Just realized how I search on my browser. Just type in the search term in the search bar or even the address bar in Firefox. Get the results, peruse them and click on the most appropriate link. I never bother to see the Google brand button next to it or never really “see” the Google logo on top of the search results. However, when I opened Internet Explorer and searched for something, it re-directed me to the Bing’s search results. Something I noticed immediately. Went back and reconfigured my settings to make Google my default search engine in IE as well. (In fact, I doubt the results would have been quite different, given the recent controversy of Bing “stealing” Google’s results.)
I guess brands and products are not just about delight and positive surprise. It’s about a sense of comfort in the consistency . Something like this.
I remember something that went like this:
Sex is like air…it’s not important unless you’re not getting any.
Came across this today when I was cleaning up my hard disk….classic ! Won’t specifically agree with the Islam thing. It’s a little TOO wrong but otherwise….this is funny !
Disclaimer: I’m not from the ad world. I am a just a curious observer.
Well, for the past 2 to 3 weeks, I’ve been watching this really dumb ad from TVS for its product Wego. Apparently, it’s something to do with body balance. It’s here:
I want to go through the ad in a bit detail to explain my (and I doubt, unique) thought process:
I swear to God…for the first half of the ad, I didn’t know what the fuck was going on….it took me my second time watching it (Yeah,apparently, there is big media buying purchase for this shit!) to realize that there was a specific pattern of contrast between the music played for the two chicks – one was a Tamil score and the other, a Hindi music score….so the ad was supposed to show a North vs. South thing ? Ok….then, for those who don’t know Tamil, the lyrics mean “Put it like this, put it like that”. So North Indians and South Indians “do things” differently ? Ok….except that both those dumb chicks start sexually assaulting the guys driving the bikes with their dirty dancing…..so this is an ad for condoms ? Oh, and then they get all hyper standing on the seats and start dancing…now, by this time, I’m expecting either 1) One of the chicks will fall off the bike and die a sorry, bloody death in which case, the other gal says “XX chappals, now with super grip” or 2) A voice over cuts talking about the smooth, beautiful roads of Bangalore built by a private construction company.
But, then both bikes stop at the signal and the two “chauffeurs” stand and smile at each other like they remembered their experiences in their own, private “Brokeback Mountain”. And then, cut to a buddha and buddhi (who covers the face of a toy) who are afraid one the chicks would fall. And aforementioned “buddha” says something to the tune of “TVS Vega with body balance” and said buddhi says “oh!” and they all drive away!
OK so seriously, how many products could this ad have been for ? Any and all of the products I mentioned above? What does it say about the bikes ? For guys with idiotic women? For women who apparently can’t dance at home? For the women who have better physical balance and less mental balance? Even the tires of the bike? Or both chicks dying and the ads say “Do not try this ” by the Mumbai police? Doesn’t it look like the ad can be interpreted in way too many ways?
The reason? People try too hard….they try to incorporate too many signals into a single 30-sec spot. For example, the two guys, the buddha and the buddhi were frankly, unnecessary. They did nothing but add too much information into an ad which, by its own, was quite vague. Same with the North and South Indian thing. The contrast was not required unless you want to say “North Indian dancing or South Indian dancing, sab chalta hai Wega pe!” Then, add the buddhi admiring the bikes in the end. Why ? She wants to do a Street Hawk with them, now that she discovers they have body balance? Why two bikes ? To show that they have both black and white color bikes ? Does that have anything to do with the body balance feature? Or were they just trying to say “Since we already spent 50 lakhs on this spot, why don’t we get value for money?” Except that, in this case, it was volume for money (too many signals) instead of value for money (specific focus on one feature). And it’s that specific aspect that this post is about.
Have you ever seen a fashion show? I don’t mean the college ones. I mean the actual Ralph Lauren, Valentino kinda Fashion Week shows. Take a look at the models on the catwalk. They refuse to smile, they refuse to look at anybody in the crowd (they look absolutely straight ahead). Their gait is one that doesn’t serve to really endear them to the crowd. In fact, some of the models are butt ugly. Why? To take the focus off them and onto the clothes. Their blank expressions dampens any kind of signals that may arise from their facial expressions otherwise. Their gait serves only one purpose and that is to demonstrate the flow of the clothes around the body as a person is moving. Its rigidity and predictability cannot be translated to any kind of emotional expression of the self. The models look absolutely stone cold. They are all for all practical purposes, walking mannequins. The make-up and the hairstyles are built to complement the clothes not the body of the model. The body of the model is, in fact, chosen to complement the clothing. Basically, all other signals that may take away attention from the “pure” signal of clothing is dampened (to use an engineering expression). The only time, the models smile and clap is at the end when the designer walks the ramp to receive the accolades from the crowd. Even then, the choreography is so brilliantly executed that it is extremely easy to locate who the focus on the catwalk is.
