Under Ki Baat 2

Some time back I had posted a blog about how careless and tasteless people are when it comes to their undergarments. In case you haven’t read it yet, here’s a quick link Under Ki Baat. I’d like to show you a comment I got on that blog.

Manish said...
bang on...i handle an under garment client ... any thots on how we can make the men and women more conscious about their under ke brands:-)

I had no answer to his question then. I had just gone out and raised an issue to which I had no solution at all. But recently I came across an ad on TV that set me thinking. It was bold, it was quite wild, the brand wasn’t a very popular one but after the Ad I am pretty sure it’s being talked about by a lot of people. In fact, the other day a colleague of mine had sent me a link to the worst Ads poll by NDTV. To my surprise this undergarment brand’s Ad was one of them. When quizzed about it, the public reacted or rather acted out in genuine horror and labeled the Ad vulgar. Come on people, this is the land of the Kamasutra. What’s the harm in talking about a little sex? The Ad in question here is ‘Amul Macho’. The tagline says ‘crafted for fantasies’. If you haven’t had a chance to feast your eyes on this latest 30 second thriller, then here’s a gist of what it’s all about. This interesting post has been written by a true fan of the Ad TVC Hots & Nots.

Personally I think this is one of the most interesting ads that I’ve seen till date. Maybe it’s corny, but it does its job. I am sure that if you’ve seen it once, you’ll never forget it or the brand ever. That anyways is besides the point that I am trying to make here. I am not here to talk about what makes effective advertising. I am not here to tell you what works for a brand. I am here to tell you that it’s about time someone raised the standards when it comes to undergarments. Undergarments are just as important as any other piece of cloth on your body. Thus, I believe that a good label on an undergarment is essential. That’s exactly what this Ad does for me. The way I read the message in this ad, undergarments are a major turn on for the opposite sex. Hence it is utterly important that you choose them as carefully as you would choose your jeans.

We’ve come a long way from the days when our forefathers used torn off pieces of cloth to make ‘langotis’. We live in a world were there is no dearth of fashionable and chic undergarment labels. Even so we undertake that once in a year or twice in a year trip to a wholesale market like Tirpur to buy undergarments in bulk. Why? Why do people still think it’s a crime to spend a couple of extra bucks on a good brand of underwear? What’s with this whole mentality?

The ‘Amul Macho’ Ad has finally spoken up and stirred up a storm. Its high time more undergarment brands started doing a bit of bold advertising.

After pondering Manish’s question for some time, I had closely scrutinized several undergarment TVC’s. The segment is still very much in the low involvement purchase category. In actuality it has to be high involvement. I think Ads like ‘Amul Macho’ (of course this ad is not for the metro male), and in the recent past, VIP (where a flimsy pantie flys off to join a VIP Frenchie on the clothes line) and Hanez (Tagless comfort) are good examples of how we can raise the standards in this category.

Taking a poke at people, black humour, sexual humour and hints, even downright nastiness are things that I really think can work for this category. We need to use bolder means to create awareness in this segment. Yesterday was all about being macho, today is all about being sexy and desired. A self aware male or female would always dress sexy outside and inside. So, I say we’ve got to make people self aware about their sexuality. That’s how I think we can make people more conscious and careful about the choice of their under ke brands.

What’s in a name?

Pop Quiz!

What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when I say…

Nirma
Vicco
Dettol

I am sure you would have thought detergent, ayurvedic face cream and anti-septic lotion.

That’s what we’ve all associated these brands to, it’s been hammered in our heads for years now. Over the years these brand names and many more like them have become synonymous with the product itself. Need more examples? Think Xerox, Post-its, Scissors etc.

Over the last few years we’ve seen almost every company expanding its product line. For example Pond’s, which we all used to associate with talcum powder, broke into the personal care and cosmetics market with every possible product imaginable. They even have certified beauty salons. Likewise we’ve seen the Will’s ‘made for each other’ cigarette brand extend its product line to fashion.

When companies decide to go into such product line extensions, they have the option of doing it in two different ways. One, keep the same brand name across all their product offerings. Two, create a new brand name for each of its products. The former is called blanket branding or family branding, a single brand or company name which is used to identify a range of products. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.

When different products of the same company have different brand names the risk of one product’s credibility rubbing off on the other is very low or even non-existent. Supposing a new product from a company was to be a failure in the market, it really wouldn’t affect the credibility of another product of the same company. Manufacturers could pull out unsuccessful brands without damaging their other successful brands. But incase of blanket branding or family branding the risk of generalizing product credibility (regardless of product category) is very high.

