Recession has once again asked a
fundamental question for marketers: Is it the best time to market more and
increase sales or is it the time for showing restraint and controlling the
marketing budget. Nevertheless, while the answer to this might remain
oblivious, there is no doubt about one pressure that marketers face: Create
ever lasting advertisements, those which stand the test of time. This will help
the company multi-fold: on one hand leading to lesser marketing spends , on the
other hand enhancing the brand recall for the firm leading to a win-win
situation.
Ever wondered why Vodafone’s
ZooZoo and Kolaveri Di became viral ? What really differentiates them from
millions of ads created worldwide annually that don’t make the cut and die
after the initial launch. There are major brands that have failed in their
advertising strategy while there are smaller brands that succeed at times in
creating such everlasting ads. The answer to it lies in the presence of a
so-called magic formula also referred as “God” particle by some
advertisers.
God particle refers to the
ability of an advertisement to increase its reach across mediums and with time.
It is almost like an infinite geometric progression with sometimes an
increasing ratio. The God particle is created in a very simple way. For one
instance let’s not look at advertisement as a promotion of a product but as the
product itself. Just like any other product, a good advertisement gets more
popular among the audience as it seems to create some sense of value, pleasure
or knowledge for the consumer who in turn act as the self appointed PR
executives for the brand by sharing and referring the ad, leading to the
creation of the so-called God particle. Advertisements that don’t create this
value in consumers mind fail to perform and need to be replaced by a new
campaign. Another major factor that makes a campaign a huge success is the
timing of the launch. For instance, the Zoozoo campaign was launched at the peak
of the IPL fever in India.
Ad campaigns like Dove evolve and
Zoozoos that got viral had this ingredient in common, whereas the Happy Dent
commercial though recognized as one of the most creative ads failed to make it
viral. If we move back nearly two decades, a period when the Cadbury’s “Kuch
khaas hain Zindagi mein” advertisement still gets a considerable number of hits
on youtube and has tremendous brand recall among the consumers. Social media
has provided an important tool for advertisements to go viral, however
traditional media like Television cannot be ruled out especially in a country
where internet penetration is still largely low. The very aspect that marketers
need to look at is advertisement itself is a product trying to sell another
product and not as a medium to sell a product. If this perception is considered
while designing an advertisement, chances of an advertisement creating the God
Particle for itself will be tremendously high- let’s hope we get to see many
more Kolaveri Di’s in the Indian advertising space.