for centuries to touch new heights of self-expression & creativity?!

One magical word that continues even in the year 2006 to melt stone-hearts, transform & enrich lives, lending it more meaning & resonance! Really, and most honestly, the four simple, unpretentious & innocent alphabets that make your blood pound, pulse race, heart beat gallop, head spin & change your world into a paradise...

...is officially allocated one day in a calendar year to celebrate this life-altering thing – Valentine’s Day! Yes.. It’s LOVE. And boy, is there a global overdrive (riot?) towards hard-selling heart-sell!!

“The concept of love is important because it is a fundamental and universal kind of emotion,” asserts Santosh Desai, President, McCann Erickson, “And still, in the SBI life insurance ad, the image of an old man presenting a diamond to his wife, is something that was unthinkable a few years back.” This irony takes on surreal & ironic dimensions when one observes that even as the Sensex zooms north, basic human values (emotion, compassion and hope) hurtle south, increasingly prompting inhabitants of this cold, impersonal and heartless world to desperately seek empathy through personal, human contact.

Result? Never in recorded history has there been such a huge, mega, gigantic need (market?) for love… Something that the smart, savvy & sensitive emo-track communication specialist, can & does tap into.

While the hard-boiled cynics may pooh-pooh the idea (“Love in a hard-nosed, competitive environment like business? Bah!”), the truth, as usual, lies elsewhere.

Look around and you are likely to see people consciously (or subliminally) longing to invest more in emotion, spirit, inspiration and feelings – in the way they conduct their life and business. But, they all have one major problem: They don’t seem to have a clue about how to translate love into palpable, tangible and credible action. How to dovetail innovation, speed and flexibility with the magic of bonding. How to convert traditional transactions into relationship-building.

Vociferously thunders Prahalad Kakkar, “Love is one of the most powerful catalysts to sell a product...to an extent that today, even a city like Kanpur has hordes of youth celebrating St. Valentine’s Day!” The secret is simple – Get back to the basics. Give those bulky reports, statistics & research studies the heave-ho… & give love a chance. Leverage this extraordinary quotient as a strategic device for an enduring emotional connect – with business customers, partners, team, colleagues – & watch the bottom line surge skywards! Consider this. Love allows the smart communicator to escape from the dreaded ‘Commodity trap’ & evolve into something different by the simple act of placing brands where they should belong – at the emotional centre stage!

But there’s of course another issue. As human beings, we love to love. But in today’s harsh & cynical times, we constantly expect the worst, the dark, mean & selfish side of human nature to call the shots. We need to bring back the past, get love back on track & single-mindedly engage ‘both head & heart in the drive toward a happier tomorrow.’ Towards achieving this end, Love (as inspiration- emotion No.1?) can work as red hot Viagra! Today, only the blinkered (or those who consciously choose’ to remain blind) will miss out the writing on the wall. The paradigm shift has begun with love/emotion as an identified, critical decision-making component. The cool cats know the world of difference that exists between emotion & (yesterday’s superstar) reason. The former leads to action. The latter conclusions. Hence, more emotion translates to more ‘action-with the motion’ part socking it big time, as they would say!

Radharani Mitra, Executive Creative Director, Bates India, comments emphatically, “Look at the Saffola ad; it shows love as a responsible emotion, where the woman is concerned (about the family’s health).” Shifting the kaleidoscope a wee bit, we see the magical & multi-hued patterns of mystery, sensuality & intimacy designed as much to enthral, engage as empower. They are potent drives of everyday lives, aren’t they? Why should they but shut off from the world of business relationships? Fortunately, given the legacy, sensitive practitioners are placing mystery back to where it belonged & what we don’t know is beginning to be as critically important as what we do know.

An outstanding example of companies that have created experiences out of these three enchanting attributes is Starbucks in USA & Barista, Cafe Coffee Day in India. They have decimated and demolished the impersonal, corporatised passion, trimmed into efficiency mode & replaced it with a strong, personal emotional correct. Their agenda is not about Consumer Contact Programmes – just hanging out. Not about taking sample notes, but taking the pulse.

Finally, the old, traditional & never-ending battle between head & heart, instinct & reason raises its head. Intuition, feelings versus scientific market research. It is a well established fact that in today’s techno- savvy world, the Wise Men have researched whatever there is to research & what they couldn’t has been (conveniently) ignored. The truth is that everything of value cannot be measured, leading a brilliant insightful captain of business to astutely observe: “We are in danger of valuing most highly those things that we can measure. As a result, ironically, we are in danger of being exactly wrong instead of approximately right!” The problem lies in the commodification of information, allowing it easy access to one & all.