There are some companies that have pulled of blanket branding across various product categories very successfully. To name a few, kingfisher, Virgin etc.

And there are those that have (in my personal opinion) fallen or are falling flat on their faces. There are two particular brands I’d like to take as bad examples of blanket or family branding.

Parachute as we all know has been the leader in the coconut hair oil segment for donkey’s years. Especially in the south, oiling one’s hair is more auspicious than hygienic. Oil baths are a weekend ritual that almost everyone follows religiously and without question. In the recent past Parachute revamped its image of being a traditional brand to a more chic brand. You might have spotted the Asin Ad for nariyal tel or more recently the Yuvraj Ad for parachute styling creams taking the free running fad route. I must say they look pretty cool and are doing wonders in making Parachute a more fashionable brand. But parachute made an even bolder move. They brought out a string of after shower products like hair gels etc. under the same brand, i.e. Parachute. The Ads look great but the name Parachute just doesn’t sound right for such products. In my personal opinion I would rather pick up a styling gel that’s called Set Wet than Parachute. Gel’s are all about styling and so I think they need to have stylish names. Parachute just won’t do. Period.

The other brand that I want to talk about is Kamasutra…yup, the condom brand name who’s very mention makes most Indians squeamish. Recently I came across these nice black teaser hoardings with pink and red typos. The message on one such hoarding read “She wears Kamasutra while studying.” That really got my grey cells working overtime, and while I was eagerly waiting for the revealer, I came across another hoarding with the same kind of art treatment. This one read “My boss used my Kamasutra.” Imagine my curiosity. A few days later I came across the revealer and was totally blown. The ads were for a range of Deos and perfumes that Kamasutra has launched. I really don’t know what Kamasutra’s game plan is. If their plan is to make Kamasutra a household name, and to spread the message that condoms are not a taboo thing, then I guess it’s a good effort. But personally I can’t see myself telling my mom to add Kamasutra to the monthly grocery list. I think it’s just a bad example of blanket branding.

It’s not just product association, in case of a blanket brand, which is a problem, it also becomes extremely difficult to market. For instance, a couple of years ago I worked on a launch campaign of a vodka brand. The client wanted to give it the same brand name as all his other products (theme park, food grains, transport etc). The client would have nothing else, and we gave up after several unsuccessful attempts to convince him. The whole launch exercise became a Herculean task, taking into consideration the rules and regulations on alcohol advertising in India. A Mischief Vodka or a Smirnoff has so much more possibilities to explore when it came to advertising.

Well, I am no Philip Kotler and all that I might have said here might be absolute nonsense, but this is how I feel about these two brands and their extended family of products. If you’d like to dispute my views on these two brands and straighten out my thinking, you are most welcome as always.

What the F**k am I doing in Advertising?

Thinking back now, I am totally stumped as to why I chose advertising. And to top it all up I chose to be a writer. What was it that made me take such a suicidal decision? Why couldn’t I have just taken up engineering and gone on to be a marine engineer like my brother? Why couldn’t I have chosen to become a physiotherapist like my cousin? Why didn’t I just take up a BPO profession and earn a fat pay like my sister? Or I could have even followed in my dad’s footsteps and become a sales person. Of the millions of career options I had, I had to go and pick advertising. Well, guess what…I screwed up. Now there’s no turning back.

There’s at least one minute in every day that I regret having chosen the field I am in now. It’s been almost six long years, of waiting and hoping that things will get better, almost six long rigorous years of stretching my patience to unimaginable limits. But now I feel I am at the edge. I am hanging on by a finger over a bottomless trench. I am in a situation where I can neither pull myself up nor let go and fall.

My problem with advertising is not the pay or the inhuman amount of work. If left to myself I am just fine with it. My problem is with the whole machine-like work culture it’s heading towards. Agencies are no longer places that people covet to be part of. They are no longer places where gods and goddesses create new brands and ideas that change the face of humanity forever. They are just factories churning out precisely detailed pieces of communication that are written, designed and approved by clients. Over the years clients have become the creators and we simply their tools. The Indian advertising industry has reached maturity and is ready to die.

I find it so difficult to write when I am told…”we need a headline of five words and it has to have the words ‘Price’, ‘offer’ and ‘business’.” What am I supposed to do in a situation like this? How can I claim that I am a creative writer when all I do is fill in the blanks? To tell you the truth, I feel absolutely cheated. My dreams have crumbled before my very eyes. Advertising as an industry has failed to provide me the satisfaction I sought. In recent years, we have seen many veterans from various departments of the advertising world, walk out of the industry forever. Why? Their patience ran out, their thirst for good work could never be quenched. They realized that advertising had become an ever obedient slave to its master - the client.

