MxMIndia

Category: PRABHAKAR MUNDKUR

  • There are some whom you meet and you wonder why fate hadn’t brought you together earlier. Ranjan was one of those people, writes Prabhakar Mundkur

    Prabhakar Mundkur: Advertising loses another Great

    By Prabhakar Mundkur

     

    The week was full of tributes from all the people who knew and worked with him, including the famous Shelley Lazarus, one-time global CEO of Ogilvy and now Chairman Emeritus, who at one point of time was the only woman amongst seven men in the Advertising Hall of Fame.

    I never knew Ranjan personally although I did bump into him a few times in Shunu Sen’s offices at the Levers office at Backbay Reclamation in the early 1990s, when he would dash in from Singapore. We would both be required to present to Levers our latest views on the Lever competition which typically meant P & G and Colgate.

    Ranjan Kapur

    While I never worked with Ranjan, I did have a competitive perspective on him because Ogilvy and JWT were both vying for Sir Martin Sorrell’s attention after being acquired by WPP – JWT was acquired in 1987 and Ogilvy a little later in 1989.  Rumour had it those days that Sir Martin might have overpaid for Ogilvy, although in retrospect I am sure it was a wonderful decision. As one of the Lever agencies, we never considered Ogilvy a serious threat to the Lever business those days.  Then came a major storm called Ranjan Kapur.

    Since he joined in 1994, he seemed to have led a serious business transformation at the agency (before the word business transformation was to become popular). This included a huge emphasis on its creative product which he believed would lead to both fame and fortune.  By 2004, when Ranjan retired from Ogilvy, it was an awesome agency that had not only built itself a great solid reputation but was also sniffing at the heels of JWT which was always considered the #1 in revenue in the country.  Without IMRB’s revenue, Ogilvy was already bigger than JWT as I remember it back in 2004, while pouring over the annual reports of both agencies.

    Since I observed Mike Khanna, the erstwhile CEO of JWT from close quarters, I knew Mike always thought of Ranjan as a good friend, but he was more than aware of Ranjan also being the formidable competitor.  As luck would have it in 2005, I was one of the invitees for an Kolkata Ad Club function along with Ranjan.  And I was fortunate enough to catch him and wife Jimi at the airport where our flight had a miserable delay of a few hours.  This was my first real meeting with Ranjan and Jimi and I found them a warm and lovable couple.  We exchanged notes on a number of things including the quirks of our neighbourhood, since we both stayed at Prabhadevi.

    There are some whom you meet and you wonder why fate hadn’t brought you together earlier. Ranjan was one of those people.  As tributes pour in from every corner of the country, one can see how much he is being missed.

     

    Patriotic Branding

    I don’t think we have ever had a formal study of  patriotic brands in India, although several brands have pledged their patriotism,  but in the US where brands are continuously studied for their degree of Patriotism,  brands like Jeep, Hershey’s, Coke, Levis, Ford, Wal-Mart, Campbell’s and others  have stood out as patriotic brands. An annual research study finds out which brands were most associated with the value of patriotism. Quite often when we say American icon I guess what we are really referring to are patriotic brands. Largely, it has to do with being an American company or really being made in the U.S.A.  In the  2016 research, a national sample of 4,750 consumers, 16 to 65, evaluated 248 brands across a collection of 35 cross-category values. Consumers identified the following brands as leading 2016’s patriotism parade. Percentages indicate brands’ emotional engagement strength for the individual value of patriotism.

    1. Jeep/Disney (98%)
    2. Levi Strauss (96%)
    3. Ralph Lauren (95%)
    4. Ford (94%)
    5. Coca-Cola/Jack Daniels (93%)

    In India, Bajaj has always been known for its patriotic branding right from the days of the old Bajaj scooter with “Hamara Bajaj”.  Many brands pledged their patriotism this Republic Day but I thought one brand did it really well.  And no prizes for guessing.  It was Bajaj with its Invincible Indians ad.  It told stories of brave Indians who were serving society at large with the help of their Bajaj motorcycles.

     

     

    Advertising Ideas are not Intellectual Property?!

     

    Most ideas of any kind today are getting copyrighted both in the arts and the sciences. Create a piece of music and you can copyright it.  Create a piece of art and you can copyright it.  Create a scientific invention and you can copyright it.  Write a great advertising baseline, and consider it given away for free, forever. And be prepared to be forgotten. When Idea Cellular changed its agency from Lowe to BBDO late last year, the industry was left in suspense about what would happen to all the great properties created for Idea including “What an idea, Sirjee” which became a part of colloquial lingo in the country over the years.

     

    So when Shashi Shankar CMO of Idea Cellular recently said “The tagline belongs to the brand; it doesn’t matter who coined it”, I can see a copywriter cringing in a corner somewhere, about why he joined a profession where a client can say he doesn’t matter.  After all, that is not the tradition.  Most people are given credit for the good work they have done on a brand even if they lose the business over a long period of time.

     

     

    So, did the new work justify the change of agency from Lowe to BBDO.  I am not so sure.  I thought the new Idea commercial lacked the zing, and the intrusive personality the brand had built up over all these years. Somehow, the new commercials felt like they were for an older, soberer brand, unless it was intentional. In addition, the famous baseline “An idea can change your life” felt like it had been relegated to the background, along with its erstwhile agency.  The line preceding the baseline “A video can change your life” felt forced and idealess.

     

    But such is life in advertising.  You can slog your butt off for decades on a business and be forgotten forever!

     

     

  • In his weekly column ‘AdBuzz’, Prabhakar Mundkur writes on the new Bajaj Dominar 400 commercial, Heineken India’s ‘Generation’ campaign and some of the top Super Bowl commercials

    Prabhakar Mundkur: Does Comparative Advtg Work?

    By Prabhakar Mundkur

     

    The Bajaj Dominar 400 has come out with a string of commercials which use the metaphor of the elephant to connote heavy, old technology bikes – the obvious reference is of course Royal Enfield and even Harley to a lesser extent is in the same group, although Harleys typically fall into a more expensive price bracket.

