Tag: advertising

RIP Media Planning

In 1969, at the age of 19, I came into advertising. At that moment, the media planning was limited to raising an estimate, drawing a schedule, and only upon client approval, release orders (RO) were issued.
A movement to professionalise Media Planning saw the birth of the first readership survey in 1971. ORG conducted the research.
The report had too many errors and not an error of judgement. However, over a while constant efforts to make media planning as professional as possible & we did reach there with Media Planners such as Roda Mehta, Ketaki Gupte, PRP Nair, Paulomi Dhawan, Lynn de Souza, Arvind Vinayak & Yours Truly.
In 1990s, Martin Sorrel went on a buying spree and managed to buy over 80% of Indian Advertising Agencies. With an accountant as the owner, Advertising was destined to see its lowest ebb. Which I am looking at almost every day.
Now, there ain’t any media planners left.
Recently, for one my largest account as consultant, The No. 1 agency presented The Effective Media Reach as The Plan Reach while presenting a media plan. When I asked them, “how did you work this out?”, the meek answer was “Software” to which I asked, “do you know the formula?” The answer was meeker this time, “No”.
May I say any more?
In 1970, when I joined advertising, advertising media was limited to raising estimates, drawing up schedules for client’s product, service or idea promotion and nothing else. The media went to the summit of planning. Now it is back to just drawing up estimates, schedules once again.
Happy Media Buying. Goodbye Media Planning.

What is PR?

Today’s so-called PR agencies were “Financial Agencies” during the Harshad Mehta Scam. Once the bluff was called off, those “Financial Agencies” started converting themselves into “PR” agencies with Global Tie-Ups.
Neither were they aware of the real meaning of “Public Relations” back then, nor are they any wiser now. During my tenure as Training & Professional Development Chairman at AAAI, we had requested our dear friend Sushil Bahl, Communication Street, to put together a manual for PR professionals. Sushil did a fabulous job. In this generation, I don’t know anybody who read or seen Sushil’s manual. Had they seen it, they would have been much better professionals.

भाषाएं कहीं महज बोलियों में न बदल जाएं

भाषाएं कहीं महज बोलियों में न बदल जाएं जमील गुलरेज पाकिस्तान से पिछले दिनों उर्दू को लेकर एक खबर सामने आई। खबर कुछ यूं थी, ‘पाक सुप्रीम कोर्ट ने उर्दू को लेकर इमरान खान को लगाई फटकार।’ खबर को
— Read on epaper.navbharattimes.com/imageview_54126_58375_4_13_04-10-2021_14_i_1_sf.html

Remembering RK Swamy

I recall my days with the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) when Larry Grant, Govind Sajnani, Bahadur Merwan, Gopi Kukde, and I conducted “creative workshops” in Mumbai.
I conducted 52, 3-months workshops at a stretch without any break. I am sure it was some record, but I never bothered to run after records. AAAI also published my advertising book in Hindi; the book being the first one on this subject in Hindi. That, too, was a record, but neither AAAI nor I claimed the record. We with AAAI also compiled the first-ever manual for Creative Planning, Media Planning, Film Production, PR Planning & Print Production. Today, AAAI doesn’t seem to take any pride in these firsts which they pioneered. All these activities were started when the great R K Swamy was the president of AAAI. He earnestly believed in training and professional development for our profession. Mr R K Swamy, you are being sorely missed.

(Photo sourced from RK Swamy BBDO Pvt. Ltd.)

विज्ञापन की परिभाषाएँ

विज्ञापन क्या है? कभी किसी ने अपने एक लेख में चकब्लोर की परिभाषा का उल्लेख किया था. चकब्लोर के अनुसार, “विज्ञापन मानवीय बुद्धि को बस उतनी देर अवरुध्द कर देने की कला है, जितनी देर उसकी जेब से रक़म निकलवाने में लगे।”

इस परिभाषा को अगर पूरी तरह सही मान लिया जाए तो सारे विज्ञापन अभियान केवल दुकानों के आस पास ही चलने चाहिएँ, क्यूँकि ये वही स्थान है जहां उपभोक्ता अपनी जेब से रक़म निकालता है। टी वी पर कोई विज्ञापन देखने के बाद, जेब से रुपये निकाल कर दुकानों की ओर नहीं दौड़ते हैं। मेरी राय में ये परिभाषा सड़कों पर मजमा लगा कर लोगों को मूर्ख बनाने वालों पर ज़्यादा लागू होती है।

आज सभी उत्पादक (जो व्यावसायिक हैं) मानते हैं कि उपभोक्ता कम अक़्ल हस्ती नहीं, बल्कि बुद्धिमान जीव है। इसीलिए वो उसे तर्क द्वारा अपना उत्पादन ख़रीदने और इस्तेमाल करने के लिए प्रेरित करते हैं।

परिभाषाओं की बात निकली है तो आइए, चंद और परिभाषाओं पर भी एक नज़र डाल लेते हैं। एच जी वेल्स का कहना है “विज्ञापन वैध झूठ का दूसरा नाम है” उनकी ये राय शायद ‘शादी से पहले, शादी के बाद ज़रूर मिलें, खोई हुई ताक़त दुबारा हासिल करें, जवानी की भूल पर ना पछताएँ” जैसे विज्ञापनों पर आधारित होगी। इनकी इस राये के लिए हम विज्ञापन व्यवसायी स्वयं ज़िम्मेदार हैं, क्यूँकि अक्सर हम उत्पादनों के बढ़े-चढ़े झूठे बखान के दोषी होते हैं ।

