Wallowing in Nostalgia

This blogger has reached a stage in life where he often turns nostalgic. Ahhh - the good old days ... Sigh ...

Today it was nostalgia in ads. All from about 40 years ago. Colour television had not yet come to India (it came with the Asian Games of 1982). Black & White TVs were few and far between and it was perfectly OK to go to your neighbour's house to watch TV because they had a set and you didn't. Of course, there was only one channel - Doordarshan, the state TV. 

Ads were primarily through cinema. Before the movie started, there would be a series of ads shown in full colour. Those days, you eagerly looked forward to the ads as much as you looked forward to the movie itself And then when TV came, these ads morphed to TV, but the largest reach was through cinemas for a long time. Of all the ads, there were  3 or 4  that almost everybody knew by heart. We could hum along, skip along to each of them.

First Gold Spot. When Coca Coal exited India in 1977, a local entrepreneur quickly cashed in with equivalents - Thums Up (Coke), Limca ( a lemon drink) and Gold Spot (Fanta). The Gold Spot ad was a classic - Indians with a taste for Bollywood might recognise a young Javed Jaffrey. Gold Spot, alas, disappeared when Coca Cola reentered India in the late 1990s.

                                                                                      

My second classic of course has to be Liril, by Unilever.  It completely took India by storm sending the soap skyrocketing as the largest selling soap in India. The ad was so successful that the model Karen Lunel  was paid by Unilever never to appear in any other ad ever again. She will forever be the Liril girl. Liril is still going strong in India - it was , and  has always been, an "India soap". Unilever , despite being global never sold Liril in any other country, but in India it was a mega hit.

My personal favourite of them all is  Close Up also from the Unilever stable. The wonderful Close Up jingle; I can still remember the words and hummed along when I listened to the song today. Alas, the ad has been lost to history. I can't find it on You Tube at all. When Close Up was launched with this ad, it caught on to become one of India's best selling toothpastes. Today, Unilever has withdrawn from toothpastes in most countries, but in India, Close Up is still a star. The ad seems to have been lost, but the song on which it is based is very much there - Walter Navarro's lovely classic. Listen to the song and those of you old enough to remember that ad, imagine it before your eyes. Even better that way.

Why is it that my vision is a tad blurred today !

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Hey you commenters; you better behave yourselves !

I am now in some serious trouble. It appears, I am responsible for all the stuff you lot comment on my blog. If anything you write is untrue or misleading, it looks like I will go to jail. Good Lord!

As usual, this blogger is guilty of hyperbole. But, as has been repeatedly stated, any prose, sans some journalistic license, is a sure cure for insomnia. So with some hyperbole, I am musing about Diageo's Facebook page, that has got into trouble with the Australian authorities.

If you don't know Diageo, it is the company that makes Guinness, Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff, Baileys etc. Because their Board has been told that they must be "in" to social media, they have a Facebook page for their brands such as Smirnoff. The site encourages reader comments, opinions, etc, which you would expect to be a fairly harmless thing to do. Now anybody, who knows anything about social media, know that the vast majority of comments on anything (notable exception, this blog) will be vulgar, absurd, defamatory, etc etc. But any self respecting site would have some mechanism to keep spam and filth out, but would let most other comments stay, even if they were outrageous.

The Australian Standards Board has however ruled that Diageo must police  all reader comments on their site and that any comment by a reader would be treated as an advertising claim by Diageo and it would be liable if that were untrue, or misleading. Now anybody who has worked in a consumer products company knows that before any ad is released, lawyers pore over every statement made to ensure that they would not be sued later for wrong advertising. If the same standard were to be applied to reader comments, then essentially social media becomes off limits for advertisers. Forget having to delete obscene comments. If a reader posted a comment saying Smirnoff has 7.5% alcohol, instead of the actual 7%, Diageo will become responsible for misleading advertising !!

Right now, this is a problem confined to Australia. If other countries followed suit with a similar view, companies will have no option but to pull their sites out of interactive media. That would be a real shame, but the impact on social media sites would be disastrous. Imagine what will happen to Facebook revenues. If ad revenues did not come, social media itself cannot survive.

Before you say that the Australian decision is crazy and possibly issued by gray men who "don't get it",  think just a little more. Any reader can reasonably say that matters stated in a company's site can be interpreted to mean that it is comping from the company or that the company has approved it. After all it is possible for a clever company to structure a site such that its advertising is largely in the form of reader appreciation and response. Such appreciation and glowing reviews is what the company is aiming to get in the first place; isn't it. So there is some merit in what the Austraian Standards Board is saying, although their stance appears a bit excessive.

Laws on adveritising were framed way before even the internet came, let alone social media. They need some serious reconsideration and  global consensus.

Until then, I better be careful. After all, I do go once in a while to Australia and don't want to get arrested. Readers are therefore requested to only post completely truthful comments attesting to the fact that I am indisputably tall, dark and handsome !

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The awfulness of Benetton

Benetton, the clothing company, has been struggling of late. So they've gone back to  their horrible old formula to promote their brand - make shocking advertisements.

Their campaign is called "UNhate" - whatever that means. These are some of their abominations.

The last one elicited an irritated objection from the Vatican for the depiction of the Holy Father in this manner and that too for a commercial purpose. Benetton has reportedly withdrawn this ad.

Benetton is known for outrageous advertising in the past. I won't dignify their earlier indecencies with  reproducing those photographs. They have included a man dying of AIDS, a new born with its umbilical cord still connected to the mother, a soldier holding a human bone, and the like.