     

    In overseas markets, it is a well-known fact that on any yardstick of performance Japanese bikes outclass a Harley.  That is much the same for the Royal Enfield in the Indian market, which at best has only made marginal improvements to the original version of the Royal Enfield that rolled off the production floors in Redditch, Worcestershire, more than half a century ago. No wonder the Royal Enfield websites refer to the motorcycle as a ‘modern classic’. After all, just to take one example it sports a carburetor which is a relic of old technology instead of a fuel injector that is found in modern cars and motorbikes.

     

    But what Bajaj is not accounting for is that the old heavy bikes have very strong ‘genes’ and strong emotional attachment. There is something in every Indian biker that tells him he must own a Royal Enfield at some point of time in his life.  And while they may not be fast, not great at picking up speed, or great at handling, there is some undefinable quality about sitting on top of a Royal Enfield that a string of commercials may well find it difficult to overcome. Obviously Royal Enfield is making giant strides in this market, and that’s the reason for this response from Bajaj.

     

    Which brings us to the eternal question on comparative advertising: does it really work?

     

    In a study conducted by Dr Fred Beard, professor of advertising in the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Oklahoma, Dr Beard says “the potential for negative outcomes of [comparative advertising] are a very real possibility when prominent brands choose to go head to head using strictly comparative advertising campaigns.”

     

    Heineken India’s Generation Campaign is a good adaptation of international work

    The generation gap and particularly how to appeal to millennials has been every marketers challenge for some time now.  When Heineken launched their #OpenYourWorld campaign overseas last year, the premise was to test if two strangers divided by their beliefs ( political and social )can overcome their differences. That seems to have hit the right note amongst consumers abroad.

     

    No wonder then that Heineken considered adapting the same campaign to India but with a twist. Instead of two strangers, the campaign decided to capitalise on the generation gap between parents and children.  By finding the gap between how parents think about what their children should be and what children really want to be they have found an interesting idea right in the middle of this gap. The campaign idea expresses the parent’s traditional career expectations of children as a base and then uses interaction between the parent and child  to break down barriers.

     

    By using a comedian to present the unique social experiment, the Indian version adds a layer that perhaps makes the campaign work better.  But I wonder if the campaign lags the trend a bit ; Indian parents have been opening up to letting their children choose new age professions for some time now.  I see so many parents open to their children becoming musicians, fashion designers, disc jockeysetc, and joining emerging new sectors like media and retail that one hardly comes across the traditional parent forcing his child to become a chartered accountant, engineer or doctor.

     

    That is the only thing I found a trifle jarring about the campaign was the fact that India has passed the stage of being closed to new professions; the world has opened up both for Indians and people around the world.

     

    The Super Bowl Zeitgeist

    Jeff Weiner CEO of LinkedIn in a post this week said: “ If Super Bowl commercials are a barometer for the prevailing zeitgeist, interesting to note the number of inspiring, inclusive, and positive messages during this year’s game.”

     

    Whilst the Super Bowl does seem a very competitive space that brings out the best of brands one of my favourite spots that took me by surprise was the Amazon spot featuring Jeff Bezos for the first time in a commercial.   Various celebrities try and substitute for Alexa who has lost her voice.

     

    The other commercial I really loved was done by Droga 5 for Sprint and capitalised on  Artificial Intelligence and all the TV series we have been fed from Westworld to Extant to real life expressions from Sophia the Robot.

     

    The commercial does an excellent and laughable take-off  by portraying hyper-intelligent robots who have discovered that paying twice as much for Verizon isn’t smart.  The robots have a good laugh at their creator for being stupid.

  • Nirav Modi would need to think of a new brand but where he is only the designer unless of course the brand gets suitably exonerated, writes Prabhakar Mundkur

    Prabhakar Mundkur: What happens when the Scam-accused is also the Brand

    By Prabhakar Mundkur

     

    No doubt people’s attention the entire week was focused on Nirav Modi.  While the finance experts tried to unravel the mysteries of the scam and the LOUs, the marketing and advertising experts argued on what would happen to the brand.In retrospect, the diamantaire extraordinaire might have made the mistake of using his personal name as a brand.  It has certainly pointed out to marketing experts that brands like Kingfisher, Satyam etc. which also went through a scam were perhaps less affected because the brand name was not connected to the alleged scamster.  The Nirav Modi case is different because every time you mentioned “Nirav Modi” the brand name was being dragged through mud.  We might have been more forgiving if the owner of the brand was an accused but called John Smith to make a point. That way the Nirav Modi brand could have lived on.

     

    By Nirav Modi’s own admission in a letter to the PNB Chairman he is reported to have said: “In the anxiety to recover your dues immediately, despite my offer (on February 13, a day before the public announcement, and on February15) your actions have destroyed my brand and the business and have now restricted your ability to recover all the dues leaving a trail of unpaid debts”.

     

    That now leaves one option were Nirav Modi to consider getting into business again.  He would need to think of a new brand but where he is only the designer.  Unless of course the brand gets suitably exonerated, through  legal battles with the CBI and PNB.

     

     

    Zee’s Social Media Experiment mysonikudi.com

    In a world where people still believe that communication has to be hard-hitting and that normally means that you spend a lot of money trying to hammer a message into people’s heads, it was refreshing to see the Zee campaign for mysonikudi.com

     

    They followed the Stimulus-Response approach which evangelised that if you want someone to believe something, you don’t just hammer that message into their heads.  So, for example, if I want you to believe that I am a funny man, I don’t show you my certificates in humour and shout at you loudly that I am a funny man. Because you might well not believe me.   Instead I tell you a joke, and then your response is that I am funny.

     

    Mysonikudi followed this approach when they got Gul Panag to tweet about a make-believe website called sonikudi.com which projected itself as a portal which provided customised brides like Wonder Chef’, ‘Bachat Focused’, ‘Agyakari’, ‘Gharelu’, and ‘Sansakari’.

     

     

    Gul Panag #changehernot hashtag was trending in no time and it drew the ire of the public at large making the campaign a great success.  The fake website I believe drew over 3000 eager beaver husbands-to-be putting in their preferences for the stereotypical housewives offered on the website.