Similarly, noticed the ambiance every time you enter a movie theater to watch a film? They cut off any ambient lights the moment the film starts. The main reason, of course, is that it reduces the effect of this light on the projection of the film. However, the side-effect is that it blocks out any signals that may distort the experience of watching the film – the people around you in the theater (Where’s that damn hot chick!), the shape of the walls and the pillars, the color of the seats, the color of the walls, the make of the speaker system (OK, that’s my peculiar nosiness!). Hence, your attention is directed on the only thing visible. The screen. Hell, if you want to make out in the dark, the only thing that distracts you is the shining film! And if its distracting you too much, you’re probably not really into it…..you’re probably wondering where that other hot chick is….so here again, there is an instance of blotting out unnecessary signals to divert your focus to what really is important.
There’s a similar expression of this focus in the Apple iPod ads:
Credit: www.ipodhistory.com
So first, lock out the background in a solid single tone colour. That removes basically any redundant signal about where the person is: in a garden, road, skyscraper, tunnel, train, etc. Then block out the person, leaving only a silhouette. That blots out anything perceivable about the person: race, color, religion, hair color, clothing (to a large extent, it merges into the silhouette). That leaves you with two things: the motion of their body and something that’s white. If you notice, the iPod has been actually better detailed than some of the bigger items (the screen is grayed to provide contrast and if you look really really closely, the faint outline of the scroll wheel can also be seen). So the first focal point is the motion of the body: the person is grooving. Obviously, this raises the question: Why? And then that feeds into the second focal point and that’s the iPod. And that completes the picture. It shows people enjoying the product as it was meant to be. In fact, even if your attention is directly attracted to the iPod, it’s a shortcut to the same focus of the ad. There is also an interesting subliminal message if you think about it: no matter who you are, what you wear and where you are, you WILL enjoy grooving to an iPod (Frankly, I don’t think iPod’s marketing people must have thought so much about it. I truly am jobless!)
Honestly, if you look at the other amazing ads, Nike’s brand ads (rather than actual product ads) or Apple’s “Think Different” commercial, unnecessary signals are drastically compressed (Nike’s video removes unnecessary video – it only shows Jordan walking around the stadium and the gym, hence the focus is completely on the voice over which in itself, is completely unhurried and clear. In the Think Different ad, there is only one instantly recognizable person in each frame. It also mutes out any sound associated with the video to remove that signal. The story or the focus lies, once again in the voiceover.). Among Indian ads, the one I really really love was an Airtel ad of the yore:
No matter how many other ads Airtel makes, no matter, how good they are, I don’t they will ever be able to recreate an ad like this again. Now think about the ad. Each frame has just two words. Each clip is only a second or two to enhance THOSE SPECIFIC WORDS in almost poetic fashion. The clips are black and white to blot out any color signals that “corrupt” the purity of the focus. There is no ambient noise, once again, in any of the clips. Even better, you don’t even notice the bloody music, it’s actually “background” music as compared to the Wega one. So you just focus on the text. It displays long enough to register but short enough that you don’t get bored. Then each of these texts weave through long enough for you to understand that it’s an emotion-based thing. And finally, this wreath of emotions culminates into to a single line: “Express yourself”. Perfect. Can you imagine what would happen if they ended up adding a Sachin Tendulkar’s “Nothing official about it” kinda thing or SRK’s overactive jumping around to it? I’m not saying that they suck at acting (They do, though!) But the point is that their star power pulls away attention from the focus of the ad. And if your focus is on the celebrity, you’ve lost the message.
In fact, a poor execution of a celebrity endorsement especially ends up corrupting the signals. For example, if you look at the Nike and the Apple ads, the celebrity don’t talk about the product. They reflect it. In one of Steve Jobs’ speech (when he launched the “Think Different” campaign), he talks about honoring people in the ads. That’s perfect. Nike uses Michael Jordan since MJ is the person who NEEDS a high-quality shoe to further his craft. To further his passion and everything he seeks to achieve. He endorses something that’s a very critical thing for him. SRK can’t do without Dish TV? or a Hyundai i10? Atleast Aamir Khan plays a role of someone else in his endorsements. In all these cases, once again, the message is about the star saying “use this” rather than ” I need it” or “This is me”. I can’t imagine that the former brings the focus to the product/brand/service as much as the latter does. But it’s all in the “Oh! But we paid him! Let’s get our money back by splattering his mug wherever we can!” panic. I’m not saying using celebrity endorsements are bad. God knows there must be some serious correlation between using celebrities for endorsements else they wouldn’t be spending so much money on it! But, there is a difference between rationalization of using a celebrity endorsement and the execution of said endorsement.
