Ads of Lockdown and the need for going back to basics

It is now a known fact, that the pandemic has severely hit a lot of industries. The collateral damage of this situation has been the marketing and advertising services. Goes without saying that in times of crisis the easiest stopgap measure is to cut down on marketing. As much as this function serves as an essential growth driver it is also one of the bigger expenses for any consumer-oriented business.

Most brands that I have spoken to have drastically cut down their marketing spends as much as 90%. A lot of them are renegotiating their long term contracts with celebrities and agencies as well.

Marketing and Advertising won’t just be at a temporary halt but like every other business, it will also have to reinvent itself to survive in a COVID world. We can already see signs of some brands having a dedicated - safety, health and, hygiene content charter as a part of their basic communication.

In the past, we were often wowed by good-looking advertising that involved either top directors or celebrities or locations, shot with equipment that would only be slightly less than the one being used in any decent size Bollywood movie production. The whole process involved a brief, concept, scripting, testing, pre-production meetings, casting, location recce, styling and a lot more.

This, however, is set to witness a massive change. Not only, will the importance of aesthetics and the pressure for the ad to look “high quality” will be slightly compromised but production budgets overall will undergo a lot of slashing. The focus will go back on simple messaging and easy execution.

Any basic low budget ad shoot requires a minimum of 20–30 people on set in close quarters. With social distancing here to stay for some time, it will become interesting to see how brands and advertising agencies come together to create engaging branded content without the usual shebang that goes in making of larger than life ads.

While brands have to rethink on a lot of marketing and communication basics indexing more on safety, simplicity, authenticity, value and, convenience. Brand marketing partners like advertising and production agencies will have to rethink on how not to get bogged down by mobility challenges and focus on how a good idea does not need a multi-million production budget for it to land correctly.

Given the above context, in my opinion, the checklist for brands to evaluate all future communication will have to be as follows.

Influencer led

I am not talking about onboarding hundreds of them and asking them to post a template message with certain hashtags. In the middle of all the cringe that gets floated around for eyeballs, I do feel some of the best creative work that you see on TikTok, Youtube and, Instagram comes from these influencers. They understand the platform, they get the audience and they excel at execution. Brands ought to leverage their talent and flair for content that works on those platforms and it might just save millions.

Authentic and Pragmatic

We’ve spoken enough about the need for brands to behave and sound like humans and this will be important more than ever now. Customers would constantly look out for reassuring, easy to understand, basic brands who are not pretending either to be more than what they actually are or are claiming to be their larger purpose is to do anything other than making life easier for people by charging a certain fee for their product or service.

The below remains the best example of no-nonsense 100% pure product marketing campaign executed without the requirement of going “on set”

The only call sheet was a clear brief on why this works.

Many people will question the rationale behind paying for brand reputation. This quarantine has rationalized the human mind to an extent that marketers will now find it difficult to get their customers to behave like irrationally. The marketing strategies will need to be completely rehashed to adapt to the new mindset. Mere reputation will not work — Source : ET Brand Equity

Real-world and Insightful

For any communication to hit hard, it either has to be backed by a massive media push, or by a product that sells itself or a very strong insight. If you have all three you’re living in a marketer’s dream world.

If not, the most basic as a marketer you need to have is a relatable insight. Especially today as we all question our own reasons of existence, any brand that fails to convince that it truly is a small part of consumer’s larger puzzle, it won’t be able to occupy a space in the “Essentials Only” thematic jigsaw that we have started living in.

Safe and Convenient

This will be the most uncompromised communication theme across. As obvious as it may sound but just communicating this in a right and reassuring way, especially for offline businesses, might result in increasing the consideration set.

The examples below corroborate my points above that an ad can be equally effective with all the mobility, location and budget constraints when dealt with the right insight and simple message.

Gatorade — Workout From Home

How do you make an energy drink strongly associated with outdoor sports? Gatorade was quick to understand the other full form of WFH and capitalized on it. However, still unsure if it increases the consideration set or unlocks a new use case but it’s a step in the right direction and a great usage of the brand ambassador.

wakefit — Open Letters

I have been a great admirer of all of wakefit’s previous marketing campaigns. It truly is becoming a challenger brand in the mattress space with it’s no-nonsense communication or even no-jargon communication. It communicates simply about having a night of better sleep and this piece of communication is exactly that.

Nike — Play for the World

Expect Nike to always be relevant and consistent with its brand message. Goes to show the elasticity and adaptability of the brand thought even when it does not have the athletes or big production budget to support. Also proves that message, insight, relevance can make an ad with stock footage an award-winning one.

Asian paints — Har Ghar Kuch Kehta Hai v2

Quite often brand marketers get bored with their own ideas even before the audience fatigue sets in. Here is Asian Paints showing one such example of falling back on “Har Ghar Kuch Kehta Hai” line and coming out with flying colours on a tried and tested formula.

Kempegowda International Airport — Bengaluru

This is a surprise feature in the list because I was moved with the right amount of emotional and practical messaging that went behind the making of this video. It does a great job of reassuring and does not over-dramatize the comeback. The copy is simple avoiding any heavy words of philosophy. For any brand looking to talk about safety in their physical presence, this should serve as a good template.

Vedantu — Keep Learning

This truly is a golden period for edtech. Millions of parents and kids stuck at home with each other with no complains of latter only interested in playing outside or the former having no time from the busy schedule. Although the messaging is very similar to what Byju’s does, this video was shot without actually shooting it by Bluebot.

Vodafone — Friendship Uninterrupted

Vodafone’s network might be struggling but not in this particular communication. The ad looks super low budget, shot on phone, in one building complex but still manages to strike a chord.

Cadbury Dairy Milk

Years ago Dairy Milk cracked this beautiful line with Amitabh Bacchan as the lead protagonist. As mentioned above, simply by revisiting proven concepts and reimagining in today’s world can do wonders for the brand that has often concentrated and struggled to say the same thing in different ways.

Licious — Ghar Baithe Baat Badal Do

Featuring this here only to appreciate the putting together of heartwarming home-made footage but unfortunately, the overall ad does absolutely nothing for the brand. The message feels convoluted with no call-to-action. A brand like Licious should double down its communication on safety, hygiene, health, quality and the recent bias against non-vegetarian food. Don’t know how the line or campaign “Ghar Baithe, Baat Badal Do” helps the brand in any way other than being a generic “Public Service Announcement”

Apple — Creativity goes on

The messaging isn’t that great but it still stays true to the category that people using their mobile phones more than ever to record and preserve memories. This is also in-line with Apple’s original campaigns of pasting billboards with user pictures that say “Shot on iPhone”

Creating home videos with iPhone and then creating an ad to serve 3.5 million views again proves that basic messaging will supersede the production value of any communication going forward.

What do we know? What have we learnt?

• If there is an urgent need and relevance for your product or service then prepare your team and your marketing partners to concentrate on simple, direct messaging and remote execution. You might hear it’s not possible, but there are enough examples above that say it is.
• Leverage originality and creativity of influencers to create content that is engaging and impactful.
• Make safety and hygiene as your communication DNA
• Revisit all the older ads or previous footage or stock images and footage to see if you can still make something out of it to communicate at the very basic
• Don’t try to be too heady, superficial or philosophical in your communication and instead try to be as close to the ground reality and deliver your intended message with as much pragmatism as possible