     

    Yahoo advertises for India

    These days in drawing room conversations with my daughter’s friends, they say: “Uncle, we are no longer on Facebook, we are on Instagram”.  While I am still trying to grope around with a theory that would explain this millennial behaviour they add fuel to the fire by telling me that Facebook is only for older people.  That really makes me feel really old.  In the last months, I had almost come to the conclusion that Facebook was for old dads and grandads. And that Instagram was for all the young happening people. Of course I thought being an ad guy that this was a clever strategy by Facebook to differentiate between the users of Facebook and Instagram since they own both platforms.

     

    And now there is this campaign called “Live to Love” by Facebook that says all my thinking is wrong. For one its shows young people (read millennials ) and it also shows old people like me. Here are sample commercials for  both Neha the young doctor, and Sunny the 58 year old portly businessman.

     

     

     

    While the campaign does look like a strategy planner wrote a very detailed brief that eulogised about the target group and the creative just decided to translate it into a film, the campaign does what every mass marketer is known to do.  Talk to everybody, both young and old.  Which, somehow goes against the the tenets of positioning and targeting.  But I guess when you have 217 million users in India and those users are a pretty amorphous lot, you don’t have too many choices.

     

    In any case, the campaign does two jobs:  it reassures me that not only old people use Facebook.  And it reassures younger people that they need not shun it and go to Instagram.  If that is what Mark Zuckerberg wants in this second largest market the campaign perhaps meets the objective.

     

    PrabhakarMundkur is an ad industry veteran who is now a prolific commentator on LinkedIn and his own website – prabhakarmundkur.com. The views here are personal

     

     

  • Are mothers in Pakistan more progressive than India?  Or is it just our schizophrenic understanding of what today’s mothers are about, asks Prabhakar Mundkur

    Prabhakar Mundkur: Indian Advertising and its Mother Schizophrenia

    Prabhakar Mundkur

    By Prabhakar Mundkur

     

    It would have helped if we had a uniform understanding of Indian mothers.  Last week, we saw two very different portrayals of mothers both emanating from Indian agencies.  One of course was the All Out TVC which ostensibly was making a commercial, that was in support of Indian mothers #StandbyToughMoms.  But the portrayal may have just backfired in spite of good intentions.

     

     

    Largely because it showed an Indian family sitting down to a meal where the Indian mother didn’t even have a seat at the table.  She then begins to play the servant rolled into a doormat role where she is busy serving an enormous family while she goes hungry herself.  She decides to be stern with her son who is behaving like the usual spoilt Indian brat and pushing his plate away rudely, only to be reprimanded by the mother-in-law – another cameo from the India of the past.

     

    Says Priyadarshini Narendra, an experienced strategist: “How is this a tough mom, when she doesn’t show the guts to stand up for herself and acts like a doormat? At the end,she needs to be rescued by a man, without his validation, she just standing there looking mulish.  It harks back to the Nirupa Roy trope. Which hopefully we have outgrown.”

     

    Milan Vohra, well known writer, says: “I find the ad regressive. It’s high time they stop glorifying clichés. And why does this woman behave like she’s their tight-lipped maid? Does she need someone else to speak for her? If the whole point was to show she’s a silent tough type maybe she could have had one pithy comment at the end to the bratty beta. Bah!”

     

    So, in many ways what might have been a film made with good intentions seem to have upset a lot of mothers because of the regressive woman stereotype portrayed in the film.

     

    And the big surprise is that the commercial was made by the same agency that did the path breaking #Shareyourloadcommercials for Ariel, which fought for an equal status for women.

     

    The India – Pakistan advertising collaboration

    Another much shared commercial on WhatsApp was the Shan Foods commercial for Peek Freens Cake-up. The ad focuses on two characters; a working mum and her son. The mum religiously fills up the son’s tiffin box with cakeeveryday and there is a letter she puts in the tiffin which attempts to instill the right values in her child.  So far, so good. Yes, it is touching at one level.  And it is a beautifully made film.

     

     

    But after having seen it one can’t but help, come up with some questions.

     

    One mother I showed the ad to said without any hesitation, that at one level the film was saying “I love you so much beta, but I’m a cliched working mum who is never around and therefore I will assuage my guilt by feeding you processed cake with artificial ingredients and sugar EVERYDAY!”.

     

    Of course, having worked on brands like Kellogg’s, which are maniacal about nutrition one can’t help asking the second question. What are the daily nutritional requirements of this cake and is it really wise for a mum to be feeding her child this cake every day?

     

    But at least it portrays the modern mother in Pakistan.  Now take a look at the All-Out portrayal of the Indian mother.  Are mothers in Pakistan more progressive than India?  Or is it just our schizophrenic understanding of what today’s mothers are about?

     

    Indian Print ads – lots of media innovation and no creative innovation

    In the 80s and 90s, Indian print ads moved you. Whatever happened to the print ads of today?  They are so obvious, they don’t make you smile or evoke any emotion at all.  And all the while you are struggling to read your daily newspaper that is so full of media innovations, it’s a struggle to read the paper because it is falling apart with fold-outs.  Or is it that we know how to be creative in English and we know how to be creative in Hindi, but we haven’t quite got around to being creative in Hinglish?

     

    But the KFC ad in the UK brought resurrected the creativity of print advertising. Provoked by a shortage of chicken in all their restaurants, KFC decided to turn the overall consumer disappointment on its head.

     

     

    The ad read “A chicken shop without any chicken. It’s not ideal. Huge apologies to our customers, especially those who travelled out of their way to find we were closed,” the ad reads.

     

    “It’s been a hell of a week, but we’re making progress, and every day more and more fresh chicken is being delivered to our restaurants.”

     

     

    Andrew Bloch, Founder and Group Managing Director of Frank PR called it a ‘master-class in PR crisis management’ on twitter. I can’t help but agree!

     

     

  • Adperson, musician, bicyclist and someone who doesn’t hesitate to speak his mind…. every Thursday on MxMIndia

    Introducing Ad Buzz, a new column by Prabhakar Mundkur

     

    Adperson, musician, bicyclist and someone who doesn’t hesitate to speak his mind…. every Thursday on MxMIndia.

