Every wakeful
moment of ours there are two things that keep happening invariably. The first
is that we continue to be ever so unaware of our real internal selves. The
second is that we become constantly ever so aware of external things which are
not necessarily real. The first is related to the ego that we grow with. The
first is not the focus of this blog post. The second is related to a ubiquitous
phenomenon called advertising. What began as a management process to provide
information to those who need has become a managerial process or profession by
itself. When we see a newspaper today we see more advertisements than news.
When we view electronic media, we see already broken stories that are further
fractured by advertisements. When we go through any event, we encounter
directed self-promotion rather than genuine public purpose. Everything in life,
including organizational life, seems to be anchored around mutual
advertisements.
Advertising may
be defined as the non-personal communication of information, usually paid for
and usually persuasive in nature, about products, services, events or ideas by
their sponsors through various media and channels intended for consumers.
Professional advertisement, however, has gone far beyond the classic
definition. Persuasion had long ago become competitive persuasion but has not
stopped there. It has now become visually overwhelming demonstration even
against natural instinct and personal space. The day newspapers started having
full page advertisements as their cover pages, the day popup advertisements
began clouding any information in social media and the day self-promotion
became a surrogate to performance, truth has started becoming a casualty in
some manner or the other, and to some extent or the other. Like technology,
advertisement is a product of modernity that needs to be utilized for the good
it offers rather than the distortions it creates.
Creative but crafty
Advertising is
a process that is considered creative. Similar products and services are
presented in different ways by advertisers solely because of creativity. Like
fine arts, advertising requires creativity while staying within the prudential
limits of decency, integrity and realism. Even global products need be presented
to reflect local tastes and preferences, embedding cultural ethos in
presentations. Advertising happens through multiple channels such as hoardings,
posters, print, radio, television, cable network, television and social media
popups, besides word of mouth. It is considered the essence of one of the four
essential ‘Ps’ of marketing, product, price, positioning and promotion.
Advertising can be subtle or gross; it can just provide cues or mandate action.
Over time, advertisement has become a specialized science of consumer
psychology, seeking to understand, influence, and shape consumer mind.
Viewing in a
very objective way the deluge of advertisements that impact our senses day in
and day out, one can easily understand that advertisement is not only creative
but also crafty. Crafty is a fairly broad word, ranging in definition from artful
to deceitful but in essence implies a clever way of achieving objectives by
artful and deceitful methods. Advertisement unfortunately is made most on
products that are either injurious to health or those whose health claims are
plain exaggerated. Massive advertisements for sugared drinks and processed
foods typify the former while intensively child focused advertisements for
growth and memory exemplify the latter. Advertisements do expand demand and
help companies create more supply side wealth. Advertisements which are paid
for by companies create huge employment and also help media subsidise their
services. Advertisements also can be great tools of responsibility messaging
and social engineering. That should not limit us from exploring betterment of
the art.
Style rather than substance
Advertisements
are fundamentally supposed to be persuasive based on facts, rather than
perceptions. The more technical and functional a product is the more important
such factual explanation becomes. The more lifestyle and personal a product is
the greater is the reliance on perceptions and imagery. However, advertising
has strayed from mainstream objectives so much that these two propositions are
not followed faithfully. Where products are technical, company rather than
product is the base of advertisement. Advertisements have moved from building
product equity or brand equity to building corporate equity. Measures to
promote Google, Microsoft, Cisco rather than their products stands out as an
example. Also, advertisements have started focusing on scale and pomp rather
than facts to impress. The ever increasing garish advertisements in realty
space as well as full page advertisements in India are a classic example.
Apple iPhone
advertisements in India are another example of condescending approach that
brand and corporate driven advertisements can take. The advertisements expect
the users to be psyched further into product supremacy with overwhelming
product imagery, and some minor price concessions. When advertisements go long
on style truth suffers. Airtel is presently running a very engaging creative
advertisement series on its 4G network and nationwide data, and voice
connectivity therefrom. The advertisement mesmerises people over the daily call
drops they suffer in their core cities. The Indian advertisement scenario is
replete with several suggestions of style without substance; the several
campaigns by jewellery houses on gaudy ornaments is just another example. There
is no correlation between the ornaments pf crores of rupees they advertise and
the actual simple jewels that crores of Indian population can really
afford.
Life of style or lifestyle?
Advertisements in
India have induced a lifestyle that is consumption oriented rather than
consumer oriented. They have impacted the attention span and processing ability
of individuals on matters that are more central or crucial to life. One is
exposed to several advertisements that talk about offbeat products; like
special rice for diabetics, health insurance for elderly, attractive mutual
funds etc. However, not one advertisement would care to expand on the theme to
advise how the products actually are offbeat. In some advertisements, thanks to
the regulators, risk factors are provided but in such small print and with such
disclaimers that no one can decipher any contextual meaning. The objective of advertisement has been to
encourage people to resort to additional or excessive consumption to achieve a
life of style rather than a lifestyle that is truly consumer friendly. It is
not surprising, therefore, that the expenditure on advertisement as a
percentage of sales tends to be higher than expenditure on product development
itself!
Despite lack of
information or even information that brings out the downside, companies
continue to be blasé about their claims even as consumers continue to get
swayed by advertisements. For example, despite the indictment in a judicial
court in USA that a talcum powder of a leading company had cancer causing
potential, the products of that company continue to be advertised as the safest
even for the most tender skins without any reference or disassociation with
such developments. When a food giant
reintroduces its product that has been withdrawn, no explanation is offered in
the relaunch advertisements on how the reformulation is different. The reason
is that advertisements create a strong sense of association between consumers
and their dream lifestyle through their products, and companies are indeed
loathe to impact such positive associations with any negative association, even
if it is established under certain circumstances.
Association, the key
Association is
the relationship between two data items that is established through feeling,
expectation or through memory. Creative and crafty advertisements seek to
establish a positive and desired association and position their products as the
providers or enablers of such association. Soaps, for example, seek to establish
a clear association with skincare while some specialized soaps with hygiene.
Ayurvedic products bring out association with natural cure, bereft of
chemicals. Electronic products focus on specific attributes such as picture
clarity to promote real life visual experience. Not all associations of
advertisements are positive, however. The advertisements of yesteryears on
cigarettes associated smoking with heroism and cowboy style, and in hindsight
had been extremely negative for life and living. Advertisers continue to be
crafty; even though advertisements for alcoholic drinks are banned they
continue use surrogates and brands. Even more harmful are some advertisements which
are sexist, crass and titillating. While there have been mechanisms like
advertisement council to legislate standards and handle deviations, such
mechanisms have been post-facto, and hardly serve to undo the damage.
There is a need
to put in place alternative templates of advertising. This blog post suggests
that all advertisements must have two sections; one the visual and descriptive
part as now and the other a technical part which provides technical details of
claims in a manner intelligible to common persons even. When an ayurvedic
product advertises itself as having 21 herbs, the least that must be done has
two components. The first is the theoretical aspect of what each herb is purported
to do as per ancient texts. The second is the practical aspect of how the
company has, in its view, succeeded in bringing those benefits to the product
by virtue of material isolation, product quality and validated clinical trials.
Similarly, the maker of a fan/air conditioner could speak of comparative
strengths in terms of airflow, noise levels, motor/compressor durability etc.
True and authentic advertisement is the one which can make an open commitment
to consumers on product quality based on specifications, manufacture and usage
with expected benefits. Each advertisement for any product or service needs to
be an open warranty card more than anything else.
Posted by Dr CB
Rao on May 31, 2016
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