Sure, there is clutter in advertising and you need to break through it. But there must be a sense of decency in business, just as the same as in all walks of life.  Anything that is legally OK, is not OK. Making money by shocking people seems to be an awful way to earn a living.

But in a capitalist system, the consumer has the final say. If enough people are offended by such tactics, they simply will not buy the product. Benetton's sales are some € 2 bn, not too far from where they were a decade ago. Zara, a competitor, which does not advertise, sells € 12 bn. But alas, Benetton routinely wins advertising awards for "innovative" advertising.

Being a committed capitalist, I never thought I would utter the following words, but now I do - I heartily wish that Benetton would go bust. Moral bankruptcy is a prelude to financial bankruptcy.

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When too much is too much

Lord Leverhulme, the founder of Unilever, once said long ago - "I know half my advertising isn't working. I just don't know which half". A century later, this still holds true. Throw helluva lot of advertising and hope that something sticks. That seems to be the motto of the lot who have made watching cricket on TV these days akin to root canal surgery.

For those unacquainted with the magic game of cricket, lets just say its a sport about which the billion plus people in India, Pakistan, etc are downright crazy about. Its world cup time (never mind that only 8 or so countries really play the game) and half the nation is glued to their TV sets. The game lasts some 6 hours and you get an advertising opportunity every 2 minutes or so. You can imagine the mayhem that is inflicted on the poor cricket fan.

The game seems to be secondary. They squeeze in more and more ads in between overs such that the first ball and the last ball of the over are considered superfluous . Now they have taken to showing the game on half the screen and running an ad all around it. And to compound the sacrilege, right in the middle of an over, the pitch seems to erupt and an ad comes out of the ground. This is not a cricket world cup. This is an advertisement world cup with cricket in there as a necessary evil.

Yeah; I understand the business behind it. After all , I slogged for a long time for the company that was the largest advertiser in the world. Yes, I know money is what drives the sport. Yes, I know , without this, there won't be a cricket world cup. But .....

There is something called the consumer. The idiot who watches the ad and hopefully goes out to buy your product. Is pissing him off, by bombarding him like a moron, any sensible strategy ? Sure , two billion eyeballs are watching and getting your brand in front of them is a great thing. But then does he even notice, or does he care ? I watched the game yesterday and can't recollect more than 2 or 3 brands although I watched 367 ads ( I actually did the math). Irritatingly the same ad repeats ad nauseum and I still can't remember the brand. One diabolical ad, doesn't even say what the product is - apparently its an attempt to create a mystery by saying "coming soon". Even the brands I notice, have done nothing to stimulate me to go and buy them. So what's the deal ?

The deal is a stupidity called 'opportunities to see'. An advertising metric that measures how many people saw your blasted ad. Of course a billion see it if you air it in the cricket world cup. The advertising manager is feted for hitting the largest number of eyeballs possible (this is the exact lingo used - they care two hoots if its a human or an animal as long as they can catch an eyeball !) They only care about the eyes - the brain behind is irrelevant.

How about a little class ? Don't yell too loudly. don't say the same thing again and again. Don't hit me with your product. Don't increase the volume level when the ads come on. Don't make claims that are laughably outrageous. Don't take me for a moron who has to be stuffed. Credit me with some intelligence. How about making a great product (like the iPhone) and then gently telling me once that it might be something I might like. And leave it at that and let me watch the game.

I may be in a minority, but I would rather not watch this monstrosity aired on TV. I would rather simply read the papers next day. Or else go and see a few matches live. One thing I am sure about. I am not going to buy a product because of that dumb ad they aired.

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Irresponsible advertising

Which is the most dangerous place in the world ?

Iraq ? Afghanistan ? Darfur ? Gaza ?

Wrong.

The most dangerous place (actually the second most dangerous place, but that's another story) in the world is the Indian road. About 100,000 people are killed each year. 2 million people are seriously injured. India loses 3% of GDP due to road accidents. It claims more victims than Aids, TB and malaria combined. Click here to read about this depressing state of affairs. There are more people killed on Indian roads than in the war in Iraq, than in Afghanistan, than in Darfur, than in Gaza.

Anybody who's been to India knows the complete insanity on the road. This post is not meant to address the traffic problems in India. My focus today is on an unlikely villain.

India has the largest two wheeler population in the world. More than China. India produces some excellent scooters and motorcycles. The companies that make them are professional and world class. And yet what do they do ? Remember their ads ?

Zip Zap Zoom

Traffic Cutter

There's not a single responsible two wheeler ad I have seen in India. They are all about high speed. Daring tricks. Wide eyed babes staring adoringly at the guy who's driving like a maniac. Wind in your hair, music in your ears. All that is fine provided you live to tell the tale.

Of course, these ads sell. Nobody wants to buy a bike to get from point A to Point B. They buy it for the sex appeal. Fine - but should companies be really promoting irresponsible driving. Nestle has been hounded for baby food advertising. Cigarette companies are ostracised for advertising smoking. Does it need a law to force two wheeler manufacturers to advertise responsibly ? I haven't seen a single safety ad from a two wheeler company.

Yeah OK. I am a old foggy. I am a killjoy. But at least, I am alive.

Drive safely today. And tomorrow. And for ever. Wear a helmet. Drive slowly - its not an affront to your manhood. You owe it your family. You owe it to yourself.

PS - In case you are wondering, the most dangerous place is the Democratic Republic of Congo. You can't even begin to imagine the nightmare there.

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