     

    By Prabhakar Mundkur

     

    Prabhakar Mundkur

    The year-end was full of the cacophony of writers making predictions for 2018, or mundane reviews of 2017, in spite of the fact that a calendar year has no particular statistical significance for trend spotting.  Change is always continuous and never separated by any discrete intervals, especially an interval that lasts exactly twelve months. In some ways, 2017 may have just stolen the thunder from 2018, with the strides in artificial intelligence in the form of Sophia the Robot, or personal assistants like Alexa making a major impact in our lives towards the end of the year.

     

    But one bright spot for December was the Lion of St Mark awarded to the much-deserved Pandey brothers.  They have truly raised the bar of creativity to a global standard, besides putting India firmly on the advertising creativity map.   Showering undue adulation on our stars is an Indian trait and we do it constantly with all our stars, whether they are from cinema, sports or any other field.  We may just have added ‘advertising’ to the adulation list.

     

    With this award, Piyush and Prasoon Pandey join an illustrious band of creative people around the world that has included David Droga, Marcello Serpa, Bob Greenburg, Joe Pytka, Lee Clow, Dan Wieden and Sir John Hegarty.  Not everyone might be aware of the work created by these distinguished gentlemen, or even knowwhere they work.The Lion of St Mark is one of those awards that lets the winner soak in humility and pride so deserving of a life time award, which by definition implies that it can only be won once.

     

    St Mark incidentally is the evangelist pictured in the form of a winged Lion holding a Bible and is symbol of the city of Venice where the first Cannes was held in 1954.  But the significance of all this may be lost to many, or otherwisedismissed as unimportant.  At least one of our advertising weeklies, which covered the event exclusively, could well have educated their readers on the significance of the award.

     

    ~~

     

    For the marketing intellectual, the introduction of Thums Up Charged might hold room for an interesting debate.  Variants according to textbook marketers can endow the mother brand with rewards ranging from increased market share to a longer life.  But how does that augur for a category like colas, which is increasingly being seen as unhealthy?  And Thums up Charged might well be dubbed an even unhealthier variant given the extra levels of caffeine and the heightened aeration.  So how will an unhealthier variant of an already unhealthy brand perform?  Of course, to its credit, Thums Up remains the market leader in a market which has the world’s leading colas.  Another point to debate might well be how will the two variants will be differentiated in the advertising.  Will it be differentiated enough for the consumer to know which variant is being advertised or will the consumer just see it as another Thums Up ad? This often is the acid test for variant advertising.

     

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    If the rumour mill is to be believed at least one leading ad agency of earlier years shut down its Delhi office on Dec 31.  What a way to close 2017.  I believe the agency is managing its Mumbai office on skeleton staff.  Another well-known agency that at the turn of the millennium was threatening to hold the creative high ground is being absorbed by another agency in the same communications group.  As an ad guy, I find this kind of news depressing.  Partly because I always questioned the soothsayers and never wanted to believe in the death of advertising that has been a hot topic of discussion for some time now.

     

    For those of us who were celebrating the close of the old year, I am sure this is a week for sobering up and reflecting on what the new year holds for all of us.  The first week of a new year always feels like the end of one journey and the beginning of another.

     

    Having spent nearly four decades in the advertising business with companies like JWT, Havas and Y & R in India, Africa, and Asia, veteran adperson Prabhakar Mundkur is Chief Mentor at HGS Interactive, a part of Hinduja Global Solutions. He was LinkedIn’s Top Voice in India in 2016 and is a prolific writer. He recently set up PrabhakarMundkur.com as homebase for his writings. Ad Buzz will appear weekly on MxMIndia.com. The views here are his own.

     

     

  • Old professions have great survival skills, as the oldest profession in the world has proven to us time and time again, writes Prabhakar Mundkur

    Ad Buzz by Prabhakar Mundkur: Will advertising strike back at consulting cos?

    By Prabhakar Mundkur

     

    Consulting vs Communication Groups

    In a surprise move, Sir Martin Sorrell may have silenced all the critics who have been proclaiming the death of advertising, as consulting companies have been making forays into digital marketing and advertising. Some investment gurus have even been predicting the eventual take-over of the advertising industry by the consulting industry. Kantar, one of the major companies in the WPP group, collapsed four brands – Kantar Added Value, Kantar Futures, Kantar Vermeer and Kantar Retail – into one brand called Kantar Consulting.  Kantar has already informed their clients about the development and hopes to have about a 1000 staff that consists of analysts, thought leaders and software developers.

    Will the others quickly follow suit?  It remains to be seen, but if they do, advertising is certainly striking back. Old professions have great survival skills, as the oldest profession in the world has proven to us time and time again.

     

    Social Media inspires Communication themes

    Earlier, brands took their cues from the news, cinema and other fields. Or used topics like another brand’s major event to take advantage and poke fun at them. Remember in 2017 when BMW celebrated its 100th birthday, how Mercedes acted cheekily with this ad?

    It paid BMW a left-handed compliment to make a point about themselves while overtly congratulating BMW.

    They also went all the way and invited all BMW employees to the Mercedes-Benz Museum “to discover the complete history of the automobile” from March 8 to 13.

    Now all that is changing. The latest source of inspiration is what is trending on social media.  While President Donald Trump’s #nuclearbutton tweet might have fazed political pundits, some brands decided to have some fun with the latest topic of conversation around the world.

    Closer home, Amul Butter has for the last 5 decades always capitalized on what is the current buzz. President Donald Trump’s tweet inspired this hoarding from Amul Butter.

    KFC UK and Ireland decided to get cheeky with McDonald’s on Twitter. Many Americans acknowledged they weren’t even aware that KFC existed in that part of the world until their tweet took Twitter by storm.

     

    Consumer Protection

    When Consumer Affairs Minister introduced a new Consumer Protection Bill in Parliament last week, it might have sent shivers down the Advertising and Entertainment industry in an already cold January.  The bill provided for a fine of INR 50 lakh which of course is unlikely to bother the top celebrities since it represents only a fraction of what they earn through endorsements. What might have seemed to be harsh to them was that celebrities could face up to three years imprisonment for appearing in misleading.  No doubt agents of celebrities would seek clarification on what exactly is misleading advertising.  The Advertising Standards Council of India has already made an offer to advise if an ad is misleading.

