Humor for New Beginnings

Online shopping is a relatively new concept in India. Although it has been many years since online shopping was introduced, recently it has gained popularity with the youth.

However with the recent Ad of Olx, they have not targeted the youth but their target audience are the middle aged people.

The Ad has a woman who wants to buy new household commodities but her husband points out that there isnt enough space in the house to keep it. However by the time he returns from his office, his wife has sold many items within a short span on the olx website. The ad has the woman in the process of selling the household products on olx website on background music of the famous 'Womaniya' song.

The humor factor helps the advertisers to build a connect of the new idea or concept of online selling and buying of products with the target audience who otherwise might have ignored the advertisement as its a new idea

This ad also would encourage the people who arent tech savvy and are scared of online selling and buying products, to learn the new technology and also try this new idea.

Humor has a major role to play to develop a connect with the audience and in sutuations where the product or service is new for the specific target audience, the tool of Humor can be extremely useful.

Source for the Video- YouTube

Surrogate advertising and Humor

The previous blog was a critique on a popular ad of Imperial Blue Cassete n Cd's.

Few years back imperial Blue had come up with another adverisement playing around the same tag line ' Men will be men'

The ad had a man talking to his friend about the place he had gone for dinner with his wife last night. However he is unable to recollect the name of the restaurant. So he turns to ask his wife( who is working in the background) about the name of the place....however to the audience's surprise he cant even recollect his wife's name and he tries recollecting her name by giving clues to his friend like ' Its a flower', ' It has a sweet fragrance', ' It has thorns' and when the friend guesses it right- ' Rose', he calls out to his wife saying '"Rose Darling....."
This is followed by the tagline ' Men will be Men'

From this ad and the ad mentioned in the previos blog we get to know the advertising strategy. Since advertising alchohol is not allowed, the adverisers have very cleverly used the tool of advertising for the Imperial Blue brand and the product being ' Cassete and Cd's' and not Alchohol.

Surrogate advertising has the intention of increasing the brand recall and it focusses less on the product.

When humor is used in surrogate advertising it has a powerful effect on the brand recall.
Its a clever and effective way of surrogate adverising.
Humor has always been one of the most popular tools of advertising and it is definately beneficial for surrogate advertising as well.

A recent humorous Ad critique.

One of my personal favourite recent humourous ad is the Imperial Blue Cassete and Cd's Ad. It basically plays around the line  ' Men will be men'

The ad shows a man who is at the parking place. He goes near a fancy car and just shoo's away some local man wiling away his time near the car. Few attractive girls notice this man with his fancy car and this makes the man happy and boosts his ego as well. However as soon as the girls leave, we see the man goes to another small normal car where the same local man is wiling away his time, yet again he shoo's him away....and we get to know that this small car is the actual car of the man and he just pretended that the fancy car belonged to him in order to get attention from the women. The ad ends with the tag line 'Men will be men'

The background music is some old classic hindi ghazal. This makes the ad even more interesting and humorous and the use of old song in the background also is symbolic of  that men have always been this way since ages.

Here we see that the product itself is not shown in a humorous way but the trait of the product and a brand feature is being presented in a humorous way.The humor creates an instant connect with the audience

This ad in my opinion is a perfect example of using subtle humor to convey the brand image and yet not overshadow the product.  

Humor in Changing Times....

in 1991, with the introduction of Globalization, Privatization and Liberalization in India, a lot of this changed. Many foreign companies started investing in India. This opened up many avenues for the world of media as well. Indian audience was introduced to Private Satellite Television and since then there has been no looking back. Today India has innumerable television channels.

With the Indian Audience being subjected to a lot of content from other countries especially the west, the concept of 'westernization'  came into the picture. People in India started viewing Art, Cinema, Creativity in a much more broader perspective.

This had its influence on the sense of humor of people as well. People gradually started enjoying sarcasm in humor. They started laughing at jokes which had pun intended.

Thus with time, many ads also started being made keeping the changing sense of humor of people in mind. Few Ads are humorous in a very subtle yet clever way depicting the changing Culture in India and how people in India have started accepting. The humor is very subtle and not in your face kind of humor. But this is what makes these ads appealing to the classes.In my opinion, most of these Ads are targeted towards the classes and not the masses. And thus they enjoy  the sense of humor in it.

One of the example is the Fast Track Ad-

This Ad exactly depicts all points mentioned above. This product is targeted toward the youth and the tool of humor and the casual nature of the Ad immediately makes the youth develop a connect with this Ad. 

Not just the youth but also parents in urban cities laugh looking at this Ad. They connect with it because they feel the change in the youth since their young times and they can relate the generation of their children with such Ads. The change of the culture in India when shown in a light humorous way shows how comfortable we are with this change that has taken place and how we have gracefully accepted it.

SOURCE OF VIDEO- YOU TUBE

The Comedy Campaign

Many Advertisers just create a single funny Advertisement to attract the consumers.
 Such Ads draw the consumer's attention towards the product and the brand but it rarely has a long lasting effect. The advertisement is soon forgotten and so is the product and brand being advertised.

