Payback time says naukri.com

Each one of us certainly bears some grudge or the other against our boss. The irony is that none of us dares to take out those grudges while on the job – we merely think of settling scores the day we quit.

But now it’s time to pay your boss back. Thanks to naukri.com. And that’s the message the jobs portal conveys in its latest TVC, using a humorous approach.

Ayesha Kapur, AV-P, marketing, naukri.com, explains the strategy, “One of the common reasons to quit a job is differences with the boss. The creatives have been designed based on this insight.”

The latest TVC is the third in the series since the job portal started advertising on television. And in all its communications, naukri.com uses the same ‘terrible boss’ factor.

Kapur clarifies: “It’s not that we are targeting the boss alone, but this is a concept that finds universal appeal. The commercial has various layers behind what might seem to be a boss-bashing exercise. We are also talking of empowerment and generating hope that there could be a better opportunity for you out there.”

The latest commercial opens with a boss expressing his displeasure with his employee’s work. In a fit of anger, he hurls a file back on the employee’s face. Just then, a secretary looks into the room and tells the boss about a phone call from a hotel reservation desk. The boss makes his reservation and tells his name to be Hari Sadu, but the person on the other side cannot get the name. Just then, the employee steps in and offers to help.

He starts to spell out the name: H for Hitler, A for arrogant, R for rascal, I for idiot. The boss’ jaw drops and the super appears, ‘Guess who’s just heard from us? naukri.com, India’s No. 1 job site’. Unmindful, the employee continues, Sadu, S for… He hesitates for the right word, at which point, another colleague standing behind him completes the sentence with Shameless. The boss is totally taken aback. And the viewers are in splits.

The TVC has tried the humorous approach once again. Sanjay Sharma, creative director, FCB-Ulka, says, “Humour is the best possible approach to make a concept acceptable. We seem to have managed a recall value with the last two commercials, so we decided to continue with using humour.”

“The use of humour works well in building recall value and also entertaining the audience,” says Kapur of naukri.com.

Sharma remembers an interesting incident while finalising the name of the boss. He says, “Initially, the name was to be Hari Subbu. Hari, being a common name, could be indicative of any number of bosses whom employees want to avoid like the plague. But at the last minute, the filmmaker put his finger on a name in the trade guide, Sadu, and that made them change the surname because the combination was so funny in itself.”

Rajesh Krishnan, filmmaker, Footcandles, says, “We wanted to show a situation where the employee is not someone who doesn’t know his job and deserves to be sacked, rather we wanted to highlight that the boss is just unreasonable. For this, we played with the lighting, taking a leaf from the illustrations in which Gods are shown with a halo. Similarly, we have deliberately used a dark room with light falling only on the hero’s face and illuminating it well as opposed to the other characters.”

He adds, "To give a touch of meanness to the boss, we threw light on his face from below."

The naukri.com commercials have always been in English in keeping with the profile of its TG, which is primarily net savvy. As the site, too, is in English, a basic knowledge of the language is necessary for the surfers.

© 2006 agencyfaqs!