    Quite simply, misleading means giving the wrong idea or impression about something. In the case of products, if the claims made in advertising are not honest and truthful, it would mean an advertisement is misleading.  Anyway, the new act is likely to put the brakes on blindly accepting every brand offer that meets the celebrity’s standard fee.  Celebrities are also being careful about how the brand affects their own brand equity.  When Virat Kohli refused to endorse Pepsi last year, he was actually being careful about the repercussions on his own image.

     

    Creativity vs Effectiveness

    The advertising industry celebrated the Effies with their usual revelry. The Effies typically precede the euphoria of getting ready for the Abby’s which are around the corner. The cynics of the creative awards will quote Dave Trott when he famously said “You are not doing advertising for six million people anymore, but for ten people in the jury, and for a few clients”.   While the creative people are centre stage for the creative award, the effectiveness awards are for the ad-fiddlers as Dave Trott labeled our dear planners.

    However, it looks like the old polarity between creativity and effectiveness no longer holds true.  Increasingly I find that it is the creative agency that also wins the Effie.  And often I find that the best campaigns are quite likely to win both the creative awards and the effectiveness awards.  Hopefully it has nothing to do with the same organisation in India conducting both the awards.

     

    Having spent nearly four decades in the advertising business with companies like JWT, Havas and Y & R in India, Africa, and Asia, veteran adperson Prabhakar Mundkur is Chief Mentor at HGS Interactive, a part of Hinduja Global Solutions. He was LinkedIn’s Top Voice in India in 2016 andis a prolific writer. He recently set up PrabhakarMundkur.com as homebase for his writings. Ad Buzz will appear weekly on MxMIndia.com. The views here are his own.

     

     

  • For Patanjali to accept any foreign investment, might be a bit like selling the brand’s soul, given its nationalistic, anti-MNC positioning thus far, writes Prabhakar Mundkur

    Prabhakar Mundkur: Does using the same idiom as someone else make an idea original?

    Prabhakar Mundkur

    By Prabhakar Mundkur

     

    The death of Kapil Mohan,the creator of the Old Monk rum drew a number of memoirs and essays on this iconic brand.  But one particular ad on social media on January 10, became quite popular and went viral.

     

    To me it was an idea made famous by Chivas Regal in their campaign below.

    In a debate with some of my contemporaries, the opinion was divided.  Many felt that it was reminiscent of the old Chivas campaign, but others felt that it was an adage that could well be re-used. One of my friends even questioned whether the ad was legal since it promoted Old Monk rum. (although the word rum was cleverly not used). Another friend raised the issue of the ad being created as speculative work, since it was not approved by Coca-Cola according to the tweet from the agency that created it.

     

    One awardwinning creative director I asked said: “Yes it reminds me of Chivas, but the visual makes up for it”.  Another awardwinning creative director said: “Yes it reminds me of Chivas. I remember it was something like ‘To the host it’s half empty, to the guest, it’s half full’.  However, since it’s an adage, nobody really owns it. Chivas did a fine job of adding a twist while in the Thums Up ad, the art director went for a literal visual depiction of the adage.”

    But I leave you to decide if you think the ad is original and if it needs to be applauded.

     

    Patanjali – LVMH Alliance

    While as a financial proposition it may make some sense, news of the LVMH-Patanjali partnership is as different as chalk and cheese to use a very tired phrase. The L Catterton Equity Fund was set up by LVMH to make investments in high growth companies with consumer brands and is one of the largest funds in the world.

     

    I thought that there might be some major hurdles to overcome especially the brand name itself.

     

    L Catterton Managing Partner, Ravi Thakran told the press that he is keen to explore markets like US, Japan, China, South Korea and Europe for Patanjali. However, the markets he mentions are hardly homogenous. For that matter, even the markets in North East Asia are not homogenous.

     

    The first hurdle for overseas markets could be the name itself – Patanjali. First of all, it is a four-syllable name which is quite uncommon in Asian markets. In addition, the Japanese recognise the foreignness of names both in Katakana and Roman alphabets and the Chinese recognise foreignness whey they see certain Hanzi characters.  And if the foreignness is attributed to Indianess, one is not quite sure what Indianness and Indian products mean in these markets. For most North East Asian markets India is considered both chaotic and mysterious.  The Chinese feel that Indian media is constantly portraying them as evil, which is not going down well with the Chinese.  In addition, in countries like China, the government is officially atheist.  So Babas and Vaids have little cache there. According to a research conducted in 2008, less than 40% of the Japanese population is religious.

     

    Besides, for Patanjali to accept any foreign investment, might be a bit like selling the brand’s soul, given its nationalistic, anti-MNC positioning thus far.

     

    The Art of the Crowd

    Crowd Art is an often-employed ploy by artists and advertisers.  The first great commercial to use crowd art was the British Airways commercial in 1990.  It used thousands of people to create a face which then winked at the audience before dissolving into a Union Jack.

    The recent Mercedes ad re-inforcing their leadership in the Indian market used crowd art to form the three-pointed star which was quite interesting.

    Which brings me back to the question I started with: is using the same idiom as another person but dressed differently, original?  When it comes to art, the question of originality needs some deeper introspection.  Under some conditions it still remains original. To me for example, Bernard Shaw’s famous play Pygmalion had to make a transition from being a play to being a musical when it became My Fair Lady, but for me My Fair Lady is still original.

     

    In general, I like Herman Melville’s view of originality when he ways, “It is better to fail in originality, than succeed in imitation.”

     

     

  • With earnings going south, inflated billings have led clients to doubt even the honest ad agencies, writes Prabhakar Mundkur

    Is Your Ad Agency Cheating on You?

     

    By Prabhakar Mundkur

     

    When the ad agency was on 15% commission there was no need to cheat. Although margins were thin at 3-4%, the ad agency was able to handle its rent, training, staff costs and other overheads and make a decent profit although always much less than their clients. The quality of staff was infinitely better.  When I first started doing the rounds of the IIMs in the late eighties, agencies were not a preferred employer, but it didn’t take long to get there. In the period between 1985-1990, HTA (the erstwhile Wunderman Thompson) hired anywhere between 50-60 young business school graduates every year. And we ran a two-week workshop for them called Entrez Vous typically held at one of the hotels in Marve (in suburban Mumbai). After the training programme, the trainees dispersed to the various offices across the country and formed an incredible buddy network that stood the agency in good stead.