Is there no way we can recreate the charm that advertising used to have years before? Are we spineless yesmen to the client? Are we just people who spare client’s time and money by saving him the effort of learning Photoshop, Coreldraw and Grammar? What does creative really mean in today’s agency? Oh yes, you might question me about the thousands of wonderful work you see in the archives and magazines like that. Well brother, wake up and smell the coffee, have you ever seen any of those actually in the papers or on TV? Other than a few of them, all are scam work. The real work is mundane, boring and most often so powerfully uninspiring that over certain duration of time it could make a creative person lose the ability to think laterally. You get so tuned, you become a one track mind.

This maybe the only reason why employee retention in the advertising industry is either really low or even non-existent. People jump agencies before you can say 3. People jump with hopes of working on better brands, of working with more open minded clients. But this seldom happens. The grass always seems greener on the other side.

What do we do? How do we boost the morale of the creative lot? How do we bring back the glory days when clients knew that agency people know their work? How do we tell the fat man in the MD’s chair to keep his personal fixation on blondes restricted to his bedroom and not let it loose in his company’s corporate communication?

Many in the industry today feel that advertising is a service. That we provide communication services. Pardon me for thinking otherwise, I for one think we are creators, and that we should be treated with the same respect and reverence that used to be given to artists like Michael Angelo, Piccaso and their likes.

Do you think that day will ever come again when we will draw ‘Ahs’ and ‘oohs’ in a crowd, when we mention our profession? Well, till that day arrives, I am still going to be hanging on with my finger over that bottomless trench, because I don’t know what else to do.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions of the author are solely his own and are not meant to intentionally displease or hurt the personal opinions of any person or organisation.

The most powerful Ad medium of them all!

Zak walked into the café 45 minutes after the designated hour. Rahul, Susan and Megs looked up and sang in unison “here comes mr. fashionably late”. Rahul quipped “he’s so fashionably late that he’s still wearing last year’s fashion”.

“Hi guys” Zak blurted coming closer. “Wow zak that’s a sexy shirt” Megs yelled. “Yeah man, where did you get it from? How much did you pay for it? Is it still available? Is this the only colour?” the group quizzed Zak for the next half an hour on his new acquisition. Zak became a walking, talking and most accepted medium of promotion for that half an hour.

Believe it, all of us are Ad mediums. Everything we do, everything we say, every move is watched closely and aped. If you vouch for a new shampoo being the best for dandruff relief there will be a loyal fan following for that shampoo among your friends. If a friend of yours tells you that a certain restaurant serves the best pasta in town, you’d definitely try it out and if you like it you will in turn pass on the information to another friend and the virus will just spread on and on and on. Man (and of course woman) is the most penetrating Ad medium of them all.

The advertising world has definitely realized this. But seem to restrict creative use of the human medium to sports stars, film stars and celebrities of various fields. While the usage of a popular celebrity in an ad is unarguably effective, the use of common man (which is more penetrating) to endorse products and brands still remains untapped. Is there a way in which advertisers could possibly tap this medium? Yes, it is possible but several problems remain. As of now this medium is unorthodox and thus does not come with a set of terms and conditions of usage. For instance, Nike could give out hundred pairs of their latest running shoes to athletes in schools and colleges for free and just ask them to wear them whenever they are on the field. They could even pay them a small fee as an encouragement. But what would stop the athletes from wearing Reebok track pants or Adidas t-shirt along with the Nike shoes? Thus the problem of overshadowing across product categories and brands is inevitable.

Is there no way to formalize communication through this medium? Will formalizing this medium mean that each and every one of us will end up with everything free? Would it spell disaster for traditional media? Is it possible to use this medium without destroying its credibility?
Well I don’t have all the answers. But what I am positive about is that humans are indeed the most powerful Ad medium of them all. If only we could find the answers to the few questions I’ve asked above, and to the thousands that will stem from probing deeper into the subject, we will have found ourselves a truly innovative and powerful medium. I am hoping to get some in-depth takes on this subject from my brothers and sisters in the ad fraternity. Till then, carry on advertising…err…flaunting.

