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ADVERTISING,
HUMOUR
Jest
Does It
The war
for marketshares takes a funny turn as a growing number of advertisers
embrace humour in an effort to broaden the appeal of products and tickle
their sales graphs up
By
Robin Abreu
Advertising
is no laughing matter. But try telling our admen that. Switch on the television,
leaf through myriad magazines and newspapers, glance at the hoardings.
More likely than not, they will force a smile on your face. The creative
people in ad agencies are clutching hard at the Rosetta Stone that demystifies
the way into a consumer's mind: humour. And it's not slapstick nonsense.
Advertisements today reflect a wry, even subtle, sense of humour, one
that doesn't restrain them from poking fun at the products they are selling.
Why otherwise would Cyrus Broacha, the long-suffering hero of Pepsi's
latest commercials, keep on whining, "Mera number kab ayega?"
Does the cola hope to sell more when the bonanza never seems to materialise?
It probably
does. Because the ad's hero never seems to win, because the underdog touches
a chord in people, mostly because he is funny. And many other products
are going the same way. Take Shaw Wallace's spot for its new beer, Hi
Five. It was released during the recent Euro 2000 football championship
and creates the palpable tension of a penalty shootout. After a rather
inept attempt at finding the post, the player is urged by a portly beer-guzzling
fan to take a swig of lager. A wobbly run-in, a fall, but the alcohol-inspired
player in the end manages to push the ball past the bewildered goalkeeper.
Mission accomplished-not because beer makes for sporting prowess but because
it really doesn't. It's the new twist in the tale.
Most admen
would have sniggered at the concept of such a "funny" TV commercial
not too long ago. Now, the Hi Five ad is just one of a slew of similar
others that point to a growing realisation among creative directors that
humour sells. From dotcoms to adhesives to emollients, wacky is the operative
word. What if you have to take an autorickshaw to Buckingham Palace or
Bengal gram to Wimbledon, as Indya.com did in its ads. "Humour, whether
in advertising or in normal day-to-day life, helps in establishing a relationship
quickly," says Nikhil Rungta, product manager Shaw Wallace &
Company Ltd.
"We
wanted people to look at themselves, analyse themselves, and say at the
end of any bad day that there is always optimism," says Vibha Rishi,
senior vice-president (marketing) of Pepsi India, of Broacha's travails.
"Laugh and it will get better because you never know when your number
will come." Now this is advice that the commercial makers are themselves
taking seriously. Laugh and your number must come.
And be a
little subtle. There's no need for an iconic penguin to warble, "It's
the coolest one." Just take actress Tabu, like Samsung did for its
refrigerators, give her a mother-in-law who expects vegetables be bought
every day and let her fob off the week-old stuff from her fridge as grocer-fresh.
The mother-in-law smiles, the consumer smiles. So does Samsung-it has
made the point its rival wanted to make without using as many words. "What
the advertisers are trying to say is that life's problems can always be
dealt with with a smile," explains B. Chandran, senior brand manager
(detergents), Hindustan Lever Limited. Who says Indians don't have a sense
of humour?
Fevicol,
from the land that sends humorists into early retirement, even outdid
the funsters from the West. In Paris recently, one of the commercials
from its outstandingly funny series won an award at the congregation of
the ad world. The winning spot is not so on-your-nose straight. It shows
a carpenter working in an electronics showroom. On the TV, a movie scene
is being played out, complete with the hero clutching the hands of the
heroine, who is herself hanging precariously from a suspension bridge.
As boringly long as Bollywood death scenes go, it is only when the carpenter
picks up the adhesive from the top of the TV set that the grips loosen
and the hero plunges to his death. The era of "it fixes everything
except broken hearts" is clearly over.
more...The
Logic Behind The Laughter
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