     

    HTA was incredibly honest. I was once hauled up by the CFO of the company because he suspected that I had overcharged a client on a particular job – that I had charged more than the customary 15%. As it turned out, all I had done was charged a service fee for an exhibition in Rajasthan which was legal according to the HTA manual and the service fee I still remember had the billing head B7.  B8 was the production head where the remaining costs for the exhibition were billed like the artwork and the bromides to go over the panels. Exhibitions were charged a service fee because it was highly labour-intensive and if the agency were to just charge for artworks for exhibition panels, the job was highly unprofitable. I had had the client approve the estimate with the service fee and my CFO had to acknowledge that I was both clever and honest!

     

    My first memory of clients being suspicious of agency earnings was when clients started interrogating film production estimates. I would say this was roughly around 1990.  I found myself being grilled on a particular film production estimate. And I couldn’t believe it. A little later, all film production estimates were going through an external film auditor which was a shame for an honest agency like HTA. Later, I discovered that the problem was with one of our competitive agencies, which used to pad up film production estimates to 25% or over while its client contracts specified 15% on both media and production. The client had discovered an anomaly in the other agency’s film production estimate and was naturally suspicious of us as well. I was a little shocked that any agency could charge 25% when all agreements with clients mentioned the standard 15%. This ultimately gave rise to the emergence of the film production services auditor of which there were a few in the country. They matched up agency production estimates with actual market costs and advised clients accordingly. The objective was to discover the hidden padding of the film production estimate.

     

    Come the 1990s and agency earnings were rapidly going south. First the 15% agency commission broke down, and then came the major shock to the ad agency – the separation of the media from the creative business. This actually meant that neither the media nor the creative business was earning like before.

     

    So now it was the media arm’s turn to make a little extra money which was above and beyond the agency contract. In fact, I was once meeting the Chairman of one my largest clients in Asia, to make a very important presentation to him on one of his main competitors. When my Asia Pacific chief heard about my meeting, he at once wanted to accompany me knowing the stature of the client. When I put in a request to the Chairman that my APAC chief wanted to attend the meeting, the man winced. Clearly, he didn’t want to meet my boss. Later, I heard that the Chairman had a grouse against my Asia Pacific Chief because in another Asian country, my agency had not given back the media rebates the agency had earned, which were to be returned to the client as per the client contract. Yes, you guessed it – ultimately the lack of transparency in media rebates gave rise to the media services auditor. It is still difficult to separate ‘co-mingled buys’ that leverage the collective buying power of their clients but aren’t tied to any specific client’s account.

     

    And so, it has carried on for the last 20 years or so. Nothing has changed. A few weeks ago, a prominent up-and-coming and eminently successful CEO was summarily dismissed because he had been caught cheating his clients on film production costs amongst some other accusations. Tinkering with company P&Ls seemed like the lesser sin. A sad end to a promising career. Of course, he was trying to make his agency rich by maintaining margins much larger than his agency had promised the client globally. What could be the motivation? A really honest guy who probably was just trying to bump up his bonuses.

     

    I felt a twinge of sorrow when I heard that story. That is the sad downfall of the advertising agency as I knew it, since I first joined the profession in 1977. But who is to blame? I think the clients are to blame for negotiating terms that are so hard, that agencies are left with no option but to find means of increasing their profit. I blame the agencies for negotiating unrealistic terms with their clients just for the greed of handling their business. And lastly, I blame the agency bosses for laying unrealistic targets on their CEOs. In the process the ad agency seems to have lost its moral compass along with its ability to stay alive as it loses business rapidly to the digital agency of the future. Although, one must add, that digital agencies are not invulnerable. There are already stories of padding up hours for fee-based clients. But I am hoping they survive the future better than their predecessor.

     

    And I also wish agencies – networked and otherwise – relook at the way they conduct their business. Given a significant premium on the marketing spend, transparency is critical in the marketing services business. Clearly there is no room for any monkey business.

     

    Prabhakar Mundkur is a veteran adperson having worked across geographies leading agencies. He is also a prolific writer and recognised by LinkedIn as its #1 Top Voice in 2016. He writes frequently on MxMIndia. His views here are personal

     

     

  • The political ideologies of celebs may now need to be factored in, writes Prabhakar Mundkur

    Will Marketing be forced to take sides?

     

    By Prabhakar Mundkur

     

    We are now truly in the post-truth era of marketing, and as Ralph Keyes aptly puts it, an era of dishonesty and deception. Post-truth marketing might have to follow post-truth politics.

     

    The Wikipedia defines post-truth politics as ‘.. a political culture in which debate is framed largely by appeals to emotion disconnected from the details of policy, and by the repeated assertion of talking points to which factual rebuttals are ignored.’

     

    Brands earlier had to stay neutral to political ideologies in their nations for fear of alienating their consumers.  Will this change in the new decade?  With increased polarisation of political views the world over, when celebrities voice their political opinion or show support for a particular ideology, does it mean the brands they endorse indirectly also belong to the same ideology?

     

    This could be disturbing again for the managers of the brands. Especially if their own ideology is different.

     

    When Deepika Padukone visited the JNU campus recently in support of the students, one can’t help thinking that this might impact the brands that she endorses. It also affects her fans.  If indeed Deepika stands with the JNU students, it could also mean she stands for a particular ideology in which case her fans are likely to be influenced by Deepika’s own attitudes.  So, there is dual effect here: 1. Deepika’s effect on her fans which affect their political ideology, and 2. which affect their choice of the brands that Deepika endorses.

     

    As usual social media was quick to react.  Her support for JNU was seen as enough reason to boycott her movies.  It is difficult to gauge if there is any effect visible or invisible on the brands Deepika endorses.

     

    Source: Twitter.com

     

    Deepika had already shot a commercial for the Skill India ministry but after her JNU visit the video has been put on hold because of the clash of ideology with the government.

