Don’t Ask How, But What Cool You Want Your Brand To Be
Nov 1st
Often someone will rush in with a brief – we want to do something that will make our brand appear ‘cool’ to the youth. It’s typically ‘something’ they want to do on Facebook or other social media since that is where the ‘youth’ are (no supporting data given), and they want us to figure out what that ‘something’ should be. Fine. The target audience may in fact not be what is defined by ‘youth’ (another term that’s rarely defined), but since every brand is running after ‘youth’, so do we. Fine by us again. But what ‘cool’ is it that you want to be?
I’ve seen clients (and the client servicing guy representing them) get baffled by this question whenever I pose it. So here’s what I think could be a quick guide to the different kinds of ‘cool’ there can be, and a few example brands.
1. ‘I’m-cool-and-you-know-it’ cool:
This is the highest form of cool. This is the very nirvana of coolness, what everyone trying to be cool attempts to be. This is a coolness in which you (as a brand or a personality) are ‘comfortable in your skin’, to use a cliche. You know who you are, whom you appeal to and whom you don’t. You really don’t need to advertise yourself, to shout out your good points. This is the cool that comes from being a brand that has been recognised for ages, which has a reputation for delivering quality every single time.
Examples: Mercedes-Benz, perhaps the best known brands of this kind of cool. Burberry’s, the fashion brand. Blackberry. Harley-Davidson.
2. ‘I’m-cool-and-I-don’t-care-what-you-think’ cool:
This is a step below nirvana. This is a cool that has an edge to it, a certain brashness, a certain rudeness. Not always though. Niche brands, that cater to a very discerning and demanding audience, aim for this. The brand is differentiated, not quite on price but on taste. Few outside the circle would have ever heard of the brand, and those within the circle will aspire to this very brand. The brand strongly matches its customers’ personality – those who do their own thing and don’t really care about anyone else.
Examples: Carl Zeiss, the lensmaker, prized among professional cameramen. Or Atlas Outdoors, the brand of choice for Himalayan trekkers. A few haute couture fashion brands would sit here.
3. ‘I’m-cool-and-you’re-not-good-enough-for-me’ cool
This is a hard cool to pull off. It is loaded with arrogance and chutzpah, so you have to be very, very good at what you do. This needs constant advertising to be seen as extremely desirable. As a brand, you need to be associated with famous and beautiful people, be seen as hopelessly glamourous, while being very, very rare on the ground. Being expensive is not really a criterion at all.
Examples: BMW and Rolex. A Rolex watch isn’t any costlier than other watches in its class, but the brand is famously hard to come by in most shops. And as the old saying goes, ditance makes the heart grow fonder. Several fashion brands would also fall here.
4. ‘I’m-cool-and-you-can-join-in’ cool
This is another cool that’s quite hard to achieve. You’re talking of an accessible cool, in that while you are easy to get hold of, it’s still cool to be seen with you. You may or may not be expensive, but you have a pedigree that’s not easily matched.
Examples: Those two great rivals – Pepsi and Coca Cola. No further explanation is necessary.
5. ‘I’m-cool-and-I-make-you-look-cool’ cool
This is the commonest kind of cool. You make products that are reliable and are fairly good looking. They may lack the pedigree of the ‘nirvana’ cool, but most people will buy them, because they are either affordable or widely available or both. No one’s embarrassed to buy you, but no one is particularly proud either. Nevertheless, it’s hard to convince such a brand that they are already ‘cool’ and don’t have to throw money at some vague ideal of what it means to be ‘cool’.
Examples: Practically every good brand.
6. ‘I’m-cool-because-cool-folk-think-I’m-cool’ cool
This is a serendipitous cool. You can’t achieve this; it has to be conferred upon you by customers. People buy the brand because they think they look cool in it (the products rather), and because other people think the buyers look cool they also buy into the brand. The best you can do is make quality and innovative products, and hope people will like them.
Examples: Zara, the clothing brand that people worldwide have taken to. Hush Puppies, the footwear brand that was a huge sensation in the 90s.
7. ‘New-kid-on-the-block’ cool
This is a brand that is seen as cool often because it is a new brand. Of course, it won’t work unless you’ve got something worth your customers’ money to offer. A large part of the coolness is supported by bold advertising. In India, a well-known foreign brand making an entry would automatically fall into this slot.
