From where I stand, the best advertisement for anything is that which does not advertise the product too much. Think about the old man singing about his ‘shararat’ for Bajaj light bulbs, or about the beautiful ‘Vimla ji’ with her ‘parkhi nazar’ for Nirma Super washing powder or about the gets-stuck-in-the-head jingle for ECE bulbs.
Till date, if someone says ‘bhool na jana’ in front of me, I have to stifle the urge to say ‘ECE bulb lana’. That’s what I am talking about! Advertisement with a connection, with a cache, with a heart.
On the other hand, with the advent of motion picture technology, the ad world has benefitted immensely through the ages. It is fair to say that it is because of the gimmicks available to the ad world that some advertisements have now become a household name. Akshay Kumar’s antics for a bottle of Thumbs up can hardly be forgotten. The incredibly funny ads for Vodafone with their alien-white ‘Zoo zoos’ and their little stories were a rage.
They had t-shirts, wrist bands and apps coming out and being endorsed by just everyone. And then we have had the endearing personifications of many animals and cartoons talking to us about dental hygiene, play schools, clothes, shoes, chewing gum, potato chips and fried snacks (I love Meer cat!) and many other consumer products. Interestingly, both these categories of advertisements I have just discussed have one thing in common – they stick. They stick to the memory, they stick to the tongue and they stick when we go to buy things.
They also stick when we log on and are prompted to participate in a random survey about ads and when we vote for the best TV ad and the best print ad. Keeping in mind this peculiar an essential feature of an advertisement, I choose to talk about an ad that fulfils both these categories in full and then some.
You take a song from the 60s, stop motion semi-animation and a big brand that doesn’t take long to register and you are good to go. The song is ‘Wouldn’t it be nice’ (tell me it didn’t just ping in your mind and that you are not half-singing it already) by the Beach Boys from their 1966 album Pet Sounds and it has been reinterpreted (much to some fans’ chagrin) by Italian musician Tiziano Lamberti for the new ad for the ‘BlueMotion’ technology being promoted for their cars by Volkswagen.
Running for 1:02 minutes, the ‘Blue Symphony’ from the ‘Think Blue’ campaign is addictive, noteworthy and reminiscent of simpler times and happier melodies for those of us who took pleasure in listening to the Beach Boys back in the day.
The advertisement itself is a semi-animated run showing only the hands of an artist drawing the entire series of the VW cars set with BlueMotion technology and how they have come far in the development of this fuel-efficient concept. Cars like Passat and Bulli feature in the ad as the ‘drawing hands’ go on creating various scenes and milestones of the company’s success with the technology, while the Lamberti serenades with lines from the chirpy song in his slightly Italian-English accent with stretched syllables.
There are two very strong aspects where the ad wins brownie points. Aside from being the right length for a commercial and not being too loud, too talkative, too in your face or too emotional, it does not advertise any one car but advertises the series without really showing the series and on top of that, it really only talks about the BlueMotion technology, a take on advertising that not many brands have given heed to.
My point is, when you are a presence in the market like Volkswagen is, you don’t always need to be on all fours, waxing your eyebrows and shining your nails and doing tricks to attract customers. In fact, you need to do just the opposite of that, play it cool and talk about the other interesting features of your production for a change. It is like saying to your customer that you trust them enough to take them for granted just long enough to exhibit your other important features and convince them that they have been making the right choice to go with you.
Another way of looking at it is that VW may be playing it very smart by speaking to the environmentally aware side of their existing and potential clientele by tapping into the very green market of green production, especially in cars. Either way, it would be nice to think blue every once in a while, and knowing that you did a little bit for nature this time.
As far as the effect of the ad is concerned, I think it is as subjective as anything subject to individual taste will be. We live in a country where ads like ‘Dillogical’ for Lays has the same number of fans as does the campaign for ‘heart care’ by Apollo Munich does. Do they have the same audience? I highly doubt it.
Even so, with a populace that goes into extremes of literacy and ignorance, it is almost impossible to chart the patterns of advertisement preference nationally. I will, however, say that for a company that takes criticism and compliment standing up and does not immediately launch itself into an apologetic (or unapologetic, for that matter) stance regarding their technology, product or even ad-campaigns, the Volkswagen automatically comes in the top-tier of good advertising on television and print media today. I am not surprised. Think back to the 60s, the first crest of print media and the ad for Volkswagen Beetle. Lemon.
Karishma Gaur
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Image Source [http://fleettimes.co.uk/sites/default/files/images/Mega-phone-600.png]