     

    Last week, things got worse for poor Deepika when the Union Minister for Women and Child Development, Smriti Irani, criticised Bollywood icon Deepika Padukone for visiting the Jawaharlal Nehru University to express solidarity with the protesting students.  Said Irani: “It was not unexpected to us that she was going to stand with people who want the destruction of India. She sided with people who hit girls on their private parts with lathis. I can’t deny her that right. She made her political affiliation known in 2011 that she supports the Congress Party. If people are surprised by this, it is because they didn’t know. There were a lot of admirers of hers who have just discovered her position.” 

     

    Implications for brands 

    The usual parameters to determine the choice of a celebrity for a brand has always been earnings, fame and social media reach.  Are we at the beginning of a decade where we may have to consider the political ideology of the celebrity? It may well be, as we move to a more polarised world, and as populations divide roughly into halves, rather than a majority or minority for a particular belief. I am referring of course to the most historic votes of the last decade.  Brexit was 52:48 for exiting the European Union. The NDA won 45% of the country’s votes. And Donald Trump won 46.1% of the vote.

     

    The political ideology of the celebrity is something that marketers never bothered about.  But now it may be something that needs to be factored, in the new decade.

     

    Marketing then might be forced to take sides in the future.

  • We need to take both social media and mainstream media with the proverbial pinch of salt and it may not always be a correct barometer of public opinion, writes Prabhakar Mundkur

    Prabhakar Mundkur: Does Media truly reflect Public Opinion?

    By Prabhakar Mundkur

     

    When one says ‘media’ today, the focus somehow falls on social media and particularly twitter which represents the social media headlines of the day. But twitter might be responsible for distorting public opinion more than any other medium. This is because as the Pew Research showed, Twitter might be at odds with public opinion.

     

    This is because it is largely the opinion of the most vocal minority. This is obviously also the voice of who we regard as the influencer with a large following. Especially in India this could be even more pronounced. Our TV news readers for example are well-known for shouting down the public’s opinion when they shout down people who they have invited for their show. However it is not always the loudest voice that represents the voice of the public. Especially as societies become polarised, the public is often worried about expressing their opinion at all for fear that they might be politically and socially ostracised. Political twitter therefore might be even more unrepresentative of the public opinion than any other subject on twitter. What makes Twitter even more unreliable is the fact that it is infected with bots and trolls that may not be representative of the way we live our lives generally.

     

    Bots and Trolls

     

    The other day I saw a particular twitter handle that was dishing out malicious content meant to separate the multicultural nature of Indian society. On looking closer I noticed that the user had joined twitter only in December 2019, and in a few weeks had gathered more than 13,000 followers. The name was fairly anonymous although the picture of the twitter handle sported the Indian Prime Minister. You may think this is a sample of one but there is little doubt that there are several accounts like these that we may take as representative of the truth.

     

     

    Twitter and Mob Anger

     

    Outraged mobs on twitter follow all the behaviour patterns of real mobs on the street. Mob anger can be strange, pathological and monstrous. Behaviour of a larger group is known to have a big influence on individual behaviours and have been an area of interest in social psychology for years. Psychologists have found that group behaviour tends to be more extreme and amplifies the typical behaviour of its individual members. Mobs are known for losing their self-awareness. Sociologists refer to the process as de-individuation where individual personalities become dominated by the collective mindset of the crowd. Gustave Le Bon an early explorer of this phenomenon viewed crowd behaviour as “unanimous, emotional, and intellectually weak”. And twitter expresses mob anger much better than any other social medium.

     

    What about mainstream Media?

     

    So if social media and twitter is particularly unrepresentative of public opinion what about mass media? Typically mass media happens to be divided into the left and right ideologies, often but not always reflective of the owner of the medium. For example, if the media owner is a representative of the government in power, it is most likely that a TV channel or newspaper owned by such a person would be fiercely supportive of the government’s actions. And of course, vice versa. So what you might be consuming might often be a function of whether this is a ‘right’ or ‘left’ publication or TV channel. Whichever it is you can be assured that there is a built in bias in the medium’s point of view.

     

    It is always difficult to tell whether media is telling a story people are interested in or if they are manufacturing public concern.

     

    I quote from one Pew Research that said

     

    ‘Survey data from the Pew Research Center for the People & The Press reveals that public interest in the economy — going back to 2007 — has consistently been at a significantly higher level than the media coverage of the story. From August 2007 through the end of that year, for instance, about a quarter of Americans were paying very close attention the economy. That represents a fairly modest level of concern about that subject. Yet it still outstripped media interest. In that period, the economy and energy prices combined accounted for 4% of the newshole, making it the fifth largest news story.’

     

    It is quite possible that it is the same in the India at the current moment. Economy might be our greatest concern, but media content might not necessarily recognise that. Unless of course NRC and CAC represent even a larger concern. One can’t be quite sure.

     

    In conclusion, we need to take both social media and mainstream media with the proverbial pinch of salt. It may not always be a correct barometer of public opinion. Although I am sure it is a big influencer on people. But often the silent majority never expresses a point of view.

     

    Malcolm X famously said ‘ The newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing’.

     

    Prabhakar Mundkur is a veteran mediaperson and commentator. You can reach him via LinkedIn

  • Advertisers might want to give the IPL a better shot, writes Prabhakar Mundkur

    Is Super Bowl the American version of IPL?

     

     

    By Prabhakar Mundkur

     

    The Super Bowl represents the most prestigious marketing event of the year. Which is why it draws so many specially made commercials and each has an aura around it.  Everyone is watching the Super Bowl so marketers almost think that they will be judged by the quality of their advertising.   It is also a great place for peer comparison, so how good the advertising is a matter of company prestige as well. It is also the day when the second largest food consumption happens in the US.

     

    Ticket prices normally hit the roof.  This year the cheapest ticket was priced at $4308 with the most expensive ticket going for $385,000.  And the most expensive 30 second commercial this year cost $ 5.6 million. In comparison a 30 second commercial cost Rs. 18 lakh on IPL.  While both are league games one has to remember that the Super Bowl is a one-day show, while the IPL lasts 6-7 weeks, so it is almost like a season.

     

    One difference I have noticed between the IPL and Super Bowl is that while the IPL is likely to have a lot of cricket stars in their advertising, the Super Bowl has a wide array of celebrities from TV, Hollywood and other sports, or in other words not just football stars.

