 "Banking on the consumer's voice")
The young man explains how hair loss was becoming an embarrassment for him and how Livon Hair Gain, a tonic from Marico, the makers of Saffola and Parachute, came to his rescue. At first glance this might sound like the storyboard of a regular TV commercial, replete with models, products et al. But there is a difference. The commercial in question is about a 'real' user with a 'real' problem and how he found a solution in the advertised product. No made-up stories or models.
In advertising parlance this technique, employed by advertisers with mixed results in the past, is called the 'consumer testimonial' approach. In these ads the user (read actual user) is the star. Switch on the TV these days and you can see quite a few of them popping up. The interesting bit is that consumer testimonials have become popular across categories; from fast moving consumer goods to electronics and online classifieds.
Take this ad with a young mother, for example, who dreams of a bright future for her son who loves skating. The ad is for Colgate's scholarship offer. The mother narrates how a tube of paste helped win a scholarship worth a lakh rupees for her son. The amount, she says, has gone a long way in helping her and her husband put their son in a new school, where they teach skating.
Here goes another one: A young man is looking to offload his mobile phone for a decent price. It is a piece that he treasures. It is in good condition, he says. The young man has the option of going to the nearest dealer or check out some of the new online marketplaces. He chooses one of the leading advertisers in the latter category. The ad narrates how he uses Olx to sell his mobile phone to a customer, who resides in his vicinity and thereby takes home Rs 1, 800 more than what the dealer would have offered.
Testimonials, while not an uncommon phenomenon, have never been used as widely and as frequently as they are being today. Interestingly their influence is growing at a time when clutter levels on TV have grown enormously. "Virtually every advertiser, big or small, is clamouring for TV space. With the result that you have to do something really different to stand out in all of this," says Manish Bhatt, founder-director, Scarecrow Communications.
Bhatt isn't off-the-mark when he speaks of growing noise across media. Not only are there many more brands vying for a sliver of the consumer's attention, they are also making far more frequent incursions into her time. Experts who track advertising expenditure have pointed to the same.
The country's largest media agency, GroupM, has forecast a buoyant outlook for advertising expenditure (adex) in India, saying it will grow 15.5 per cent in 2016, touching Rs 57,486 crore. This is higher than the 14.2 per cent that was reported by GroupM in 2015, implying it will be the highest rate of growth in six years.
"India remains the fastest-growing ad market among all key markets in the world. The year 2015 saw the best in terms of adex growth for India in five years. But if 2016 does see the rate of growth that we have forecast, then it tops 2015 numbers," C V L Srinivas, CEO, GroupM South Asia, said in January while releasing the report. Srinivas as well as Sam Balsara, who is chairman and managing director of Madison World, the agency that brings out the Pitch Madison report, say that new advertisers are coming into the fold, increasing the base of overall advertisers. "It took five years (2008-2013) for the ad industry to add Rs 10,586 crore, but only two years to add Rs 11, 885 crore to reach nearly Rs 44,000 crore (2014-15). The 2016 rate of growth (of 16.8 per cent) will take the total ad pie to over Rs 50,000 crore," Balsara says in his assessment of the market.
All this hectic activity implies that advertisers have to get more innovative and creative with their devices, Bhatt of Scarecrow explains. "Using consumer testimonials is one such device in a list that includes long-format ads, quirky casting and scripts, etc. As a practicing advertising professional I can see the use of all these tools," he says.
Others such as N Chandramouli, CEO, TRA, a Mumbai-based firm that brings out the Annual Brand Trust Report, says that consumer testimonials are not merely a creative device, but are a reflection of the need for a credible voice. "Realism as a trend has caught on in the television business. You can see it in entertainment shows, reality TV, movies. I am not surprised to see it now moving into ads." Another factor could be the growing tension between brands and celebrity endorsers, which leads to trust issues with consumers. Getting real users to back the brand may help tackle this problem.
Anuraddha Aggarwal, chief marketing officer, Marico, says, "Consumers have become very savvy and being real is one aspect of this. The advertising world will broadly go in two directions: one is entertainment, your normal, regular ads. The other is authentic information, where ads tell you what you don't know and what you should, in a believable manner." Brands, it would seem, are all set for a reality check.