Examples: Starbucks. Wal-Mart.
8. ‘I-really-wanna-be-cool-and-I’m trying’ uncool:
This isn’t cool at all. This is often a ‘cool’ brand (as defined in point 6) that was cool but tried to do something to appear ‘cool’ and fell between the stools. This category also includes those brands that aren’t quite known for quality products, or create cheesy and corny advertising. Customers of good taste would be embarrassed to be seen with them. Nevertheless, if these brands were to fall into the hands of a good and conscientous agency, it would be a fulfilling challenge.
So next time there’s a brief from a brief wanting to be ‘cool’, you can cite them this list and ask which one they choose. That probably makes your strategising so much easier.
R K SWAMY Interactive launches Brand Raymond’s presence on Social Media
Oct 21st
R K SWAMY BBDO Interactive announces the launch of Raymond’s social media intitative, with a presence on both Facebook and Twitter. This initiative seeks to bring customers and the brand closer to each other, by creating interactions based on human relationships. Do visit the following pages for a dynamic and rewarding experience:
http://www.facebook.com/RaymondLimited
http://www.youtube.com/raymondlimited
R K SWAMY Interactive announces the launch of its website for Ogaan Cancer Foundation
Oct 4th
R K SWAMY Interactive announces the launch of Ogaan Cancer Foundation. Ogaan Cancer Foundation is a not for profit organisation whose mission is:
- To promote awareness of breast cancer through press and electronic media. Special information booklets and other educational material are distributed to spread the knowledge about the disease.
- To identify and support other NGO’s working in the field of breast cancer treatment and support, more particularly those that have expertise but lack the financial support, to fund them adequately to achieve a common objective.
Ogaan Cancer Foundation has raised 2 crore in private donations though its fundraising arm, the ELLE Breast Cancer Campaign. The site acts as an exhaustive resource for the company’s various initiatives and helps people interested in contributing to the cause to connect with the company. Log on to http://ogaancancerfoundation.org/index.html to see how you can make a difference.
R K SWAMY BBDO Interactive helps spread the COLORS this season
Oct 4th
R K SWAMY Interactive recently released Banner Ads and a Contest Landing Page which served as a platform to launch a line of exquisite Fashion Chinos from ColorPlus. While the Banner Ads engaged audiences and enticed them to the Contest Landing Page, the Contest Landing Page further enticed them to participate in the contest and explore the new offerings from ColorPlus. The campaign that run for four days attracted more than 3500 unique visitors.
Check out the work here
R K SWAMY Interactive launches Reward Me
Oct 4th
R K SWAMY BBDO Interactive announces the launch of www.rewardme.in. A Proctor & Gamble initiative, the website acts as a unified brand-sampling platform for P&G while providing ‘brand agnostic’ advice targeted at an India 1+ target audience. In the days ahead, this website will seek to bring you the best of international brands along with expert advice and e-commerce initiatives and rewards. Join us for a rewarding experience with Reward Me.
Rupert Murdoch, Anders Breivik and Grover Nordquist: The Rise of Narrowcasting
Aug 29th
What connects the Sun Hacking scandal of the UK, the Norway massacre and the passing of US debt ceiling legislation? Apart from politics, some of it loony. But there’s another phenomenon too, which seems to have worked rather contradictorily to its founding principles – the internet.
In each incident, there is an actor who communicated only with those who were his fellow idealogues, and remained unintegrated with the greater society. In the UK scandal, tabloid reporters crossed the ethical limit to hack phones of murder victims, in order to provide more and more salacious gossip to their readers, who are still a small segment of the British population. The Norway assassin used the internet to read extreme right-wing literature, but closed himself to other points of view. The Tea Party legislators who played such a crucial role in the way the US debt ceiling drama happened, were also shut to points of view, other than their low taxes, small government orthodoxy. Each of these events might have been possible without the internet too, but perhaps the impact would have been different, both qualitatively and quantitatively. The internet is getting increasingly blamed for this form of ‘tribalism’, and perhaps rightly so.