In this faceless, one-size-fits-all, uniform, assembly-line environment, where lies the magic potent that will make a difference? That is a task research need to address. Should they continue to put consumers at the base of a very large pyramid rather than the centre? Shouldn’t the primal shift actually be towards counting the beats of your heart rather than the fingers on your hand?

From the well deserved record that a humongously huge majority of songs that have made it to the Billboard chart-toppers’ list in the past decade have had their compositions based on love; to a point where one moves ahead to understand what drives the emotion. Faith. Trust. Reliability. Loyalty. Bonding. Connect… Love is the CEO that presides over them all & the businesses, groups, constituencies & people who are driven by this unique, irreplaceable passion are the ones most likely to reside in the most precious, significant & sacrosanct place of all…the space between the heart.

"L" The ‘L’ WORD in Advertising – DOES IT WORK?

DeCOdiNG AdLaNDS FEmale GaZE....Stereotyped or NOT?

4Ps B&M's Monojit Lahiri fast forwards the spirit of enquiry...

Carnal in bed. Confident at the workplace. Chef in the kitchen. Caring with the kids. Compassionate with the aged. Cool at parties. Considerate with friends. Calm in adversity. Cheered by everyone (including his eccentric toothless aunt) and continuously celebrated by a zonked media… is the Indian woman really all that she is made out to be? Is the ad world’s hysterical wooing of this ‘just discovered’ breed – ripe with aspirations, powered with desire, confidence and means to walk the talk – really happening, or are the hidden persuaders playing out their well-practised and brilliantly choreographed routine of “creating” wants and “manufacturing” needs to a vulnerable constituency, forever longing to step out of the shadows and take their rightful place under the sun?!!

First things first. Only guys in dire need of an instant brain transplant perceive advertising to be the unsoiled harbinger of truth or relentless Brand Ambassador of reality. Advertising is after all (first and last) a crucial marketing tool mandated to do a job as effectively as possible. Toward achieving this end – like Bollywood – magnifying, hyping, dramatising, exaggerating and colouring comes with the territory. “Agreed,” says the hugely respected Asia Pacific President of Leo Burnett, Michelle Kristula-Green, “but are we reading the writing on the wall correctly?” In a hard-hitting presentation she made recently in Delhi titled ‘Mis understood – why she’s not buying your ads,’ she let fly some disturbing whoppers based on her findings on an extensive survey across Asian markets – China, Japan and India. Woman, she said, accused advertisers of portraying them in a man’s version of what they should be like. Further, the basic communication slant was way off on fire solid counts: money, sexuality, humour, emotion and authenticity. The survey also revealed that unlike the West, women here weren’t comfortable with blatant portrayals of sex. It was more an internal paradigm shift where they’ve learnt to handle and appreciate sex appeal as part of their intrinsic feminity rather than an exhibitionistic, brazen and titillating man-baiting USP. Finally, in Asian society, girls are taught to view emotions as their strength, not weakness, hence they seem to respond to a message that is authentic & real-warts and all – more positively than one that is beautifully packaged but phoney.

Ad film maker and now celeb debutante in the Feature Film (Parineeta) arena, Pradeep Sarkar refuses to bite. He believes – like in the movies – the shift towards realism has begun in the Ad film scenario. No wonder the new war-cry in today’s Ad-scene is “yaar, make it less ad-dy!” Meaning, don’t make it look like a typical ad; make it look real.”
 
High profile head honcho of PNC, Pritish Nandy dismisses advertising as nothing more than a 30 second recreational capsule. Regarding depiction of women in ads, he believes “they throw up two stereotypes, neither of which is anchored in reality.” The first is the firang model, the sassy and sexy international (Kate Moss?) import who sashays across up-market glossies, Sunday supplements, as also our TV screens in the likes of the Raymond ad series. The creators of this persona believe that teaming with the brand owners, they can successfully hawk style, attitude and looks because after all, what you see is where the action is! This tragi-comical colonisation of their mind is, mercifully, not shared by the Indian consumer, and reflects their total disconnect with reality. It brilliantly symbolises what India is “NOT.” The second is the homegrown Kanta Bai / Lalitaji model. This representation attempts to propagate non-threatening, old-fashioned values of thrift and choices. “Pity is, that’s exactly what it symbolises: India of yesterday, not today! It is a corny, unreal and romanticised version that just doesn’t resonate with today’s life and times: where is the Real Woman – of complexities and contradictions, magic and mystique – that any sensitive male sees everywhere across a nation on the move?” Gifted director Aparna Sen (36 chowringhee Lane, Mr. & Mrs. Iyer, 15, Park Avenue) joins the fray. She believes that the Indian woman is represented in pathetic fashion, forever one-dimensional – North Indian, fair, urban – with occasional, degrading forays into tokenism. “How is it that beyond this cardboard cut-out, one hardly ever gets to connect with a real, believable, flesh & blood type! When was the last time one saw a woman from the South, East or North-East as ad models?” Enter adworld’s superstar, O&M’s mustachioed Piyush Pandey. “I have no problem with debates and discussions but the feminist and educationist take is difficult to swallow because it comes with an agenda. Advertising is not a pure art form, so truth and integrity – in that pristine fashion – doesn’t happen. The representation of women is totally dependant on what we are selling, where, to whom and in what way. This is not an art film for niche audiences where one can experiment or explore talents of unknown actresses, but a marketing activity with a sharp focus on creating communication that demands accountability.” India is not a country, it’s a universe! Hence, commucation is an unbelievably complex process. On the whole, I don’t think we need to feel guilty.”

