 | | PICTURE SPEAK | |  | | AFFIRMATIVE: The IFFCO-TOKIO campaign approached fear positively; | | Until a few years ago, insurance commercials in India usually showed a white-washed, teary-eyed widow heaving a sigh of relief as her daughter's wedding car drove away into the sunset. Soon after which she extolled the virtues of insurance "in times of need" (read: death) in a matronly manner. The result: a big yawn and switch to another channel. So when insurance heavyweight IFFCO-TOKIO embarked on a three-year brand plan late last year, CEO Ajit Narain gave a three-word brief to his advertising agency Dentsu Marcom: project fear positively. "We wanted to sell insurance slickly," says Narain. Tired of the ennui that exaggeration creates, Dentsu Marcom's Executive Creative Director Nitin Suri and copy writer Chraneeta Mann set out to chart a "realistic" route for the brand. "We created a clutter-breaking commercial that shows insurance as a friend and not a product people should be wary of." After scratching out every "stereotypical fantasy-based" plot, the duo created a series of commercials with a wry take on karma. "We focussed on the fear factor by using situations from people's lives," explain Suri and Mann. Superstition and satire played a starring role in many of the brand's campaigns. One of the campaigns showed a lone mapless tourist stuck on a lost highway only to find the street signs twisting with the wind. It proved that having the brand on your speed dial might just be a vital backup for life. So does this mean that reality has now become one of the most sought after tools for changing India's consumerist canvas? Till recently, the concept of realistic advertising on TV was considered, well, a fantasy. In the past, most commercials were dictated by hyperbolic situations and random opulence and propositioned by star power which made products seem like a distant probability. Given the Indian consumer's passion for larger than life images, companies will continue to use logic-defying commercials. But as the economy evolves so will advertising. Swapan Seth, CEO of Equus Red Cell, agrees: "Advertising borrows from real life." He recently worked on Matrix Cellular's international roaming card campaigns. By using the phone-a-friend instance from Kaun Banega Crorepati in London to answering a pestering telemarketing call in Venice, the ads take a comic look at life. "We wanted to reach out to executives. Aspiration becomes achievable when realism is used," says Seth. | | PICTURE SPEAK | |  | | FOR REAL: The Matrix Cellular | | Piyush Pandey, national creative director of Ogilvy and Mather (O&M), has been a tireless champion of this down-to-earth diktat. Often picking elements from his own backyard, Pandey paraded the vibrancy of Rajasthan in his award winning Fevicol commercials. But what has got the industry talking is O&M spicing up the dowdy image of the State Bank of India (SBI). To create a buzz around the brand, Pandey and his team used bets as part of the campaign to clarify the SBI's services. So there are ads that show a lady eating chillies at a restaurant or an executive turning up to work in a suit and boxers when they lose a bet on the availability of the bank's products. "The commercials have a humourous spin so that they appeal to the youth," says Pandey. SBI is not complaining. "Our bank has become a busy brand in the sector as there have been several queries at our call centres. Footfalls have also increased substantially," says a spokesperson for SBI. ABN AMRO too has resorted to a straightforward style. Its ad captured the essence of the bond that people forge with their personal bankers. Sujit Das, creative director of Publicis, who worked on the brand, says, "Clients want to attract the masses with a tone that appeals to them." It has worked. Nitin Chopra, ABN AMRO's executive vice-president, says, "The commercial made the audience favourably predisposed towards our new sales approach." Consumers too need a clear filtration of ideas. "Sometimes realism and exaggeration can work well while selling candies," says Prasoon Joshi, regional creative director of McCann-Erickson. To launch the toffee brand Alpenlibe in India, one of the campaigns showed the mischievous side of a grandmother when she tricks the family with her silence until a child gives her an Alpenlibe. Sameer Suneja, head of marketing at Perfetti, says, "Realism is often used as a backdrop to elicit an instant reaction from children." Even as this transition towards providing commercials with insight seems to be working, clients and the advertising industry are still cagey about figures. The word on the street is often about the "visibility of the product" rather than financial gains. Clever, witty and instantly relatable, these campaigns reflect the emergence of a new, confident Indian sensibility. "It's a healthy sign that the advertising industry is waking up to a more mature manner of selling a product," says Pandey. This blend of nuances that comprises furious ambition and intelligent compromise between reality and fantasy seems to be working for now. But it's also important that Indian advertising does not succumb to delusions of adequacy.
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