For screaming out loud
This is something I have been intending to write for ages. Frankly, this is of no interest to the general readers who come to Chicken, or to Selective Amnesia. But of the few times I’ve raised this topic in forums and at agencies, I was asked to hush and keep quiet. If I don’t talk about this now, I will never.
Enough of a Preamble.
Advertising experts and gurus and clients and marketing executives and the all important client servicing people have a very favourite mantra – “The customer is not a moron”. Immediately after which, they turn, look down at the customer and proceed to talk to him or her in the simplest, most idiot proof language possible. Why do you want to purposefully dumb down your communication? Why would you want to say something as friggin simple and obvious as “A for apple” in your communication? Why would you want to put a picture of a fridge and say “This is a fridge. It is used to cool foodstuffs so they keep longer”?
I have a theory. Or at least, an opinion. I believe puns and clever jokes are more appreciated than they are made out to be. I have taken it as my personal mission to do advertisements that leave a little bit for the consumer who reads, sees or hears my advertising to connect up the little dots I leave and come up with the answer himself.
The entire Indian advertising industry is riddled with self-respecting (read: those who think too much of themselves) people who think advertising shouldn’t be clever. What’s the alternative? Dumb advertising?
My best kind of advertising is the one that doesn’t say it all, does not talk to the least common denominator (about which later) and has a little puzzle in the communication for the reader/viewer to decipher and come up with a solution. I think the involvement there would be higher, brand recall better, and you get to project an image of a peer, rather than the adviser/professor/big guy most indian brands project.