     

    For example, take a look at the Amazon ad for this year’s Super Bowl starring Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi, where they wonder what the world might be before Alexa.

     

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RF9t2rFmTVE

     

    The Google Ad for this year’s Super Bowl was quite a tear jerker.  I couldn’t help shedding a few tears for Loretta.

     

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xSxXiHwMrg

     

    Social psychologists refer to two kinds of reactions from sports fans. For those of you who might describe the Indian fans as fickle, the reactions of Indian fans are in line with the global experience.  BIRGing which stands ‘basking in reflected glory’ typically happens when the home team wins and people start feel better about themselves. They will often say “we won”, that’s how closely they identify with the home team.

     

    CORFing (or Cutting Off Reflected Failure) and BIRGing happens at the Super Bowl as well just like it happens at IPL.  This is evident when people use the third person and when Patriot fans say “They couldn’t stop Denver”.  Of course, because the Super Bowl is just a 4-hour game including the break and advertising, the effects of BIRGing and CORFing doesn’t last as long as say the IPL does which is a tournament that lasts 6-7 weeks.

     

    The Super Bowl boasted of a 48% female viewership and in 2019 had an audience of 98.2 million people. IPL has a male viewership skew 58-59% with females at 41-42% which is not so bad.How does the Super Bowl advertising compare with the IPL?  Many marketing experts I spoke to felt that the advertising on the IPL didn’t feel as special.  While many ads are created especially for the IPL, some are extensions of regular campaigns. Certainly, the ads have a lot of cricket celebrities.

     

    David Warschawski, CEO and Founder of Warschawski the integrated ad agency, said in a 2016 article in Adweek “America has a love affair with Super Bowl advertising.”  Would we say that we have a love affair with IPL advertising? I am not so sure, but maybe we are getting there. But we are in love with cricket and if the same passion was translated to its advertising, we might just push the bar a little up from where it is now.

     

    With the Star Re-imagine awards to reward creativity for ads aired in the IPL, advertisers might want to give the IPL a better shot.

     

     

  • The winning and losing outcomes are completely secondary to the teaching of valuable life lessons, writes Prabhakar Mundkur

    Leadership Lessons from Sports Coaches

     

    By Prabhakar Mundkur

     

    It might not be a coincidence that we use sports terminology in everyday management in our companies. We talk about a ‘pitch’, to a client, or we ask ourselves what is the ‘gameplan’ or when appropriate we say someone ‘dropped the ball’ when we see an error of judgment. Obviously, there is a lot to learn from the field of sports management.

    And interesting area of sport management are the  sports coaches themselves and their style of team management. For example, if we were to look at some of our past coaches for the Indian cricket team, there might be one crucial difference between Anil Kumble and Ravi Shastri when it comes to evaluating coaches. And that is the question of ‘who is the boss?’ Kumble thought he was the boss, but Shastri thinks it is the captain of the team that is the boss.

    If press reports are to believed, Kumble’s pep talk after losing the Champions Trophy final against Pakistan didn’t go down well with the team which might have led to his final ouster. Although Kumble was not rude, he is supposed to have mentioned how wides and no-balls cost India dear and how the bowlers were not able to execute their game plan. While Kohli might have agreed with Kumble on how the team could have done better, he is known to have gone on to give a positive spin with his Captain’s pep talk by mentioning how the team played well to reach the final.

    In many ways, Kolhi acted like many leaders. Point out the mistakes to the team, but make sure that the team is not demotivated for future games and spur them on to do better in the future.

    Paul Barron, goalkeeping coach at Newcastle United, is an advocate of relationship coaching and once described his philosophy as

    :: They forget what you say to them.

    :: They forget what you do with them.

    :: But they never forget how you made them feel!

     

    So, perhaps, it is not just about Kumble said, but it is about how he made them feel. And obviously he didn’t make them feel good after the defeat in the Champions Trophy. Relationship coaching is about coaches connecting with their players, getting to the real pulse of the team, and releasing a powerful collective emotional energy. This very often is the edge that allows teams to survive the bad times and go on to remarkable achievements.

    Athlete-coach wars have been on as long as one can remember. Andy Murray for example re-hired Ivan Lendl after the pair decided to call it quits.

    If there are no codes of conduct formulated to protect coaches and athletes, then there is risk of a breach in the athlete-coach relationship. So if some of the reports in the press are to believe about Kumble and Kohli falling apart because of a discipline issue, or because Kumble wouldn’t let the players go out shopping for example, this is a fault of not laying down an athlete-coach code. The code in this case would have determined who was wrong and who was right.

    Coaches all desire strong team discipline, but do we really understand what that means? Are we willing to do what it takes? Athletes also crave discipline. They crave rules and boundaries regardless of how they may rail against them. Structure and a set of team rules, lets them know exactly what is acceptable and what is not for all aspects of team membership.

    You’re NOT a good coach when you call an athlete out in front of the team and tell that athlete, “You absolutely suck! The questions this raises is

    Does it motivate an individual to want to work even harder to improve?

    Does it help that individual to feel good about themselves?

    It;s very much the same in an office atmosphere.

    Shastri plays it right when he pats the team on the back when the team wins. A win is a win and needs to be celebrated and is a strong motivation to keep winning.

    According to various individuals from the BCCI and CAC as well as the committee of administrators, one big point of difference between Kohli and Kumble was who was the boss.

    Shastri is more than happy to let the captain take charge. “It’s always the captain’s team and it is the leader who calls the shots. That’s how it has always worked. A coach’s role, effectively speaking, is to stay in the background and let the onus be on the players. The coach and support staff’s role is to get the players in the most brilliant frame of mind to execute things and if done effectively, it brings enjoyment to the player’s game.”

    You’re NOT a good coach if you think that your most important job as a coach is to win games. If winning is the primary goal as a coach, he may have significantly lost his way and as a consequence, he might actually win less! The mission of a coach is to teach the team and help them grow as individuals so that they become better people in the world, both on and off the field. Good coaches teach their athletes how to be better people in the world and they use their sport as nothing more than a vehicle for this teaching. The winning and losing outcomes are completely secondary to the teaching of valuable life lessons.