Though cyberspace offers us more freedoms and possbilities than we ever had, we actually seem to choose the ones which limit us to people like us in behaviour, beliefs, outlook and culture. We reject openly the freedom to build relationships across divides, although this is what the internet makes possible much better than other media. Because the internet now makes it cheaper and easier for an old kind of information sharing – narrowcasting.
What if you want to spend all your time soaked in birdwatching information? There’s no TV channel for birdwatchers, on Discovery and NatGeo you still have to put up with rhinos and dolphins. But on the internet there are mail groups (Yahoo!, Google etc), Social media fora (Facebook groups, YouTube channels), independent websites, birdwatchers’ blogs and even hash-tagged tweets that ensure that you
a) know anything and everything about birdwatching
b) know birdwatchers around the globe
c) have no idea of what is going on otherwise, even in your own house.
Birdwatching may be innocuous, but the same can apply to plotting the overthrow of elected governments and bringing back the order of crusading medieval knights. The net allows you to order weird badges from Varanasi while sitting in Oslo, without any need to read or understand about alternative points of view. Anders Breivik’s manifesto cited a great number of right-wing Americans and Europeans, which is testament to the internet’s ability to spread narrowness very broadly.
As newspapers decline in the US and Europe, and as more and more news-seekers migrate to cyberspace, this trend has emerged all the more sharply. You can read all the analysis of the news by bloggers and journalists who wear the same lens as you. They attack mainstream newspapers and TV channels those oppose their views, and support those who agree. They are of course, not bound by the journalists’ code of consuct for fair and balanced reporting; impressionable readers even less so.
I might speculate that this contagion has now spread to the mainstream. The old school of balancing all viewpoints is on its way to extinction; some ‘broadcasters’ now don’t even pretend to be fair. Rupert Murdoch has often been blamed for giving Fox News and the Wall Street Journal a sharp rightward tilt (by what he might call ‘liberal’ media). The Murdoch Group’s outlets in the USA do not even pay lip service to ‘balance’. Their custom is now restricted to conservative readers. Nevertheless, since this is a large population, the Murdoch concerns still make money.
The Murdoch Media’s influence on the Tea Party is well known. The stars of the Tea Party – Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Charles Krauthammer and Grover Nordquist – are Fox News regulars. Grover Nordquist was singled out by the liberals for attack druing the debt ceiling negotiations. Largely because he made Tea Party-backed Representatives sign a public pledge not to compromise from their hardline position. Were they to make a compromise they would be seen as breaking the pledge, which would occasion a voter backlash. Voters who are closed to sources of information other than Fox News, the Wall Street Journal or arch-conservative blogs.
Would India, which is so diverse and where it is so difficult to share different opinions across language and ideaological barrier, likely to go the same way?
Until the early nineties, India had only one television channel. Doordarshan rejoiced in imposing sermons on national integration; ‘mile sur mera tumhara’ was once known by rote to anyone who watched TV. It’s programmes were such a mix of stuff from all over the country, that viewers willy-nilly had a prospective of how large and diverse the country was. You either watched that stuff, or you didn’t watch TV at all. As broadcast policy was liberalised and satellite TV channels mushroomed, it ironically set off the golden age of narrowcasting. We had the emergence of regional channels like Sun TV and AsiaNet which now have total domination of the markets. Provincial viewers now have no obligation to get a perspective of the world beyond them. Viewers of Sun News will barely know anything about northern India, though they get microscopic knowledge of traffic mishaps in Salem District. And anyone watching a Hindi channel would think that South India didn’t exist. Parallelly, it is now also possible to spend all your time on a General Entertainment Channel and have no idea about current affairs, or be on Aastha or FTV or Star Cricket. But TV is still some form of broadcasting; you cannot use it to efficiently target smaller and smaller segments beyond a point. The internet can do this. And it is already doing this for some segments.
Searching for brides and grooms online is a popular internet activity in India. But sites like BharatMatrimony.com can be quite confusing, since they present eligible young women and men from all states and castes. Your search can be difficult; your child might get tempted. This was overcome by regional sites, such as TamilMatrimony.com, which ensures that your child sees on Tamil-speakers’ profiles. Yet that is not enough, for it could still tempt your child into an intercaste alliance. So now you can log on to IyerMatrimony.com to look for a potential groom for your daughter who is from your own caste only. Your prejudices have been protected in toto. What perfectly-targetted narrowcasting!
