The Diamond Jubilee Celebrations of the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) have given the ad industry much to look forward to. Having planned a number of events throughout the year, the AAAI kicked off with the ‘Beyond the Horizon’ seminar in July 2005 and followed it up with a two-and-a-half-day international symposium on the ‘The Future of Advertising’ on November 9, 2005.

While the intention then was to gauge the future trends in the media fraternity in the whole, this time it is revolved around consumer trends, research focus, new media, creative challenges and the cutting edge of execution. The event saw some of the some of the most eminent speakers and the biggest international creative gurus, share interesting insights about the importance and innovative ways of advertising.

The AAAI had gathered support from the industry with the likes of media entities like DNA (the presenting sponsor), NDTV, SONY, Malayala Manorama, Rajasthan Patrika, the Hindu Bussiness Line and exchange4media associating with the event.

On Day One, the three inaugural speakers were carefully chosen. Shashi Tharoor, Under-Secretary for Communication and Public Information, United Nations, delivered a special address on Promoting the United Nations, A Global Challenge. No one can deny that the UN is a big, world-renowned brand. The keynote address was delivered by Arun Adhikari, Managing Director, Hindustan Lever, India's biggest private sector advertiser. Renuka Chowdhury, Union Minister of State for Tourism (Independent Charge), India's largest public sector advertiser, then followed with her inaugural address.

The following introductory paragraphs ought to give you a feel of the tone of the evening: weighty issues being discussed with authority and delivered in a most entertaining fashion. The limelight and the thunder were undoubtedly stolen by Dr Shashi Tharoor. If Tharoor's was the piece de resistance, the quality of the evening was underlined by the fact that the other invited speakers were not far behind Tharoor's brilliant address.

Neville Gomes, Managing Director, Multimedia Aquarius and AAAI's Honarary Secretary, who was the Chairman of the earlier AAAI Diamond Jubilee Seminar, played Master of Ceremonies for this entire Symposium with aplomb.

He said the AAAI had received a message from President A P J Abdul Kalam, where he said that advertising was not just a means of highlighting products, but was also an agent for social change and an art form in its own right.

Srinivasan K Swamy, CEO, RKSWAMY BBDO and President of AAAI, set the tone for the evening by delivering a welcome speech outlining the entire event and its significance.

"Last year, the worldwide advertising spends were $350 billion while close to $750 billion was spent on marketing and below the line activities. The latter is growing rapidly at the cost of advertising. There will be a further shift, which will dilute ad spends even more. It is time we pause and look at the future. This seminar is an attempt to do just that," he said. The only other number of significance bandied about was 60, the age of the AAAI (and of the UN, as Tharoor later reminded those assembled).

Swamy used humour to lighten the weight of his delivery. He spoke of how the Pope was approached by a representative of Kentucky Fried Chicken with an offer of $100,000 for The Lord's Prayer to be changed to read "….give us this day our daily chicken" instead of "…. give us this day our daily bread". The Pope refused. The persistent representative kept upping the ante, till, at a price of $10 million, the Pope agreed. The Pope then presented this to the conclave the next day. "I have good news and bad news. The good news is, we get to eat chicken every day. The bad news is, we've lost the Wonderbread account!" Endorsements, product placements, mentions, with no holds barred, rule today.

Colvyn J Harris, CEO, JWT India and Chairman of the symposium, spoke about the challenges that the advertising industry would face. Harris, after dealing with a technology glitch that delayed his presentation by five minutes, outlined the challenges (in his view) facing the advertising industry, including, (surprise, surprise,) technology. He said that when these challenges were realised fast they could be addressed more easily and efficiently.

In today's era of plenty in media, there is no shortage of channels and newspapers and society is fast turning hedonistic. Harris added that five forces that were shaping advertising were technology, clients, consumers, business model and the India challenge.

Technology, said Harris, was an investment for the advertising industry and an agency should define its business model that could either be broad or specialised.

The other challenges that he saw were the change in the needs of, and viewpoint of, clients; the changes in the Indian consumer, the changes in the way the business was structured and the changes in India itself.

Challenges within the way the business was structured included the pressure on margins, the pressure on time and the width of services required by the clients. On retention, Harris echoed the sentiments of all CEOs and unit heads when he spoke of the challenge of retaining talent as a task he has to deal with every day. He also saw the fight for attention as a challenge, suffering as we are from an information overload ­ which does not seem to be coming to an end.

