Becoming better than the best  ( June '14,2001, HBL)

This refers to your answer in Catalyst dated 24th May 2001, on `Pester Power' and how marketers and advertisers are using this `Power' to sell their products. You also mentioned in passing that `Consumer activists have been fighting this on ethical grounds' in several countries. I have been doing something similar. Though not fighting I have been lecturing on this regularly. I would like to go one step further and do something more concrete about `advertising to children' in India and to make advertisers and clients more aware and conscious of the ethical issues involved. Can you suggest what else I could do? Let us remember, today it is someone else's child. Tomorrow it could be ours.

Speaking at the Brand Equity Global Masterclass Convention in Mumbai, last week, Andy Law, Chairman of St. Luke's Communication, London is reported to have said that ``Ninety-five per cent of all advertising is crap. Creative departments should be renamed Crap departments.'' Don't you think it is too harsh a statement? V. Chandrashekhar, Visiting faculty, LIBA (Chennai)


I have two new questions from Chandrashekhar this week. The first question is more in the form of a comment. My response to his comment is that there are several safeguards already built into the current system to prevent any ill-effects of advertising on our children. I do not think anything more needs be done in this area.


Andy Law's comment made at the advertising awards function held by the Advertising Club in Mumbai has been well publicised. (Indeed, if Law repeated this particular comment at the Brand Equity Global Masterclass Convention in Mumbai, he is guilty of making the same comment twice.)


I have said, all too often, that more than nine out of 10 advertisements I have seen are do not appear to meet their basic objective in selling the brand being advertised. Indeed, the more I see advertising, from some of our best known advertising agencies, on our television channels, in newspapers and magazines and even on hoardings, the more I feel that the intended commercial communication is neither commercial nor a communication.


In an analysis I had done some time ago, I had evaluated all advertisements which had won advertising awards at the most prestigious ceremonies held in the country. This analysis showed, that over a period of nearly 20 years, only two of the advertisements supported brands of any importance and quality in their respective market. Most of the brands whose advertising had won awards did not have a life of more than two years after they had won the award.


I do not think there can be any stronger criticism against award winning advertisements.


However, I must respectfully disagree with Andy Law's crisp, but sharp condemnation of all creative departments in advertising agencies. My own experience is that an advertiser normally gets the advertising they deserve. It is, indeed, rare for a good client to be consistently provided with bad advertising as good clients demand and get good advertising on many more occasions, and more importantly, more regularly than bad clients. Hence, I am not sure whether Law's acerbic comment on the perceived quality of advertising is a criticism of the creative department of an agency or a criticism of the manner in which advertisers encourage and work with their agencies.


Hence, if, indeed, the bulk of the output of advertising created in India, (and elsewhere in the world) is nothing but unmentionable work, we should seriously question the crores of rupees that have been spent on advertising.


Is it all a waste of money and time or does advertising serve a specific business purpose, which is to create a customer and develop brand franchise over a period of time. No doubt the answer to that question, is indeed, the role of advertising.


If that is so, is it of any wonder that advertisers worry about the output of advertising agencies which do not fulfill the basic end-objective of all commercial persuasion. Indeed, today, there is no reason not to expect the very best from an agency. We have the best research techniques, time-tested systems of account planning and high quality strategic inputs available with most agencies. We also have at our disposal data and information, both relevant and of quality to provide guidance and capability. Why can we not do better?


Probably the simple reason is that we do not try hard enough. The best is just not good enough. There is an urgent need to be better; our ambition must be to be better than the best. Only then can we do well in this most competitive area of all.