BackParrot power
Parrot power
PremiumOriginal: Raghu Bhat and Manish Bhatt.
Spot Light | Birla Cement
Campaign
The new advertisement for Birla Cement’s wall-care putty by Lowe India shows a family discovering that their pet parrot has dandruff. The phenomenon creates a lot of excitement and curiosity, with people pouring in to see the parrot and news channels covering the event. It’s only towards the end that the parrot draws everyone’s attention to the flaky ceiling.
What did you think of the ad?
Does this ad work for the brand?
Wall putty is not an impulse purchase. The audience, we presume, would comprise building contractors, masons and also, to some extent, the end-user. One of the tasks would be to make the audience remember the ad whenever the product need arises. Enduring recall can be created either by a hard-to-forget visual or audio mnemonic. To that extent, the theme of a “dandruff-wallah popat" will stand the test of time.
Which non-consumer-facing brand has done an excellent job of it?
If you analyse the successful brands in the cements to adhesives space, from Fevicol to Greenlam to Ambuja, you discern a pattern. There seem to be many category codes operating, some of them might be self-imposed. For instance, most brands make generic claims. The proposition is always a functional benefit. Humour seems to be the preferred tone of voice. This is a me-too trap. For any brand that seeks to differentiate itself, it might pay to go against the grain. Explore positioning based on the insights of the target audience, for instance. Or even an alternative emotional tone of voice. Also, there is a tendency to dumb down non-consumer-facing communication. So maybe, we ought to remember two things: 1) Masons and contractors are also human beings first; and 2) Cement isn’t really a “low-involvement" product for them.
As told to Gouri Shah.
gouri.s@livemint.com
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