Last month, at the end of a long and tiring day, I was watching TV. And when u watch TV, u invariably watch a lot of ads. Suddenly, there is this MBA guy inside you who thinks what a stupid ad that one was. But there is this other common man inside who feels the ad wasn’t so bad. In fact, upon watching the same ad a few more times, he thinks they are good. To resolve the conflict between the two, I decided to employ the model I had learnt in my FMCG course for concept development. In addition to the 3 parameters mentioned in the model, I added a fourth one to even things out between the “aamadmi” and the MBA. So lets evaluate a few of the ads I saw that day.
Airtel
The Plot – A small kid is coming back from school. On seeing the rain, he dances all the way home thoroughly enjoying it. He calls his father as soon as he reaches home, asks him to close his eyes and makes him listen to the rain over the phone. And the now evergreen Airtel music starts playing in the background. A voiceover gives a little globe.
1) Accepted Consumer belief - Here the underlying belief is that of a frustrated customer who loses connectivity whenever he goes someplace far off. He believes that the network invariably lets him down.
2) Benefit – The benefit that Airtel has been consistently reiterating is that of its connectivity no place which place you are in. That old ad where a daughter calls up her dad from a forest after a copter breaks down, the more recent one where the grandson plays chess with his granddad over phone - they all try to reiterate the same benefit of connectivity, no matter where you go. It is a very strong feature that both Hutch and Airtel have been playing on, although Hutch’s ads have always been far better.
3) Reason to believe – This is probably the most important part for any ad according to me. More than the reason, the believability of it is more crucial. With Hutch doing very well with the boy-dog combo, Airtel has been desperately searching for one. They have continuously been playing on the emotional angle and mostly it’s worked for them. However, the last two ads – the granddad-grandson ad and the happy recharge ad have miserably failed because of an overkill of this emotional angle. Compared to that, the new ad partially succeeds with the help of the little boy. It doesn’t feel that odd now.
4) Impact on Target segment- At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter whether we over-educated folks like the ad or not. All the above analysis might not be necessary if it can leave an impression on the intended target segment. And in this case, I feel Airtel has finally struck here – not exactly gold but good enough to keep those bad memories of “Happy recharge” far away.
Apache RTR 160cc
The Plot – A professor is teaching Newton’s laws in a classroom. For each law explained in the class, we simultaneously see an ‘interesting’ demo on the road by a guy on a bike. At the end of the class, when the bike guy walks into the classroom, the Prof asks him what is his excuse this time for missing the theory and he replies that he was doing the practicals.
1) Accepted Consumer belief – A bike is the one of the most essential style statements for a youngster in his college. It is expected to help him show off in front of everyone. Most importantly, it is ‘the’ tool for getting your girl. In short, the belief attacked here is the dream/desire of every college going youngster.
2) Benefit – Towards the end of the ad, the product features are mentioned in the passing but when you have an entire ad which ‘shows’ the more important benefits, it can be excused.
3) Reason to believe – Well, if you think logically, there is no reason for me to believe (i.e. based on the ad) that this bike will provide the said benefits However, as with most good ads, ‘how you say’ matters more than ‘what you say’ and this ad rocks on that front.
4) Impact on target segment – One Word – Wow! One of the sexiest ads in recent times leaving an indelible impression on its target segment. It doesn’t really matter whether you understand Newton’s laws or not – you will like the ad a lot more if you do – but the ad achieves what it set out to do. The earlier Apache ads were a shame to the bike itself but this one might just change all this. Pulsar, better watch out!
Well folks, I was planning to write on a couple of more ads when I started but I guess that will be it for now.It turned out to be much more than just a glance. Maybe I can do another series some other time :)