How dangerous will that be for India in the long run? Only time can tell.
‘Where is the Love?’
Aug 26th
At the much awaited Sunday evening television gathering that encompasses most Indian families; I was heartbroken to hear the following words from my father “ads kya dekh raha hai, channel change karde”. Many of us will find nothing wrong in this statement but these are the last words an ad man wants to hear! As a freshman at an agency I’m compelled to think why have we become so negative towards advertisements and if our attitudes are so pessimistic, why we are still bombarded with ads? Somebody surely is watching them, if so: how do we change attitudes and engage our audience in a more effective way?
Now I’m not trying to give a detailed study involving ratings, sample research, questionnaires analysis etc etc; neither am I giving pertinent answers to these questions in hopes to create a movement in the ad industry, it is merely a passive perception from somebody who sits on both sides of the table.
The reality of the situation is that no matter how interesting the show that you might be watching is, at the first glimpse of a forthcoming ad we change the channel. So much so, we have become accustomed to the way planners have set slots during shows – as soon as the ‘bahu’ gasps after opening the door, our hand goes to the remote. It is as if there is a competition between the advertiser and the consumer with a notion that “no matter how much you try to show me the ad; I will not watch it, if it’s really good I will watch it once or maybe twice, but show it again and then you have had it!”. Regardless of these habits, advertising agencies are still flourishing, and some have been biting the apple for generations. So I want to know, is there some love in all this hate?
There is a very small percentage of ads that we are fond of, yet we mostly remember the ad, not the product and sometimes unknowingly mix competitors brand into it. Even if I categorize this as human nature, what about the fact that good ads seen more than a couple of times tend to reawaken those adverse feelings with a frown? Our fickleness does not hold back to turn the aww or aaahnn to the yuck!
What will be the explanation to this phenomenon? Is it the constant exposure to too many advertisements or seeing the same advertisements again and again? Too much of something is also not good. Obviously, we cannot stop advertisers from advertising, can we perhaps increase the rate at which commercials are changed? Take Vodafone for example, a company that adapts to changing times quickly and knows how the audience is ticking. Now I know that not all brands share the humongous ad budgets, but there is got to be some way we can change our mood for commercials again. We don’t have to change strategies, themes, actors, directors – just the story in the ad! Will it keep the audience more interested? After all we all like to watch TV, movies and videos, so it will be just another new video. Can we shorten commercials that drag on for months and perhaps evolve the stories in them? Please note I’m not asking to change the brand image; just the ad. Can ads take the path of TV series, with an updated story each fortnight, if not a week (depending on budgets). In case we worry about the viewer missing it, we’ll have it online! Will this change the behaviour from ‘oh god I hate commercials to did you see that ad!’? Think about it…
Case Study: Internet Browsers and Screen Resolutions in India
Jul 20th
This case study was prepared by Sahil Sarin, who was an intern with R K SWAMY Interactive in June-July 2011.
Common Internet Browsers
Internet Explorer is a name that has been synonymously attached with the provision of Internet in India. Though Netscape was an option, IE dominated as the default user in the late 1990s. Around 6-7 years later IE was faced with its biggest competitor – Firefox launched in 2004. Many users found themselves switching to Firefox as it promised speed, privacy and new features. In 2008 a new browser Google Chrome grabbed the attention of the Indian audience due to its usability and a recognizable brand value. To match with Firefox, it created a featured pack portal for users called Google extensions. Similarly, the Indian based browser EPIC launched in 2010 is a rapidly budding web interface. It is powered by Mozilla and caters specifically to the Indian audience. Finally, Safari powered by apple has a low yet constant presence in the market. Its popularity is associated with mostly apple users in India and that number is still comparatively less.
Despite a constant decline in market share and the obvious fact that Chrome and Firefox are far better than Internet Explorer, it still remains as the leadingbrowser in India and worldwide. IE is trying its level best to revive its market share by releasing newer and feature rich browser versions, its success will be judged by time.
