InspiRAYtion: The Joker, The Smoker, the Midnight Toker
In this week's InspiRAYtion, adman Rayomand J Patell highlights on the butterfly effects in Indian advertising, touches upon the ad campaigns that have divided or mixed opinions, and how creativity and better ideas impact the fortunes of clients and agencies.
ADVERTISEMENT
The best advertising turns out to be something that sharply divides opinion. And for the second time, it’s something from the food category that’s doing it. After ‘Mouldy Burger’, comes 'It Ha Ha Has To Be Heinz'.
From the good people at Gut, this piece has people like the legendary Kash Sree saying he wasn’t a fan of it. And while many slammed it, a few stood up for it all the same. These are the sort of people who don’t bow to peer pressure and have probably never watched an episode of Game Of Thrones either and I salute them.
Regardless of your point of view on whether or not the joker campaign was a fantastic nod to the Joker or a miserable flop rather like the film (Joker 2) itself, the debate rages on a week after Anselmo, Gut’s founder shared it.
For the record, I think it’s a fantastic little laugh and I’d wish it well at the shows as we go along into award season.
From the Joker, to the Smoker. This week I watched a fascinating reel on how India’s high taxes, lead to more smokers. The crux of it, was that high taxes, get boxes of cigarettes smuggled in. They have lower prices (naturally) and get more people to try smoking. The Govt. can’t ban the legit cigarettes, because it gets a mountain of cash from taxes on them (sin taxes) and so, life goes on.
And that made me think of how many butterfly effects are there in Indian advertising?
The first that popped into my head was this thing of colours of Navratri. Something that the TOI Group began in 2003 and is now accepted as a cultural norm from time immemorial. Almost like Coke inventing Christmas, but a desi version.
The other that came to mind is the urban legend told to me by Patrick D’souza, a venerable Suit and now investment guru. It seems the Cadbury ad that we all know and love for the girl’s impromptu jig, was a real life incident that happened during the Ad Club’s Inter Agency Cricket Matches and when the time came, was immortalised in a piece of film that an entire generation has hardwired as a core memory.
I’m sure there must be many more, write in with your thoughts below!
Finally, up with the Midnight Toker. The good people at the TOI Group invited me by to attend the WARC session to unpack this year’s Cannes Lions. The good news? Data study after data study shows that Creativity is the secret sauce to getting your digital marketing to outperform. What is it outperforming? The ‘cost of being dull’ which requires a staggering 23% more media money to keep up with a good piece of creative. There is now a proven economic cost to mediocrity, in short.
There were many more fantastic figures in a speech by the CSO type from Adam and Eve, DDB, in a video that should be out on Youtube if you want to watch it. But, I digress.
The world’s largest award show, coupled with the world’s largest source of marketing wisdom (WARC) is telling us plainly that creativity and better ideas have a direct impact on client’s fortunes and by extension, agency fortunes.
Why then are we in this ocean of mediocrity? There’s never been a better case for outstanding ideas, to move the needle on sales. Why resort to celebs, or cringe trends, or influenzzzas when a sharp idea from one of the midnight tokers in the agency can result in both creative and commercial brilliance?
If flinging numbers at clients is what it takes to get your ideas out, so be it. As always, here’s wishing you a deeply creative week ahead. Whether you’re joking, smoking or toking, that’s on you.
Rayomand J Patell is an advertising veteran and InspiRAYtion is a weekend column on everything about advertising and marketing.