Okay, so what gives? We believe advertising’s endeavour (in this sensitive area) is to identify, dramatise, even magnify some “real” emerging trends, traits and directions. The actual portrayal is seldom clinically accurate; it is more a mythologised version, but to the critical question whether it throws up some authentic trends, vis-a-vis the womanscape of today, the answer must be a resounding YES. One certainly gets to see a fascinating representation (across the spectrum) with the housewife playing a starring role! Suddenly, this harassed, sacrificial, 24X7 slogger, performer, gatekeeper and provider of her family’s joy and well-being has morphed into a zestful and joyous participant as well. She seems to be able to say YES (rather then the earlier NO) with more élan than before. She seems to also enjoy a much greater sense of control, along with the ability to be playful with her (earlier pativrata – obsessed?) husband, rather than treat him as the authoritative, fearing, lord and master. She is no longer defined by the role she plays, but slips in and out of her several roles – daughter, wife, mother, daughter-in-law – with a greater degree of style, conviction and consummate confidence. Overall, she seems to be much more aware of who she is, what she’s doing, the effect she has… and she uses that more consciously than ever before. In fact, ironically, the most dramatic paradigm shift has been in this area, not the so-called westernised, hot-babe segment.

The house-wife portrayed in ads appears much more confident, secure, positive and driven than the “am I looking good and smelling nice?” insecure chic, constantly dancing on her (self-created) hot tin roof! 

DeCOdiNG AdLaNDS FEmale GaZE....Stereotyped or NOT?

“What’s age gotta do with it? Everything!”

Has experience been sacrificed at the alter of today’s youth-crazed ad-land? 4Ps B&M's Monojit Lahiri does a check out…

On stage left is the silver-haired poet, sighing “Come grow old with me, for the best is yet to be,” evoking visions of an incandescent journey into the golden sunset. On stage right is the irrepressible, madcap, iconoclastic & self-deprecating genius, Woody Allen. He goes, “When I hit 40, ‘this dishy, cutie-pie babe of 18, doing a tiny cameo in my movie, presented me with a life-altering smile, cardiac-arrest birthday peck and a soul-destroying card. It read: Next time you visit the museum, pops, remember to keep moving!”

So what is age? An asset or a liability? Golden pond or blunder years? Gateway or roadblock? Most importantly, is it today under severe threat from ad-land where young, new and fresh seem to be the favoured buzzwords junking experienced, senior and veteran into the trashcan? Explodes a high-profile Art Director of yesteryears completely mothballed by the recent youth quake, “It’s shocking! I can’t believe this lack of recognition and respect for seniors like us. In our time, we revered and looked up to our superiors. Today’s kids consider us dinosaurs! But then, where is the real, original, creative idea from such juniors?” Retorts a young red-hot, ad practitioner in his mid-thirties in a very senior position, with a bemused smirk, “Sure, I remember those days of folded hands and open-mouthed awe when I first came into the line…mercifully they’ve been forever laid to rest!”

He believes in today’s nano-second times – you are only as hot as your last campaign. Further, being a people-driven, fast-moving, thinking-on-your-feet business, age plays a larger factor than ever before. One has to have one’s eyes constantly glued to the ball and ear to the ground to read and decode market signals, something that the oldies are unlikely to connect or be comfortable with. However, the truth surely is that the sudden boom in terms of consumerism has led to FMCGs and a whole host of new categories pressing the ‘overdrive’ button. This has often resulted into a lot of young and not-so-ready candidates being kicked upstairs, taking on positions of authority and drawing pay checks way beyond their radar. This is unfortunate, but comes with the demands of the times.
 