टॉमस जेफ़रसन के अनुसार, “समाचार पत्रों में केवल विज्ञापन वे सत्य बयान करते हैं, जिन पर भरोसा किया जा सकता है।” ज़ाहिर है जेफ़रसन साहब का वास्ता उन विज्ञापनों से पड़ा होगा जो ईमानदारी के से उपभोक्ताओं को अपनी ओर खींचने का प्रयत्न करते हैं।

ब्रूस बरटन का कहना है “यदि विज्ञापन लोगों से उनकी हैसियत से ज़्यादा ख़र्च करवाता है तो उसे गरिया क्यूँ जाए क्यूँकि लोग शादी करके भी तो अपनी हैसियत से बेहतर जीवन जीने का प्रयत्न करते ही हैं।”

यहाँ सिवाए मज़ाक़ के कोई और तुक नज़र नहीं आती। हाँ, ये ज़रूर सही है कि अगर कोई अपनी हैसियत से बध कर जीने की कोशिश करता है तो इसमें विज्ञापन का क्या दोष? करोड़ों लोग होंगे जो मर्सिडीज़ का विज्ञापन देख कर उसे ख़रीदने और इस्तेमाल करने की इच्छा रखते होंगे लेकिन ख़रीदते वही हैं जिनके जेब में दाम होते हैं।

Purpose defeated

The enormity of advertising clutter is on the rise. The latest is the half-page advertisement by Stanley Lifestyles in the leading national daily today.
It makes sense to reiterate once again that advertising happens incidentally.  
In a layman’s language, incidental ad exposure implies that an advertisement receives minimal attentional resources. At the same time, other more relevant information is being processed like a radio advertising spot between a news discussion or an advertising ticker on a primetime news show or a half-page advertisement on the first page of a leading newspaper will make the advertising message get lost in the melee of information.
A study on incidental ad exposure to examine whether incidental exposure to an ad increases the likelihood that a product depicted in the ad will be included in a consideration set suggested that the incidental exposure effect is relatively robust, occurring across a variety of factors such as when the consideration set formation context was memory or stimulus-based, when the buying situation was familiar or unfamiliar, and across two different product classes. Further, these effects were found despite subjects’ lack of explicit memory for the ads.
The advertisement aims to grab a consumer by the collar, hold his attention, and become the medium to convey the message, i.e. buy the product.
The advertisement by Stanley Lifestyles miserably fails to achieve even one of these advertising goals.
Because the messaging is not clear. “Makers of the Beautiful.” “Stanley Bespoke Luxury for the Aristocratic Few.” What does this imply? Your guess is as good as mine. There’s zilch clarity about the product and its USP that this advertising tries to sell. To add to it, how do you process a white horse, a lady with a birdcage and a high-end sofa. Is it a bespoke furniture brand’s advertisement? Could be. It isn’t staring at me in the face so I chose to look away.
Because of the missing centre of the layout. This particular advertisement’s centre is a confusing spot. It fails to grab a reader’s attention.
Because there’s no entry-exit point for a reader. The advertisement space has no access point for a reader to get in, stay for a few minutes, and then leave. The images, copy, and layout are all so jumbled up.
The purpose stands defeated. It must have cost a bomb to buy that half-page of prime advertising space in a leading daily. There’s going to be no return on the furniture boutique’s investment because of the messy advertisement, and that is saddening.

Nothing to add

Well, if yesterday was about two full pages of political advertorial, today it was about a coaching institute and its online preparatory programme for chartered accountancy exams hogging the entire first page one of my newspaper that spoiled my morning reading exercise.
The ‘well-intentioned’ advertisement claimed that the said coaching institute has a perfect understanding of the painpoints of CA aspirant like no other and enrolling here might help one crack the exam with flying colours and without taking too many attempts.
A small box at the end mentioned the packages available, and a promo code to avail further discount for the 360° comprehensive online coaching.
The said coaching institute already has a programme running for banking/SSC/State PSC exam, and plans to introduce civil services exam coaching soon.
To say the least, the institute must have spent crores to bag this prime space in the leading national daily.
My two cents on their attempt to capture the market of specialised online coaching questions the veracity of their claim, and the missing trust factor. “On an average, it takes 5 attempts to crack CA.” After repeating the previous sentence thrice, it says, “Don’t like repeating, then XYZ is for you.” It is a misleading statement to start with, and there would be many gullible ones who are likely to fall for their tall claim.
To say the least, the full-page ad openly flouts the ASCI’s Code for Self-Regulation in Advertising because the advertisement states and leads the public at large to believe that enrolment in the preparation programme at the said coaching class will provide the student a guaranteed CA degree in less than five attempts. My question here is – will the advertiser submit substantiation to such effect and also assume full responsibility thereof in the same advertisement?
If not, then the advertisement fails to excel, and stays at the veranda.