Category: Promotion

Ad agencies considered death to be a taboo and avoided using themes of death and mortality in their campaigns. But slowly the veil is being lifted from this taboo, and dying is being used to get the message across. Benetton uses AID’s patient on death-bed in its campaign. Nike exhorts us to play hard since life is short. Dead celebrities are used to sell several products like Diet Coke. Posthumous promotion has been attempted for several products.

A sign stands for something else other than itself. It can take the form of sounds, colours, images, words, odours, gestures, flavours, objects. Semiotics studies the meaning of these signs and symbols within our culture. Though signs themselves are studied, they are further arranged into organised codes and are given cultural context.

A sign links the concept and the meaning. Flowers offered to a girl are a sign of love. Flowers offered in a graveyard are a tribute to the departed soul. The concept is the signifier and the meaning is the signified. The relationship between these two gives it a meaning. The relationship between the two can be arbitrary, e.g. a rose is a pink flower, but it could have been given any other name but would have smelled as sweet. When the signifier resembles the signified, it is called iconic. A picture, for instance, is a representation of the real thing. When the signifier and the signified are directly connected, it is called indentical, e.g. passage of time is shown by the growth of the anatomy of the hero in a movie.

Signs are organised into codes of social behaviour, fashion, rituals, mass media and fine arts. Signs are put in a cultural context, a managalsutra is a sign of a married woman. This is its interpretation in Indian culture. A mangalsutra-like necelace would have just remained an accessory in some other culture. We are not surprised to find white bridal trousseau among Catholics, but Hindus consider white as a colour of mourning.

Advertising is a system of distinct signs . Semiotics seeks to explore the working of advertising.

Advertising agencies have a natural tendency to turn what is topical into ads. They turn a morning’s headlines into a hook for an ad. Topical touch does have an impact. But can they exploit tragedy, death, terror and epidemics ? Is it not being too opportunistic ? Maybe, if the organisation has the products that could help in the crisis, they can use these themes. For example, anti-bacterial products may be advertised taking the epidemic as its platform. Telcom companies can advertise their non-contact benefits. Cosmetic companies cannot possibly exploit the epidemic theme. Who needs lip-sticks when the mouth is behind a mask ? Still, some companies advertise their non-stick lip-sticks. But advertising using crisis may turn out to be repugnant if not carefully handled. It is not good to take advantage of death. Gumboot companies should not relate their products to the Kargil crisis, but could do so tastefully once the crisis is over by highlighting the role of the product played during the crisis. It is best to stay away at the time of crisis. Lowe created an ad for Garware’s sun protection film at the time of Mumbai bomb blast, because the executives had experienced its effectiveness in an office facing Air India. It is a difficult case. Sometimes ads are made to get awards rather than to promote social causes. This of course is avoidable.

A Bangalore-based start up has launched in Silicon Valley a new ad delivery platform Miip to deliver content rich ads to mobile app users. It will create delivery zones for consumers within their favourite apps. It will present a curated collection of product feeds, apps and related content with visuals.It aims to charge higher premium for ads delivered from advertisers and share revenue with mobile commerce companies on business transactions. They are pitted against Google and Facebook who have their own ad delivery engine. Google dominates the web search market, and struggles to get a foothold in the mobile ad market, despite owning Android platform. InMobi has tied up with customers in the US.

Some five years ago, digital advertising was just 5 per cent of the total ad spending  of the companies. This has increased to 8-10 per cent currently. Most widely used digital advertising mediums are Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Facebook.

It is easier to connect with the consumers using digital advertising. The number of hits can be tracked. You can know how much traction the particular campaign or ad has generated.  Besides, it is more economical to use digital advertising. Its cost is lower by 40 per cent than TV advertising. Digital advertising is an apt medium to target youngsters.

Digital advertising was considered customised advertising to begin with. Since then digital itself is emerging as mass media on account of its increased reach. There are, however, many platforms which are offering segmented targeting. There is a provision to have multiple messaging that is tailored to audience. All this makes digital more attractive to the brand owners. In digital advertising, you can control the number of cities and the target audience. The increasing penetration of mobile connectivity has generated an audience that consumes digital content.

SilverPush has developed cross-device technology to track ads by connecting various mobile and digital devices. It maps users with their digital devices. It links TV with mobile to trace user interaction. Companies spend huge amounts on TV ads. As there is no information on user engagement with these ads, the success of these campaigns or demographics of the viewers cannot be determined. As it is, TRP rating of a channel has no correlation with the success of an advertisement. SilverPush offers ‘ television and analytics suite ‘. The companies can get information on the target audiences due to their patented ‘ audio beacon technology.’ A TV ad is integrated with inaudible frequency before it is aired. The moment it is played, the SilverPush SDK installed in the user’s smart phone is activated, which pairs it with the TV or computer. After pairing, it is mapped under a unique ID and a persona is created for the user. It does not encroach on the privacy of the audience, since the platform can be activated by inaudible sounds. It has been launched towards the end of  2914. It has mapped about 680 million unique device IDs till date using this technology.

Corporates these days seek digital narrative for their brands. Pepsico India recently launched #NaamBanteHainRiskSe for its drink Mountain Dew. Here the real life heroes are honoured when they go beyond the conventional and emerge victorious. A female amputee climbs Mt Everest. It is a short digital film. Consumers participate in this campaign. There are millions of calls for registration. There are several million views and lacs of shares. The company engages the consumers and hand over the reins of the campaign to them. These real heroes rise above fear, and break out of the ordinary. They emerge victorious. In the digital world, the consumer writes the brand story. Just a conventional ad placed in traditional media where the fuzzy logic dictates the future marketing strategy is not enough. We must learn the consumer’s neuroscience. A brand is less about what it tells people it is. A brand is more about what people tell other people it is . The companies will have to be more experimental. Mondelez has designed ‘Play with Orea ‘. The Development Bank of Singapore ( DBS ) serialised a love story Chilli Paneer on YouTube. Each episode was of 4-minutes. It explores the relationship of a Singaporean man and an Indian woman. The bank plays a mediator. The emphasis was on connectivity and building relations with the customers.

Copywriters are adept in English grammar, but do take liberties. They make complete sentences by using just verbs. They start sentences with conjunctions like ‘but’ and  ‘and’. They use split infinitives.

Copywriting is different from formal business writing, novel writing or journalism. In journalism, the task is divided among a reporter, sub-editor, lay-out artist, typographer and DTP operator. A copywriter’s task is an integrated one. He has to consider the entire ad copy consisting of headlines, body copy, illustration, sub-headlines, design, size and frequency from creative angle. He can be compared to a composer. His copy is a musical composition. A copywriter has to ensure that each note in it is in place, and adds to the tempo.