According to Harris, consumer was king and introducing more products and services in each category was only strengthening the consumer's position. Consumers today are not passive buyers but co-creators in developing a product or even a service. The challenge for advertisers is to make a 30-second commercial last long even after the consumers have seen it.

What stood out in his pronouncement for the future was the explosion of choice. Choices in the number of categories to begin with, complicated by the choices within each category.

Shashi Tharoor peppered his special address with humour ­both appropriate for the audience and delivered with finesse. The United Nations, he said, was a brand that needed to involve people in all its chores and missions and that it met its goals only because of people support.

One of the many nuggets he employed was this one: The United Nations was concerned about the lack of knowledge the citizens of Washington had of the UN; and was equally concerned with the apathy with which the UN was treated by the decision makers in the US capital. So, Tharoor ventured forth into the streets of DC, and asked an American, "Is it true that there is ignorance of the role of the UN and apathy towards it?" The American pondered on the question before he replied, "I don't know and I don't care!"

It is a problem that the UN suffers: ignorance and apathy. If this is a nightmare for Tharoor and his colleagues at New York, the problem is as real for marketers and advertising agencies: to get consumers to know and to get consumers to care.

This made UN's job a complex one as it worked with governments and NGOs from all over the world, Tharoor said, adding, "Building brands require consistency and clarity."

Tharoor added a further perspective on how to go global in advertising. He described his own experience and challenges in marketing the UN as a brand internationally.

“In today’s world, there is no such thing as speaking to one audience and not being heard somewhere else. The key is to be coherent and consistent throughout the world.” In marketing the UN as a brand, Tharoor said that “they weren’t in the business of selling one brand or product, or one country. They sought to promote support for international co-operation and goals of international institutions in every country in the world”.

As UN works for people who need aid and also those who provide aid, its task is a mammoth one. He added that media and NGOs were indispensable for communicate UN's message to the world. UN's challenge is the breadth of products and services that it offers, clarifying what the UN really does and netting in the specific people who it wants to address.

Some of the ways that UN faces these challenges are having a simple but effective website and localising messages by communicating local concerns through local languages. UN's advantages, according to Tharoor, were its multi-cultural staff and its brand recognition that offered a range of terrific products.

According to him, there was “much liberty, some fraternity and no equality” in the international and globalising media world; more people know more about what’s happening and part of that knowledge includes knowing good things are not happening for them.

The advertising industry in India could learn a thing or two from the UN when it comes to advertising on a shoestring budget. According to Mr Tharoor, the UN’s annual ad budget is just as much as what New York State gives the Brooklyn Public Library and a third of what advertisers spend in one year in Mumbai.

“What we try to manufacture is international co-operation,” said Mr Tharoor. Given the multi-lingual environment the UN operates in, it works in close association with the media and NGOs to provide impartial information and broadcast its messages.

“There is no such thing as speaking to one audience and not reaching another,” said Mr Tharoor as he recalled an incident of a Buddhist monk in St Petersberg who approached him and said, ‘I’ve seen you on BBC.’ “There is only one UN and I hope you will help me in advertising it,” he concluded.

Arun Adhikari who delivered the keynote address on the changing but fast developing Indian market and FMCG's role in this diverse market, did not see the world as such a bad place.

He said he could see the pyramidal structure of a small rich class, a broader middle class and a very broad poor class slowly transforming itself into a diamond-shaped one, with a small rich class, a significantly broader middle class and a smaller, yet small, poor class. As India was a low-income country, advertising's role was to make products interesting and exciting,

He saw, therefore, two classes of prospective consumers that would require attention: The first, the 'aspirers', who are urban, literate and skilled and are moving from self-denial to being indulgent. These aspirers would, in the future, consume more, pay more for better brands in their confident road to their ambitions. The second class, the 'strivers', who are rural, belong to the lower and lower middle income group, and are seeking value for money. They would taste their first brush with brands, and would, for the first time in their lives enjoy a clean-up with Lux or a teeth brushing session with a branded toothpaste. Each of these classes has different demands and will require different communication in order to address the size of the country and its linguistic diversity.

Adhikari saw a future full of opportunities in both these consumer spectrums.

He refered to the Changing Competitive Scenario where from 2000 to 2004 MNCs like HLL, Nestle, Colgate-Palmolive and Glaxo-SmithKline along with small local companies lost market share while large Indian ones (such as Britannia, Parle, Marico, Godrej and CavinKare) gained market share. However, Adhikari said, from 2004 onwards MNCs were showing much greater determination and focus with higher brand investment and enhanced distribution infrastructure. He atributed this to a Confluence of Change Factors: Consumers (emerging new consumer classes), Market Structure and Dynamics (growth and up-gradation), Customers (modern trade developing, evolution of general trade) and Competitors (more focus on share gains, for longer term position. Strong local and MNCs).

