Rolling over

Entertaining ads are making a major comeback, and for reasons big and small.

First, hear out the killjoys of advertising: "How would you like it if a salesman knocked on your door and started singing?" or "Would you give your money for safekeeping to a clown?"

Now, watch the fill-joys of advertising. Some shamefaced officegoer explaining to the liftman why he's in underpants on his way up to work. Some stricken soul with tears rolling down his cheeks, mouth stuffed with chillies, having lost a bet about a bank's reach.

Some beauty pageant success that excites all of Palampur but ends up revealed to be a cow. Some hungry tourist who tries to say something about birds and bees (okay, stings and bees) through glugfuls of cola.

What's up?

Entertainment. It's the new seller. The killjoy ad legend Claude Hopkins, so goes the line, knew nothing about sales, and even less about clowns.

Get 'em rolling into the aisles with bellies held in mirth (or at least smiling), and they'll want to backslap and hug and kiss and buy your brand. No matter how "serious" the alleged category is.

"Ads need to tell a story in such a way that it gets tremendous recall," says Santosh Desai, president, McCann Erickson.

It's the pressure of being heard above the noise, getting a voice across through the 10,000 other brands shouting themselves hoarse for your or your spouse's attention (the latter being a challenge many multiples stiffer, some focus groups say).

"Brands are getting more recognisable," adds Desai, "and the advertising has become less overtly message oriented." Lowe's national creative director R Balakrishnan says that it's a return to form for the ad industry.

"We had kind of lost track earlier and focused more on the product," he says, "but today we are back on creativity." That's good.

That also means a higher tolerance of advertisements that engage or tickle people in different ways, instead of the straightjacket approach of spelling out product benefits.

Says Prasoon Joshi, regional creative director, South and South-east Asia, McCann Erickson, "The concept of the word 'advertising' itself has broadened from being unidimensional to multi-dimensional. There has been expansion on both sides of the spectrum. High-end luxury goods on one, to concept-selling condoms and shampoos and insurance in rural areas, on the other."

No one's complaining. Except those who lost their bets in those ads. Or got overawed by their village beauty. Or fudged the menu in that cola ad.