A Memory Test!!!

Yesterday, I was going through a very old edition of a magazine (I am a film buff, and I admit I discreetly collected editions of this popular film magazine!). There I saw an old ad. The funny part is that although this ad was almost 15-20 years old, I still remembered it. This was an ad about a detergent soap featuring Deepika Chiklia (for those who cannot relate to the name, she is the lady who played Sita in the TV mega series, Ramayana, along side Arun Govil).

It was here that I decided to recollect and made a conscious effort to remember as many ads that I could, TV or Print or Radio. Very surprisingly, most of the ads that I recollected (I mean I remembered the visuals, the product, the brand and everything else!) were quite old, some of them from the DD days and some from the early phase of the satellite TV revolution in India. I started questioning myself that why is it that I cannot remember much ads of recent times, although they are made in a better way and we have much more access to watching them.

The reasons for this phenomenon are many. I will start with the last line of the last paragraph. We have almost unlimited access these days. This ensures that we see number of ads today. What this also ensures that we watch few of them. The retention has been reduced drastically. We have two different ads running at the same time on two different channels. The result, we flip to the third channel which is airing the favorite K serial. It is this clutter that has possibly reduced the retention capacity of us consumers.

Another reason that I feel is the overuse and in some cases abuse of a brand ambassador. I will ask you a question. Which personality comes to your mind when I say, “Waah Taaj”? Did you say Zakir Hussain, the famous tabla player sitting and sipping tea from a white cup in a flowing white kurta and churidaar against the background of a pristine white Taj Mahal? Yes, you are right. It is the same image that comes to my mind also, when I hear that punch line. Now, another question. When you see, Saif Ali Khan, sitting in the green room of a studio asking his designer to show him the clothes that he is supposed to wear at the fashion show, which brand comes to your mind. Stretch your mind a little more. Can you recollect the tagline? Try harder…No? Giving up? Well, the brand is Taj Mahal Tea from the Brooke Bond Stable of erstwhile HLL. See the difference; we vividly remember the previous ad whereas we try hard to recollect the newer ad of the same brand with the same punch line. I have one reason for this. I will explain this with another question. When, I say, “It’s your life, make it large” which brand comes to your mind. This is easy. Yes you are right. It is Royal Stag. The brand ambassador, hmm, well, Mr. Saif Ali Khan again. The same person, endorsing two kinds of beverages, tea and whiskey. I agree that these two categories do not directly compete with each other. Tea is had in the morning (unless you are a complete teetotallerian like me) while whiskey is normally had in the evenings (unless you are like one of the characters essayed by Mr. Keshto Mukherjee!). However these two segments do compete with each other somewhere else, if not the market. They take each other head on in the consumer’s mind, which in turn percolates down to the market. Similarly, we have an Amitabh Bachhan, Shahrukh Khan, MS Dhoni, et al, endorsing similar, if not the same products and brands.

So, does it mean, that more ads and more channels mean less retention? Not necessarily. It is upto the ad agencies to really decide the mix. Let us study an example. Take Vodafone for example. The pug has become synonymous with the brand and they did not even use the name of a celebrity. Remember, the ad for the LG CDMA phones. It shows a mobile phone on a paper boat, shows how light weight the phone is. It did not have any celebrities or even any models. Or the Fevicol ads or he Chlormint ads. It is the question of effectively getting your message across. Why, even some ads stand out, for example, the Vodafone ads (both the pug as well as the zozoos), and the Sunil Babu ads.

Really, it is upto the agencies to decide what kind of ads they want to show us, the consumers, because, “yeh public hai, sab jaanti hai”!!!