However there have been few brands and products who have successfully created the entire Ad campaign which is hilarious and hence effective.

One of such campaigns in my opinion is the Vodafone Zoo Zoo Campaign of the fictional zoo zoo characters. Its a brilliant campaign. It does not mock anybody, it does not offend anybody; it simply makes people laugh and entertains them and attracts the consumers towards vodafone.

The zoo zoo campaign had a series of back to back Ads. The zoo zoo's are fictional white characters who highlight various plans of vodafone through the small story that they depict during the Ad. The most amazing part is that they speak their own language and thus it has a global appeal.

Its a very cleverly initiated campaign and as a media student, I can learn so much from it about not just advertising but also the ways of communication.

The humor in it is subtle and catchy and has no sarcasm. Its pure humor and entertains and attracts people of all age groups and economic backgrounds to use vodafone connection.

Here is a link  of the vodafone zoo zoo Ads of the campaign.

The best part is that this campaign was not just restricted to television commercials but the vodafone customer care outlets that are situated across the city had in-store zoo zoo branding. Now that is what  I call dedicated efforts to entertain and attract potential and existing consumers.

These Ads surely bought a smile on everyone's face and made everyone right from a child to an old man laugh with joy.

SOURCE OF VIDEO- YOU TUBE

Critically Funny!!!

Humorous Advertisements sometimes manage to gain popularity with the masses very easily. Its the timing, the presentation, the metaphoric nature of the Advertisement and sometimes just the sarcasm that makes people crack up.

However there are few Ads which manage to impress the audience as well as the critics.

Here are 3 examples of such award winning Ads-

On watching any of the above Advertisement, we notice some common aspects like-

1. The Ads never lose the basic essence of highlighting the features of their product through the tool of humor.

2. The tool of humor is strictly limited to presenting the product in concern and care is taken that no one in particular in our Indian society is targeted in doing so.

3. The third and most important, the aspect of humor does not overpower the product for which the advertisement is being made.

This is the most important point because the job of an advertiser is to ensure the brand and product recall and not just make a memorable Advertisement. If the potential consumer is impressed with the humor in Ad and remembers the Ad for the sense of humor but fails to recall the product for which the Ad was made, then the advertiser and the advertisement have failed.

Most of the times the advertisers get so engrossed in making the advertisement so catchy that they fail to realize  that the main goal of an Ad is to ensure the ultimate sale of the product.

It is very difficult to make people laugh without offending anyone's sensibilities and at the same time successfully manage  to ensure the product and brand recall.

Humor if used correctly only then can benefit the product. In case of negligence or by getting carried away in the excitement of being humorous and making people laugh, the product sales and the marketing and advertising strategy can be at a risk of failing miserably.

Source of Videos- YouTube  

Humor In Indian Advertising- An Introduction

HUMOR- The oxford dictionary describes humor as ‘the quality of being amusing’. So what exactly is humor? What is it that makes us crack up? Humor is basically a state of mind that we experience when we are amused about something.

Let’s have a look at an example

This picture says a lot without really saying much. It is humorous without being direct. It mocks the nagging nature of a wife especially when their husbands drive. I am sure all husbands must have chuckled at this picture as they feel it’s the story of their life. It’s about the connect that a specific section (the husbands in this case) of the society will feel looking the above picture.

Advertisers try and do something similar. They try to build a connect of their target audience with their product using the tool of Humor. 

 Humor in Indian Advertising has evolved over the years.  Humor is considered an effective but an equally risky way of advertising in India. The Indian society is a diverse in nature. People of various religions, castes, languages, ethnicities, cultures exist together. Thus using Humor in advertising can be risky because it might offend a certain section of the society which in turn can have an adverse effect on the image of the product being advertised.

However over the years people in India have learnt to laugh at themselves.  Especially the youth of the country has the sporting spirit to laugh at themselves . The recent Alia Bhatt funny video that has been circulating on social networking sites is a classic example of the fact the today the youth in India are capable of laughing at themselves. The video has been liked, appreciated and applauded by one and all.

This changing attitude of the people of India has given the advertisers the courage to use humor as a tool for selling their products. 

Humor that is used in advertising is of various forms. Few  of them are-

·         Personification- Where human qualities are attributed to the product. For example the very popular ‘Appy Fizz’ Advertisement.

·      Slapsticks- the comedy that is based on deliberate clumsy actions. The Gillette guard Advertisement where the man is shaving and dancing at the same time.

·         Pun- Ads which use pun are very popular. For example the extremely famous Amul Print Ads. Along with having  pun in them , they gave us food for thought

·         Exaggeration-   Where some quality of the product is exaggerated to such level that it makes the audience laugh. Example- Camlin Permanent Markers.

Today people prefer intelligent humor than slapstick humor. Many brands have used humor as a strategy to establish a connect with the target audience and have been very successful in doing so.  Humor stays in the memory for a long time and thus is one of the best way to ensure the brand and product recall in the mind of the consumer.

Source- Google.

Image Courtesy- Google

Video Courtesy- You Tube