Year 2000: The chocolate ad: the girl opens the chocolate cover, puts it in her mouth and umm, a whirlpool of chocolate flowing in the television and the audience gape out apparently submerged with the thought of them having the same experience. The basic ad.
Year 2007: The ‘Mentos’ ad: a guy comes late to class and is thrown out. He has one ‘Mentos’ and becomes intelligent and innovative. He finally succeeds in fooling the teacher. It forces a smile on the faces of the audience. The latest ad.
The basic ad which gives a brief description about the product and how it works no longer appeals to the people. The latest ad which has nothing to do with the product appeals more to the intelligent audience. But WHY??
The answer lies in the word ‘Differentiation’. This is an age where innovation and differentiation is the key to any body’s success. There came a time when every other company was using the same jargon of “our product improves this and this in you…” and it started irking the customers. The rush of many players into every field made it impossible to decide on a product by looking at an ad alone. Gone are the days when models and actors will hold the product in their hands and the ad is done. Companies started having one-liners for their products then. The attractive one-liners with a 'hum'able tune captured the young student minds at least. But still something was missing. Some companies were smart enough to realize this and thus we have a plethora of innovative ads lined up every time we tune in. A few examples would exemplify this more.
‘Lays’ was a product which had monopolized the market till last year. ITC wanted to come in but it was almost impossible to capture any space. The only way to compete with ‘Lays’, leave alone overtake, was to through extensive publicity and innovative ads. The product was named ‘Bingo’ and the ads were an absolute nonsense to say the least. It had nothing to do with the product and it made no sense. Except that it got the attention of the audience through its unique bold style. Now we see the product being lined up in every store and it is doing some brisk business although still ‘Lays’ is the leader.
‘Mentos’ is the leader when it comes to making innovative ads. The one about the teacher mentioned above captured everyone’s attention. The ad about a guy missing everything in darts and finally being made to throw daggers at a person makes use of the scientific principle of NOT in a funny way. All that these ads achieve is to get the name of product registered in the minds of the audience and make them try the product when they see it in supermarkets.
The following personal local example is something I wish to share with you all. When I was “girl-friending” a couple of weeks back, ‘madam’ wanted to go to a restaurant named ‘Mclaurens’ in Trichy town. Her friends had tried the restaurant and apparently found it good. We asked the locals and no one had any idea about it. We tried with the autowalas, the shopkeepers and literally everyone. We gave up finally and went inside a restaurant which was named ‘Namma Vidu’ as it looked good. To our surprise or say shock, it was the same restaurant we had intended to visit except that it had two names: ‘Namma Vidu’, a tamizh name for the surrounding locals and ‘Mclaurens’, a funky name for college students!
The message is simple and clear. For all those who want to be noticed and be successful, just ‘BE DIFFERENT’!!
