Is it Good Enough to be First in the Business of Advertising?

They say, “ the early bird gets the worm”. But does it get the best worm?"

“First” and “Best”… very simple words but in the context of life, be it personal or professional, have supreme importance. In today’s constantly changing competitive world, what everyone is striving for is of course a common thing i.e. “success” but with different methodologies. For some, success stands for initiating something. Instead of going on the leading path, they prefer to go where there is no path and leave the trail. This is undoubtedly a correct way of achieving your goal because rather than being a prisoner of the past, one should be a pioneer of the future and such people are always remembered.

But being the first doesn’t guarantee success unless you are smart enough. First, one will be remembered forever but can’t always be recognised. If one wants to hold sway over the world one should be crème de la crème. However, this is again an ongoing exercise as being the best is all about challenging yourself every day. Competing with others and beating them is one thing but beating your own personal best is an uphill task and only it can help you attain the peak. No matter what you are trying to accomplish, with thousands of other people trying to do the same thing, it surely helps to be driven. After all, most of the greatest entrepreneurs, scientists, and artists were perpetually striving to beat their own personal best or challenge their status quo. For instance, Google is not the first search engine, but we see how remarkably they have branded themselves, we use “Google” as a verb.

We don’t search the Google search engine, instead, we Google!

Talking about the advertising universe, let’s see how the principle of  “being the best” works.  In this social media-dominated world, you need to see the development in the threads and trends in advertising in order to keep track of your own marketing efforts. Digital experiences in the post-pandemic period were eye-openers. A real shift in the advertising algorithm has been observed particularly in the brand messaging, reduced duration of the ads in all media like TV, radio, and social media, etc. Moreover, swelling in e-commerce sites is again a noticeable change. Real stories and strong moral opinions after proper research about the target audience have proved to be essential factors to project the brand. Moreover, in order to make an effective ad the “guru mantra” is connecting with the audience which of course we all know yet this transformed era demands the one to be more credible, extraordinarily unique and memorable.

Today, we are migrating to the Meta universe. After Facebook rebranded itself as a Meta aiming to bring the metaverse to life where people will communicate through virtual reality and grow their businesses.

This age demands advertising that consists of all the fundamental aspects of advertising 
in evolved avatar. What are those aspects?

• A simple yet strong central message, authentic content which clearly states the reason for the existence of each brand.

•  A strong pillar of content demands the foundation of brand purpose. Along with emotion is a new buzzword “purpose”  with an essence of social responsibility which perfectly connects a brand with its consumers.

• By developing deeper relationships with the core consumers and understanding the brand values because by doing so you will be bringing their brand to life.

• Successful and smart brand positioning according to the changing trends yet keeping it unique.

• Authenticity and loyalty with the marketers and consumers.

• And most importantly an ad which stands out of the crowd and will be remembered.

In my opinion, an agency (be it small or large, size doesn’t matter) which delivers the brand keeping in mind all the above fundamental rules with the shades of honesty and integrity, could be considered the best agency in today’s Meta era.

But above all, a key factor which stands at the cutting edge is “creativity”. Creative ads are more effective in inspiring people to buy a particular product.  The mantra behind successful advertising echoed by Stephan Vogel, Ogilvy & Mather Germany’s chief executive officer “Nothing is more efficient than creative advertising. Creative advertising is more memorable, longer lasting, works with less media spending and builds a fan community faster”. More the creativity in the campaigns, the more effective they are. An ad campaign covering the different dimensions of creativity i.e. originality, fluency, flexibility and abstractness as well will make it the best campaign. At the same time, it should be high in artistic value. They are full of aesthetically appealing content and their production quality is high with clever dialogue and original colour pallet. Consumers often view such ads as a piece of art rather than blatant sales pitches. For example, while working on the travel & tourism project, it’s very much obvious that one should cover the natural diversity of India. But delivering the same through a different dimension is icing on the cake. We were given a unique concept of a new dimension - a pineal eye like Shiva's third eye, which unlocks the beauty of the rich Indian culture, heritage, splendid landscapes and an awe-inspiring kaleidoscopic natural diversity. This thought is full of all the dimensions of creativity used in combination and hence is effective.

In this creative ocean, no matter if you are a small fish or a shark the only thing that matters is how effectively you design your mousetrap but for that, you don’t need to be in the rat race. Like Baba Ranchhod Das said ,”Success ke pichhe mat bhago,excellence ka pichha karo, success jhak maar 
ke tumhare pichhe aayegi”. Success is not about just making money, success is the result of your capabilities, skills, knowledge, competence and execution. You should be able to make gold on every opportunity you have whether it is one or hundreds. You should be a little wary of and the market is all yours. You need to keep out-innovating the competition and making the best version every time and eventually delivering the finest work.

In this advertising industry, we have seen the seemingly thriving companies disappear. You have only one life to live, so make yours count. Focus on the outcome, not the obstacles. The Sun’s rays do not burn until brought to focus. Hence keep an eye on the tiger and fight like hell. It’s not about who made it first, it’s about who made it right.

The author Vishal Borade is an advertising professional with 18+ years of experience in ATL marketing. He is the founder of PickArta Advertising and Marketing, a multifaceted creative agency based in Mumbai.