Browser Versions
The present data shows that IE started at the most popular rate amongst browsers in 2010. According to our Principal Consultant Tridib Ghosh, “Clearly IE 8 scores over any other browser on usage density across continents. IE 6 comes close second. This is solely because (In India) the most commonly used OS is MS Windows which has in-built IE Browser. IE 6 still exists because many government and administrative organizations of less economically developed nations still use IE6 and their usage of web 2.0. will be low. Hence when we build our websites for clients we have to be very clear if we are building a Web 2.0 functionality or Web 1.0. Almost 80% of the new age Content management systems do not support IE6 as their web 2.0 widgets and plug-ins are not developed for IE 6. The standard thus remains IE 7 and higher though IE 7 usage is not that great. The reason behind is that IE 7 had a very less appearance after its launch and users skipped to IE8 as soon as it came in the picture.”
In Firefox, version 4.0 has seen most growth between 2010 – 2011 period. Version 3.6 was the most popular with a 18.2% start which slowly diminished to 10.96%.
Google Chrome has shown very erratic display of growth and decline in the period of 2010 – 2011. Its initial version didn’t prove to be very successful and had a downward facing graph. Though some of its updated versions have shown growth in popularity, it is not very stable.
Other browsers including safari have similar signs of erraticism amongst them. There is no one period of constant growth, and their graph comprises of all forms of characteristics. (Stat Counter, 2011)
Screen Resolutions
There has been a significant debate over the most effective screen resolution. Currently, 1024 x 768 is the most commonly used resolution in India. This is followed by 1280 x 800 and 1280 x1024. While the other resolutions keep a flat growth, 1366 x 768 has shown evident increase in its growth graph. (Superior Web Solutions, 2010)
Zandu Balm and the If-you-can’t-beat-’em-join-’em principle
Jul 15th
You might have seen the new Zandu balm commercial on air – the one with Munni in it. (Here’s a link, but not to the real thing.)
I found nothing particularly creative or memorable about this ad, but that isn’t the point. The point is a lawsuit that Emami (who owns the Zandu Balm brand) had filed against Arbaaz Khan productions for infringement of their brand in their film ‘Dabangg’. You’ll remember the runaway hit ‘Munni’ from the film, and that particularly peculiar line, ‘main Zandu balm hui….’.
In the end, the two warring parties settled for an out-of-court settlement, cash flowed into Emami’s account, and the brand name stayed on in the film. A great deal of free advertisement, though it broke all advertising conventions by violating brand guidelines. (Sacrilege! my heart cries.)
And now we have this ad. Riding on the enormous popularity of the song, Emami has drafted in its former foes to push Zandu Balm, with Munni as its brand ambassador. Talk about a 180 degree turn.
So whatever happened to to golden rules that agencies must follow? Brand guidelines, logos, colours, product placement, how and when the brand name is used, the voice, the tone of the creative and all the other items in the brand manual? Those things for which several ideas get shot down within the creative team? Those things that make copywriters and art directors chafe and scream and rant and rage (all impotently) when a ‘brilliant’ idea gets shot down because it is not in line with the brand persona?
I suppose all one can do is point to that ancient Latin maxim that hasn’t changed over two thousand years – tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis (Times change, and we are changed with them). Perhaps there are times when the rulebook is held in abeyance, and the tiny window of opportunity open to us must be seized. In this case, the song ‘Munni’ is fading in popularity; were the ad any further delayed, its impact would have been lost. On the other hand, perhaps Emami could have weathered the storm and let Zandu Balm be restored to its old branding.
It would be interesting to watch the sales figures and see whether this big risk really paid off. If yes, we can predict that a new storm will blow through the halls of India’s agencies.
Creativity: Out-of-the-box, or boxed-in?
Jul 11th
Not many days ago, I was interviewing a candidate for the post of writer in our team. The remarks by HR on his CV said that he was very good at out-of-the-box thinking. And that set off a train of thought – what exactly is out-of-the-box thinking?
It is now part of the zeitgeist, the freedom to break the shackles of tradition. But do you think it goes too far when it follows the other zeitgeist, of reducing all communication to three-letter acronyms? I get a document from boss which has this sentence “we do OOB (ube) thinking” regarding the design rationale for a proposed website. That left me totally baffled – what is OOB? Even better, what is ube? An immediate referral to that ultimate know-all (aka Google) rendered OOB as Out-of-Body, and UBE as Ultimate Bonding Experience. And I thought, w-o-w! A website that gives the user a pyschedelic experience and triggers the ultimate bond between customer and brand? There a pride of Lions waiting for us at Cannes if we pull this off.