Naved Akhtar, the distinguished joint CEO of the Delhi-based ‘The Shop’ puts it to the tectonic shift in both perceptions and reality colouring today’s ad world, “Once, positions of authority like Copy Chief and Art Director meant the world. Today, that whole aura and mystique has disappeared because instead of slaving away for the mandatory 10 years, you can hit that slot-if you are good-in half that time!” Exciting and grim; depending upon which side of 30 you fall upon. New trends and technology have dramatically altered the rules of the game forever, demolishing yesterday’s hierarchy and pecking order in an environment constantly re-inventing itself. Can the oldies with frozen mindsets & diminishing energy levels, cope in this new space? Naved retorts, though with a counter, “Certainly, there are brilliant exceptions, but in today’s crazy & competitive times – where ‘perform or perish’ is the theme song – these guys seem unlikely candidates. It’s a young people’s profession all the way.”

The evergreen Alyque Padamsee (Adlands Dorian Grey?) is not amused. He believes it’s fashionable to do the “ageism” number because half of India’s present population is under the age of 25, “But age is really a state of mind. You are as young-or-old-as you think, feel, behave & react. Today, with youth-power blazing with all cylinders firing & products and services speedily getting onto their bandwagon, recognising, understanding & connecting with gen-Y is of critical importance to any serious communication practitioner.” The indefatigable workaholic implores the oldies to let go the baggage of yesteryears (with their quaint set of convictions, beliefs & moral code) & get a life by buying into today’s exciting mindscape. “Remember, if you are not living on the edge, you are occupying too much space, baby, so live-or get a move on!” he adds.

Padamsee considers himself singularly lucky on two counts: To be involved in pursuits that are hugely youth-driven (advertising, theatre & social activism) and in having children in the age-groups of 30s, 20s & teens, “This keeps me in the zone with feedback, buzz & throb that keeps the adrenalin zooming!” Padamsee believes that even the great masters – Ogilvy, Bernbach, Burnett – kept their creativity alive by constantly interacting with young minds. “At the end of the day it’s about grey cells thinking black – and who epitomises it better than the painter M. F. Hussain! At 90, he remains a tireless, un-stoppable show-stopper! The Rock-Star to blow away all Rock-stars! Do you consider him old? I rest my case, milord...” In conclusion, when one pulls back in an endeavour to see the big picture, one realises that (in some fashion) advertising has always been a young person’s calling. The fear of being rendered redundant, irrelevant or out of sync was there in earlier times too, only it was probably less pronounced, self-conscious, brutal or terrifying.

The single greatest dramatic change that has marked this phenomenon has been the change in the very language of advertising. It has morphed from a pristine, pure, print-driven, thought-led, cognitive process to an image-driven, street-speak situation, something that seems to have thrown the purists totally off their feet!
 
Television has set in motion near-cataclysmic changes that has made it extremely difficult for one kind of people (formal, rigid, one-dimensional, unbending, old fashioned) to relate to the business they once claimed to know & love... Why? Because they can’t seem to understand or make their peace with this brand of communication. That’s not how their mind works or why they entered the profession in the first place. It’s a total anti-thesis of everything (they believe) advertising should be.

From the days of cigarette smoking easy going creativity, here comes an age where innovation has to finally culminate into business returns, where a great idea generation exercise has to stick to time deadlines, where – as was said – you are as good as your last ad. The philosophy marks the end of an era, a passing of an order and a mode of advertising; the tragic, but inevitable, demise of innocence in a world increasingly bludgeoned by the tyranny of TRPs, eyeball-grabbing & bottomline watching... “Amen” to that, and “ahem” to much else!

“What’s age gotta do with it? Everything!”

Advertising and Talent

Once upon a time, anyone remotely inclined towards the nebulous area called creativity or any angrez with the right accent, education, lifestyle (“theatah and all that ole’ boy!”) and connections, immediately gravitated (or was sucked in by) the ad world. Academics, journalism and advertising seemed to be the only avenues open to this constituency in terms of career choices, with the last appearing more glamorous than the other two. Hence, the early entrants who sashayed in (with zilch reference points and baggage), were in a fashion, adventurers, who came with a hope and a prayer; wishing for the best but (kinda) prepared for the worst!

Those were the early days for the ad industry as well, and the journey to shape, form and construct a legitimate structure, blue-print, business-model or road map was fraught with a myriad speed breakers and road blocks. This brought with it, its very own set of challenges and opportunities, frequently attracting individuals (freako’s?) who dared to break away from the traditionally preferred “sweetheart jobs” like banking, engineering, law, medicine and (the biggest) government services.