Under Ki Baat

Hello people. How you all doing? I’ve been ok…been very busy lately…working my ass off between Bangalore and Chennai. Literally getting my undies in a bundle trying to meet deadlines. Oh that’s exactly what this blog is all about. If you’re thinking deadlines, my friend I think you better read that title one more time. Yup that’s right, tidy whities, pink thongs, red brassieres and all the other bare essentials in their many splendor shapes and sizes, that’s what I am talking about.

Bad lingerie, I wonder why no one sees it as a wardrobe disaster. At least a majority of Indians – the socially active page 3 types seem to goof up when it comes to lingerie. Consider these situations. You go to this hep party and you see this foxy babe in a figure hugging pair of pants and a midriff revealing top. You size her up from top to bottom then bottom to top. Ok you can’t proceed higher from the bottom because you just saw something. It’s the stupid lining of her unarguably tasteless panty showing through her tight slacks. Your mind even guesses half a dozen brands like ‘Poomer’ and ‘Rasathi’ that might go well with her unders. I mean it’s the kind of thing that Helen or Mumtaz would carry off as a bikini bottom in the 70’s. Considering the kind of range and brands available in the market and considering the fact that we have FTV and Trendz don’t’ you think it’s time we brushed up our undressing sense? I don’t know about you guys out there but for me seeing spaghetti straps matched with a thick strapped brassiere is a major turn off. And so are the armor-like white brassieres that most women seem to be so dedicated to.

And before you think I am a sexist hell bent on criticizing only women’s sense in this matter, men are no better. Shaktivel better known as shaggy by close friends and secret admirers alike is known to be the hottest dressed stud in the whole neighborhood. I thought so too until he invited me into his dingy little bachelor pad for a drink one day. My sight was met by the most ghastly collection of briefs and vests, proudly drying away on a line under the fan. And what choice of colours they were. Brick red briefs with inch thick waist bands, Rin soap blue briefs with red stripes, vests with perforations. You can’t imagine my horror. It was obvious that shaggy bought his precious collection of privates from a factory outlet in Tirupur. I couldn’t believe that he’d spend a premium on his jeans and shirt but wouldn’t spend a little extra for a jockey or VIP even. I mean what if he got invited to spend the night with a hot woman? Would he feel comfortable dressing down and showing of his ‘Arasu’ under garments?

It’s time we paid as much importance to our under garments as we do to our other clothes folks. Even more than your outer clothes your inners reveal how conscious you are about your body and your looks. Undergarments aren’t just about holding up what’s hanging, it’s as much about fashion sense and personality as any other piece of cloth on your body. Outgrow the notion that nobody’s looking in there…what if someone does? Don’t you want to make the best impression at all times? Dressed or undressed? It’s definitely not undhar ki baat anymore it’s a matter of what’s under.

It’s different

When I say ‘I dread the word DIFFERENT’ I am sure my brothers and sisters of the creative fraternity across the globe are nodding their heads vigorously in acceptance. I mean…what is it with this word that is so “different”? What is “different”? What exactly does it mean to be “different”? I am sure the one who unravels the mystery of “different” would rule the world.

How many times have you heard these random requests?
“I want something different”
“Do something different”
“Let’s differentiate ourselves from them”
“Do a different take on the subject”
And on and on and on the requests go.

Does different have a definition that one can confidently put a finger on? I don’t think so. It’s just an easy word to say that you don’t approve of something and that you want something else. In other words you don’t know what else you need and hence you get away with the most obvious explanation…different.

I cant tell you how many times I’ve felt like strangling a client servicing executive or a client even, when I heard them say “I want something different”. People why don’t you go do a research on how you want to be different and explain it to me rather then just blurt out “different”? I am telling you, if I ever got diagnosed for ulcer or blood pressure or depression it’ll only be because of “different”.

Well that kind of helped simmer the steam a bit. So here’s my take on “different”. To me being different is to be me. I am myself and that’s what segregates me from the crowd. I know what I am and what I am capable of and that’s what makes me a unique being. If I wanted to smear my whole body with jello and run naked around the block shouting “ooga booga boo”, that’s different. That’s what separates me from the other homosapiens in the world. And just like me every brand or product has a unique differentiator. That’s what separates it from the clutter. That…is different. Why do people not understand it? Why in the hell do they go about ranting about “different” without a clue what they mean? Different isn’t outside the box, rather different is something within the box that just needs a little probing to understand. And I am shocked to know that many don’t really care to understand it. I mean think about it…how much we could do as creative people if only the brief was “here’s what’s different, now say it creatively” instead of “do something different”.