According to Adhikari, India was an exciting market on this point of confluence. There are new emerging consumer classes, the market structure and dynamics are growing and modern trade is developing fast, thereby making the market more buoyant and the consumer more confident.

Coming to the role of advertising in the future, Adhikari said that it advertising had to be exciting, revitalising and aspirational for the consumers. "This will only be possible through effective communication. Advertising has to make the category attractive and hence enable the advertiser to compete outside their confines where the consumers are facing harsh choices," he said.

"We have to move from advertising that was created by and for insecure people to advertising that will be created by secure, confident and proud people for the same kind of audience," he said.

Adhikari also threw light upon the fact that advertising professionals need to create advertising not for India but across India. "Advertising today seems to be working in a narrow bandwidth. The need for the hour is clearly to make advertising that works across the country."

On the opening up of retail, Adhikari said in time retail will provide another point of engagement for the brand. The confluence of change factors has essentially made today's Indian a more confident and proud individual, he said. " It is important that the advertising fraternity make note of this changed Indian, as advertising needs to move from ads that were created for a set of insecure and under confident individuals, seeking approval from the West to a more confident and proud India that has belief in its own identity" Adhikari concluded.

Renuka Chowdhury, in her inaugural address, did not need anecdotal props to inject some lightness; she relied, instead, on her innate sense of humour. She started by saying that it was a very difficult task for politicians to sell themselves to the people without any pre-assigned budgets. "The Indian Tourism Ministry has the largest advertising budget allocation in the Government of India.

She spoke about brand 'Incredible India' that changed the face of Indian tourism. India, which is largely known all over the world as the land of elephants and snake charmers, had to be pulled out of the 'only mystical' image. However, this image had not to be totally done away with but we had to sustain it and yet also advertise an India that is modern. According to Chowdhry, incredible Indians made India incredible.

She weaved into her (unprepared and riveting) speech, the city that hosted the event, Mumbai. Touching on the havoc caused by the recent record breaking rains, she thought the "ability of Indians to interfere in others' businesses" as being a positive attribute ­ that prompted them to help others in times of distress; an ability that transformed Mumbaikars of all calling into 'Incredible Indians', considering the spontaneous help that was available to stranded citizens.

So our 'Incredible India' campaign focussed not only on the tourist hot spots, but also on textiles, medical tourism, rural tourism, IT, commerce, buoyant stock market, high GDP growth rate, etc. "In it we show the traditional and modern face of India in our campaign," she said.

The Honourable Minister covered a wide spectrum of issues. These ranged from tourism and infrastructure (to make India a destination of choice) all the way to changed political and social scenarios and the need for the Communications industry to bring their professional skills to bear on these issues. Briefly some of her key points were:

• Politicians need to sell themselves and their new agendas to the people. They are as much of an opportunity for communicators as products and brands. So think of this emerging “marketplace” for your skills.
• Health issues are a major challenge (as the revealed in hilarious detail from her own experience with the “C” word as in condom or the ‘S’ word as in sex)
• Break the stereotypes. Why do you still need women to sell a truck-tyre or a pressure cooker (unless you are talking about pressure cooker performance between sheets?)
  Hygiene is an issue. Detergent manufacturers could please do a campaign for people who stifle your senses when they crowd the place with polyester clothes which have not been washed for days!
• The girl child is still a big problem and only communicators can change mindsets and attitudes.
• Finally, do a reality-check & take a round trip to get to know the India you don’t really know.

Rural people are really so open and spontaneous (as she discovered when she changed constituencies from urban to rural). When you go and get your carefully manicured toes washed in saffron and turmeric and when you see the affection showered on you, you being to understand India better and that’s when you would want to devote your time to change the knowledge, skills and attitude thresholds – and actually make a difference.

The Tourism Ministry advertises India as an exciting mix of places, people, experiences, and rich history. She felt that the world knows India based on what the media portrayed it to be.

Chowdhury also made a suggestion, that advertisers should have one little social message to make rural Indians aware of the importance of clean water or water harvesting, on everything they advertise. She concluded by saying that India lived in her villages.

This was followed by cocktails and dinner hosted by AAAI.

For more, please check the exchange4media special, below.

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

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