Somehow, there seems to be this incredible mixup between quality and quantity. A picture may be equal to a thousand words but is redundant when all you need to say can be done in a hundred. Quality comes through focus not per-display-of-product-per-rupee-spent. It doesn’t come by filling the screen with extras. It come from creating the equivalent of a cat-and-mouse cartoon series where two characters chase around the house for 10 minutes at a time. (That allows people to establish the “what” of the plot beforehand and lets them focus on the “how”). It comes saying “No”.
P.S.- Sometimes, I wish I could do that with my posts. Cut the meandering route to achieve a conclusion. Give me some time
P.S.2- Obviously, the assumption is once you bring in focus on the right things, you still have to have an amazing story ! Else, you’re better off with this B.S.
Most of you regulars (that’s right…all 2 of u) know that I’m a huge fan of Khan Academy and am a complete fan boy of Sal Khan. However, today when I was taking a break from the usual stuff, I started playing the devil’s advocate to why a site like this couldn’t take off in the traditional educational institution. There seemed to be only reason which can be represented in a mathematical equation (What else !)
Volume of knowledge = Rate of learning X Time
So there are two ways, the same volume of knowledge can be well, absorbed:
Increase the time spent and maintaining the rate of learning constant: Either you increase it time forward i.e. you finish your engineering when you’re 25 rather than when you’re 21; or you increase it time backward i.e. start science and commerce streams when you’re in the 9th and 10th standard and engineering specializations post you’re 10th. The first scenario prevents you from well, crudely speaking, monetizing your talents as soon as possible, leading to other social pressures (value in the marriage market, anybody?). The second scenario squeezes the time you have to explore your career options drastically. Post 10th, to define a career path seems quite drastic.
Increase the rate of learning keeping time spent constant: That’s what happens today. Even though the amount of knowledge increases in various graduate streams e.g. engineering , medicine, finance, operations, etc. the amount of time is still fixed. You still get 4 years to complete an engineering degree, or two years for a management degree. Hence, you pump up the rate of absorption a.k.a increase the number of topics per subject/subjects per year. You hit a natural ceiling on that front (cos humans are not upgradable!) and then we try to over-optimize the learning, which basically leads to a rote learning and exams where we puke out derivations of various formulae than learn the assimilation. A lot of that was discussed here. Further, given the same amount of time, a lot of things like open source software are expected to be learnt on the student’s initiative.
And this is the scenario we are stuck in. Except that it’s no longer just relegated to the education sector. It’s part of the way we live. Basically, a short term tangible benefit vs. long-term intangible harm. It’s like you go a fast food joint and hammer away at a burger, a large fries and a soda. Why ? Cos’ it tastes so good, right ? Like who cares about the cholesterol until we get like, palpitations and heart problems? That’s the fast food life. Would we do the same if we kept getting minor heart-attacks “free” with every mouthful? No.
That’s the fast food economy. Learn without understanding. Profit without cash. Living without experiencing. Short-term fudging at the cost of long term disaster. Cheap pollution vs. environmental degradation. Short term career choices at the cost of dreams. Volume at the cost of quality (China, India and engineering colleges – I’m looking at you!). Desperate talent acquisition at the cost of culture. Sales at the cost of broken promises. Cost optimization at the cost of customer inconvenience. Paying a bribe at the cost of subversion and exploitation. Managing reputation at the cost of distorting the reality. It just seems that every wrong decision in general was “right at the time”. And they are all wrong every time. Either we can’t see the potential harm, we are arrogant enough to believe that we will “manage” the problem when the time comes, we are convinced that we would have been kicked up the corporate ladder or we will basically do “jugaad” and get things done. Its not just about a simple right and wrong. It’s about compromises we make everyday. Even work-life balance is a symptom of a fast food economy. Or the mere presence of such a concept is the indication of a fast food culture.
Of course, a bit of fast food is always good. A bit of short-term gooey goodness is even required. A sporadic rush of endorphins is always nice . But how many people have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner? Well, I guess until we stop binge-eating, we aren’t gonna start hunting for healthy food. So how do we get over our addiction over our “fast food” then?
. But how many people have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner? Well, I guess until we stop binge-eating, we aren’t gonna start hunting for healthy food. So how do we get over our addiction over our “fast food” then?