These (ill)(del)usions were dashed when boss said OOB was simply ‘out-of-the-box’. (Picking nits, shouldn’t it have then become OOTB?) Which had acquired enough coolth to get its own wordoid** – ube. D’uh. And what dreams had I - Cannes Red Carpet and all that acid jazz.
So that is the zeitanschauung*** now – thinking, any and all of it, has to be out-of-the-box. It must be free from clichés (which is now the world’s most abused cliché), not trapped in tradition, free from biases, blue-sky-thinking, non-linear thinking, lateral thinking and all the other dhinka-chika*. Since it now sits in MBA textbooks, it has clearly become part of the establishment now. Weird, isn’t it? OOB is by definition supposed to be revolutionary!
But does that work for advertising at all? On the one hand, any creative idea in advertising needs to be ‘clutter-breaking’. If it is not tempting, engaging, exciting or even shocking, it runs the risk of being lost like a classified ad. Not visible unless you look for it. Some chaps of course take this quite literally, like the Volkswagen Polo ad on Times of India (which netted both media and creative Abbies) which actually cut a Polo-shaped hole in the paper. [And which was, in a very apt way, a tribute to that other brand called Polo, which made a brand property out of, well, a hole. Remember the Alyque Padamsee-like voice intonating, "Polo. The mint with a hole"?]
On the other hand, is the mundane reality of clients, products, brand guidelines, brand history, brand perception, brand this, brand that. Think of a brand like Mercedes-Benz or LIC of India. Could they really do something which was so radical that it broke with everything their brands have stood for over the years?
Well, I can bring myself to imagine a pharma ad written in cheeky Hinglish (cough syrups ka baap!) or an financial company ad that borders on the risque (“Meets all my financial needs” says Mr. D K Bose). I cannot actually release it into the media. It’ll have to go into the award ceremonies as a scam, and then you know what the attitude to scams is nowadays. You may have the occasional path-breaking Pepsi Refresh which re-orients what the brand stands for, but that is way, way beyond advertising anyway. But that doesn’t happen unless the brand feels a serious need to change itself. After nearly a century of selling sugary drinks to children, Pepsi is now diversifying into healthier foods (Tropicana is now a major growth driver), and is thus changing its brand image. Ergo, Pepsi Refresh.
Meanwhile, for brands that don’t have to radically re-invent themselves, the old rules apply. There is still a lot of pressure to come up with something really creative for the brand which is still sensitive to what their brand stands for. In other words, boxed-in thinking. And that I think, is where good agency talent really flourishes. And which distinguishes the wild-card agencies from the big, ‘safe-pair-of-hands’ agencies. The zoozoos which won wide acclaim for Vodafone both in the awards and in the public, never did stray from Vodafone’s perception as an urban, with-the-times brand.
Thinking without constraints leads to chaos, my old boss used to say. A channel or an anchor to your thinking process then lets you clearly distinguish the essential from the non-essential. If you are writing a novel, you are bound by the rules of plot construction and narrative continuity, even if you take license with the language and grammar. In an advertising creative, you’re simply bound by the golden rule – the ad must sell your brand. That’s what the client pays you for, after all.
OOB thinking certainly is hard. Traditions, biases, cliches all hold a gun to your head. But I think boxed-in thinking is even harder. You feel you’re not delivering your full potential, and you like to blame your art director, creative director, client servicing (and of course client) for hemming you in. But remember, there were many writers before you who carefully nurtured the brand all these years. They gave the brand its personality, its standing in the market. You are there to take this legacy forward. Some brands are flexible and adapt quickly to the times. Then your box expands a bit, you get space for some of your wilder ideas. Some don’t, you remained boxed-in. But as they say, if you can’t break the box, you can fit it to your shape.
Go on. The next Lion depends on what shape you gave the box.
***
*dhinka-chika: India’s currently most popular nonsense word, by popular acclaim.
**wordoid: looks like a word, is used by people widely, but is still not a legitimate dictionary word.
***zeitanschauung: A German-sounding word invented by me to sound like I’m giving off deep philosophical gyan. In plainer English, it would mean ‘thinking of the current times’.
