Exaggerated humour is a delicate art form in advertising. Done right, and your viewers can’t stop the chuckling. On the other hand, it can leave folks wondering what’s happening.
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A new ad from Finolex Cables walks this fine balance while exaggerating and building on a relatable human behaviour. Remember when relatives visit your home and suddenly there’s a dearth of charging points or free space to sit and watch your favourite show on the telly? That’s what struck my mind whilst watching the minute-long spot from the manufacturer of electrical and telecommunication cables.
A brainchild of independent agency Enormous, a couple struggles to find empty sockets to charge their smartphones because a rock band has plugged their instruments into all the free ones inside a room; the kitchen is overflowing with homemakers and their queue to use mixers, grinders, and whatnot; hair dryers have taken over the bathroom sockets; and it’s best to not talk about the living room.
All this is because the home is equipped with Finolex cables that can bear immense loads. Exaggerated? Yes. Over the top? Of course. But it does its job.
“We wanted to create a unique visual language for Finolex,” says Ankit Pathak, senior creative director, Enormous. He explains it all started with the initial thought “about a crowd of people flocking to the Finolex owner’s house to use their wires, fans, LED lights, and smart locks.”
As the agency’s team explored the thought more and more, it naturally lent itself to humour and exaggeration. Turns out the idea was pitched to a client a year ago, but Enormous had picked a different approach. “Luckily, our leadership team decided to push for it again, which did the magic, and the clients supported us through this,” he remarks.
There is another ad from Finolex that too uses the exaggerated humour trope. A man takes an African army general on a tour of his home where priceless artefacts, paintings, a jewellery collection, company secrets, and gold coins are placed without any care. Why? Because the home uses smart locks from Finolex. Impressed and assured, the army general wants space for his gold reserves in the home but is told there’s no space and that he should try the neighbour because they too use Finolex smart locks.
One is not too off the mark to wonder if the company is trying to tell people about its other products because most recognise it for its wires. “Finolex is renowned for its wires everywhere. But they offer best-in-class smart locks, LED lights and BLDC fans too. This campaign uses a simple memory structure to promote all these products,” says Pathak.
The company is pushing its money for this aim. In FY24, it spent Rs 31.39 crore on advertising and sales promotion, up from Rs 30.87 crore in FY23. Along with power cables, it makes fans, switches, water heaters, lights, and smart home products.