With time however, the ad industry began to evolve and get its act together to become more sophisticated and project itself as a professional, result-oriented marketing ally, leveraging creativity in the crucial & cutting-edge areas of altering habits, shaping beliefs and persuading the hydra-headed consuming community to bite into their BIG IDEA…

Today while advertising is largely recognised as a high profile, glamorous & significant industry of Rs.13,200 crore, has the recent, red-hot new entrants – IT, banking, retail, real estate, finance, healthcare, entertainment – somewhat diluted its sex-appeal?! Is it perceived as frivolous compared to other vocations, demanding a lesser degree of focus, discipline and seriousness of the cerebral kind? Is the compensation package as good? What about the growth prospects and working environment? Is it still a juicy and attractive carrot as a preferred choice of career for today’s new age kids of the creative, talented, ambitious and driven kind… or is ad land just another entertaining, interesting and useful first-stop to begin, before graduating to hotter zones?

4Ps checks out the scene with some hard-nosed practitioners and the conclusion...? Well, read on and decide for yourself!!

“I think the major problem with the industry lies in the image it projects – frivolous, clever-by-halves, superficial!” That was Esha Guha, CEO, NewField’s Advertising, New Delhi. She bemoans the lack of seriousness that seems to underline the profession as a calling and is pained at the fact that no corrective measure seems to be in place.

“The result is that the quality students of B-schools appear more inclined to enter vocations that challenge them. Even mass comm. students indicate a preference for journalism or PR to advertising,” Guha adds. She believes that the process of attracting the right talent in a meaningful way, too, is non-existent as there are no scientific benchmarks or tried-and-tested parameters and the head-hunters are usually way off-line. The bottom line is total confusion about what the ad business is all about, what it does and how it can be an exciting, creative & worthwhile career choice.
 
“The pity is that advertising can and sometimes has played a major role in championing causes that touch social issues (healthcare, woman empowerment) ...the works. But people usually don’t see it in that role, thanks to the media. They invariably seem to forever pick the same slick, glib, witty, wacko spokespersons, the dial-a-quote guys, which sends out the wrong signal to the serious minded students looking for a career,” points out this feisty ad-woman.

Freddy Birdy, the iconic creative director and the joint partner of The Shop, puts it down to an explosion of exciting, never before creative choices, “10 years ago could you imagine even breathing words like DJ, RJ, chef, fashion designer, salon/pub owner, home decorater, furniture manufacturer and creative director for a TV channel in public, without the fear of being castrated? Today, these are considered glamorous, well paying, creative and perfectly respectable career avenues. So advertising is no longer a big deal for the creative guys.” Birdy adds (tongue firmly in cheek), “Besides, some of the stuff that is bandied off as brilliant, must inspire a lot of the ad guys to switch careers in a hurry!”

“You don’t need to know rocket science to provide the answer, which is ‘no’! And the reason is simple. Unlike yesteryears, the career choices for a student of the humanities stream today are ridiculously vast.” This was Syeda Imam, E.V.P Creative, Contract & Ex Central Asia Creative Chief, JWT. Imam agrees that kids still do roll in but not necessarily in the same dedicated and committed fashion as in an earlier era. It’s more in the nature of ‘will it suit me? How much will I make? How fast will I grow?’ etc. This is largely, Imam believes, in sync with the times and environment which offers a range of career options and choices (films, media, events) that provide relish, ambitious growth prospects and lucrative pay cheques in one heady, gorgeous and seductive package.

The final throw must come from the insightful and analytical, President of McCann, Santosh Desai, who confessed, right at the outset, that attracting and retaining quality talent has never been such a 7-star nightmare! “Let’s begin from the beginning. Earlier on, advertising was seen as a rarefied and refined pursuit that also passed off as business, attracting individuals who enjoyed and flirted with arty, cultural and intellectual activities. The real change happened with the MBA-isation of advertising in the mid/late 70s when the business and marketing aspects stormed centrestage, decimating the arty stuff in one fell swoop. Suddenly, everything – people, language, culture, direction, mandate – changed. Today it is totally a business with value-extraction, a critical component, leaving very little money to attract good talent at the mid and entry level and now with the b-schools making front page news every week relating to insane pay packets, life for us is getting more difficult.”

At the end of the day, Desai believes, it’s becoming tougher for people who love advertising to remain in advertising. Casualty one is the remuneration package. The other, the heart is going out of the hurrahs. Fun and joy are disappearing. The time frames, pressures and bottom line obsessing are getting crazier by the second, impacting team-building and bonding. It appears to be a case of doing too much to get too little. Hence, today, for people to fall in love with what they do when they come into an agency, (their work, their creations, their art & thought), is becoming progressively more difficult, which is making the situation grim. Its sad, but it’s a sign of the times we live in...

Advertising and Talent