Palio nv: Petrol promise... with a twist

The archetypal petrol pump has often been a key constituent in advertising where automotive brands - be it two-wheelers or cars - choose to talk about superior mileage. And in these exchanges, expectedly, the petrol pump has always come out the poorer, with cars, scooters and motorcycles giving the forlorn pump sitting by the roadside a go-by. All on account of the great mileage the advertised cars, scooters and motorcycles afford.

Which is where the just-released television commercial for the Palio nv - the relaunched petrol version of the Palio - is different, even when ‘great mileage' is the core advertising proposition, and even when a petrol pump is at the centre of all the action. For far from simply zipping past the petrol pump, in this ad, the Palio does make its way into the pump, not once, not twice, but… Hold it! We're letting too much out, too soon. Let's take it the way the story unfolds in film.

The commercial opens on this decrepit petrol pump in the middle of dusty nowhere, not a soul in sight. Correction. A lone elderly attendant swats flies as he waits for somebody, anybody to draw up for a refill. His patience is rewarded, and a Palio comes to a halt by one of the pumps. Dispenser in hand, the attendant gleefully runs up to the car and waits expectantly. The window rolls down, a head pops out… and asks for directions to ‘Gangapur'. The attendant points the way grumpily and returns to his waiting as the car heads off towards Gangapur (a few hundred kilometers away, a milestone informs us helpfully).

Cut to another Palio driving into the pump. Once again grabbing the dispenser, the old-timer makes a dash for the car. The window rolls down, another head pops out of the window… and asks for a telephone. The cross attendant rudely gestures to a telephone with an out-of-order sign hanging by it. Cut to a third Palio making its way into the pump. The attendant goes through the routine again, but this time it turns out that the driver is merely desperate to answer the call of nature. The attendant is by now close to pulling his hair out.

Cut to a fourth Palio pulling in. Before the car can come to a stop, the attendant runs up and starts knocking on the window. The window rolls down, but before a word can be uttered, the attendant shouts at the driver, telling him that Gangapur is ‘that way', that the telephone is ‘out of order', and that the bathroom is ‘way back there'. The driver stares at the attendant for a moment, then asks, ‘Petrol nahin hai kya?'‘Petrol!' Relief and surprise compete for control of the old man's voice.

As the ad goes through the ‘product section', the voiceover talks about how, sometimes, even the Palio nv has to stop for a refill. ‘Great mileage. Great looks. Great news,' goes the slug. The ad ends with the shot of the driver of the last Palio reaching into his pocket and pulling out a petrol-fuelled cigarette lighter. Holding it up to the attendant, he says, ‘Do rupaye ka dena…'

The most interesting thing about this ad - conceived by Leo Burnett India and directed by Abhinay Deo - is that while the focus is on the relaunch of the petrol version of the Palio, the underlying message is, ‘this is a petrol car, but it doesn't need a lot of petrol to run.' And the latter part of that message is precisely why Fiat India has commissioned this commercial.

To understand this better, a little lesson in Palio's short history in India is in order. Launched in October 2001 as the new face of Fiat India (it certainly would have been the last for the company had the brand not succeeded, industry watchers insist), the Palio was a big hit for the first six to eight months following its launch. Consumer confidence in Fiat went through a sea change, and sales-wise, the best month for the company was April 2002, when it clocked 4,000-plus units (some 3,500 of these being the Palio).

The honeymoon didn't last long. The perception that the petrol version of the Palio was a gas-guzzler quickly took root. Consumer surveys conducted by Fiat bore out this perception, although Ananda Gupta, commercial director, Fiat India, puts up a defense. "It is wrong to compare the Palio with other cars in the B segment (of the passenger car market), simply because the Palio is a heavier car and houses a bigger engine," he says. "So this perception of the Palio being comparatively fuel inefficient was unfounded."

Technically a sound argument, perhaps, but not one that would wash with the consumer, and Gupta admits as much. Anyway, the poor-fuel-efficiency perception slowly gained ground, and sales began dropping. It didn't help that Fiat India's parent in Italy wasn't going through the best of times. A lot of bad press stoked consumer uncertainty, and by the end of 2002, Fiat India was down to selling less than 1,000 units per month. Bad press is really beyond control, but industry experts are of the opinion that Fiat perhaps didn't do enough early on to put a check on the gas-guzzler perception tailing the Palio petrol.

It's something that the company is bent on fixing this time round. Via the product (the Palio nv), as well as its communication. "We have made lots of improvements in the car to make it more fuel efficient," says Gupta. "We've made changes in the ECU and in the exhaust system. The catalytic converter has been relocated and we've reduced the weight of the car. All this is to deliver better fuel efficiency in real-life driving conditions. And the whole thing has been relaunched as the new version (that's where the branding derives its ‘nv' extension) of the Palio petrol."

The advertising, of course, had to communicate the gist of all this to the consumer. "On all other aspects, the Palio is easily the best of breed," says Sandeep Pathak, general manager, Leo Burnett India. "The only market problem pertained to this perception of fuel inefficiency, so the brief to us was very clear. The ad had to communicate that the Palio nv is a fuel efficient car." The primary objective before the agency was to tackle a perception problem in a manner that it brought an attitudinal change in the consumer, making him look at the Palio afresh.

Speaking about the idea and its execution, Agnello Dias, executive creative director, Leo Burnett India says the creative challenge was to see how differently one could present the ‘mileage proposition'. "What we did here was simply change the point of view - an old advertising trick," he says. "If fuel efficiency is a great benefit for one person, it could also be a problem for someone else. We decided to look at the story from that person's perspective, and here our fall guy happened to be the petrol pump attendant."

Dias agrees that petrol pumps have often figured in ‘fuel-efficiency ads'. "It's been done before, but usually in a way that says such-and-such car has never been to a petrol pump. So you have petrol attendants who don't know what this car looks like because it never stops by, and you have people driving vehicles just ignoring petrol pumps. With the Palio, we are doing the opposite of what most ads do. We are saying here's a car that goes to the pump for all sorts of reasons. But rarely for petrol." © 2003 agencyfaqs!