The Truth Test

In the recent past, there have been examples of Indian advertising taking up Gandhian values - 'Let Gandhi Talk' campaign by Publicis India, a Gandhi font created by Leo Burnett and an office designed on the lines of Gandhi's ashram by BBDO.

So when the advertising business met for its annual celebration, GoaFest, this year, BW decided to ask three experts for their views on truth and advertising.

Excerpts:

Sunil Gupta, managing partner, South Asia, Results International Group and regional director, South-west Asia, Aprais Instead of 'heads' or 'tails' at the toss at a cricket match, they could well say 'advertising' or 'exaggeration', that's how intricately joined at the flip (sic) they are.

It's quite understandable that a brand must needs use a bit of hyperbole to up the ante with the many-headed. After all, consumers, poor chaps (and aren't we all?), want to feel that the ten bucks (or ten zillion bucks) they are going to spend are going to make them an instant somebody or a perfect mom/dad/son/daughter-in-law/non-pimpled Adonis etc.

And everyone, but everyone, wants to believe that they've got a great bargain, whether they're buying a Rolls or a roll.

So it's fair game: the chased wanting to be chased, wanting all the blandishments they can get, and advertisers with all hands to the spit and polish pump.

I mean, wearing a Rolex will still tell the same time as your Sonata, but ah, my friends, what a quality of time it will be! 9.00 am will be a magnificent, superlative, successful, hole-in-one shooting 9.00 am, not your mundane catch-the-bus and sign-the-register 9.00 am. An Audi A6 will bounce into the same potholes and get stuck at the same toll plaza as your Nano, but what a glorious, heavenly bounce and what a F1-like stickiness it will be! And yet…and yet.

Where does dewy-eyed romance stop and morning breath begin?

Where does exaggeration break away like a loose canon (sic) and plough a rogue furrow? When is it time to say 'off with its head'? When is time to call a spade a toothpick instead of the other way round?

I say it's when the fine line between the charming mischief of metaphor crosses the line of acceptable dreaminess and becomes an in-your-face unshaven thug who's going to get your money using a bludgeon instead of the sweet flick of a rapier. It's when you're drawn into the first blush of that romance only to find that he's a closet soup-slurper. It's when you're promised to be swept off your feet only to discover he intends to do it with a jharoo. Let's take the marvelous Fevicol oeuvre.

The shadow, the bus, the TV, the rear-view mirror, the Rajasthani child et al just hint and suggest; they intrigue and they reward the viewer for his time and respect his intelligence; their promise is in sweet shades of grey and that's why their charm and the strength of the brand will not fade, for it's not just a brand that's top of mind in its category, it is also much-loved (which is what all brands aspire to but few achieve) and I dare say it's because it doesn't go over the top in terms of what it promises.

Consumers are willing (nay, begging for) to take tongue-in-cheek stuff, and that's why the Fevicol ads work. But instead of the titillation with a feather that they crave, they get a scouring brush. This is largely because most advertising confuses the ephemeral metaphysicality of metaphor with the hardness of physical reality, and that's where the problem starts.

The following examples of foot-in-mouth disease demonstrate the above, and since I am the actual consumer in all cases, they are from the horse's mouth! And to aid assimilation (and hopefully agreement), I shall give them descriptive titles.

1) HA HA FOOLED YOU: Some time ago I received an sms from Vodafone saying that they had "analyzed" my STD usage, and on that basis they were offering me a package which gave me x no of minutes for a fixed fee. Not being a big boardroom honcho who wouldn't care if he saved a few hundred bucks, I sent off the confirmatory sms that they had requested with anticipatory glee, thinking of all the goodies I could now buy with the bucks I would save. But my hopes were rudely dashed immediately, as I received another sms which rather curtly said that "You are not eligible for this service". I felt like a sheepish Oliver Twist who'd been asked by Mr Bumble to ask for more (perhaps I'd mixed up my brands?!), but when I did, I was told off. But I mean to say, what? So I called up Customer Service, the one they say is perpetually Happy To Help. But must have been one of their off days, or just that I had hit one of their Unhappy periods, since no one could explain why I had been the victim of what seemed to be an April Fool's prank in September. After a few dozen minutes on the phone (which probably cost me all the money I might have saved with the STD package), I retired hurt and made a mental note not to be taken in by such blandishments ever again. I felt like a fellow who thought his internet buddy was Shakira only to find her to be Shakir and a podgy 55-year old at that.

2) WE ARE LIKE THAT ONLY AND WILL REMAIN SO NO MATTER WHAT THE ADS SAY: It was a dark and foggy Boxing Day night. We had decided to take an impromptu holiday to Ria Bintan, and had managed to get a good deal on Air India to Singapore (before you suck in your breath and close your eyes, please ref to "non-boardroom type" above). The flight was to take off at 0015 hrs (that's why the ref to 'foggy' above, to which I'm sure you've latched on immediately, but no, it's not just one of those "we were delayed by x/y/z hours by fog in Delhi". I mean, yes it is, really, but with a lot of ungodly stuff in the details so stay tuned). So off we toodle to T3 and very cleverly ask the check-in staff if the flight's taking off on time despite the fog that's beginning to roll in like a couple of politicians who've sensed a good scam in the offing. "Oh yes sir", they chorus with nary a blush, "all our pilots are CAT III trained. And the gate's been announced, too" they end with a celebratory flourish.

Indeed it had (Gate 18, and remember that since it plays an important role in the proceedings). So we check our bags in and toddle off to the lounge to have a couple of snifters while we think of all the snifters we're going to have on the beach a few hours hence. However, at about 2345 hrs, I notice that there's precious little change in the "Status" section of the flight on the monitor. It still says "Security Check" though we're supposed to be airborne in 30 minutes. So I decide to toodle down to Gate 18 to take a dekko. I arrive to find about 100 passengers but no sign of anyone manning the gate. Not a soul. No mention of the flight too. Hmmm, I think, with just a hint of a wild surmise like a (lean) Cortez. There are a couple of security chappies standing around but they don't have a clue and tell me so in Tamil, I think. Not good, I know, and ask a couple of passengers who start telling me their tales of woe (one of them has been stranded for over a day). Definitely not good.

Off I go to the Information booth to find a couple of more passengers asking similar questions, and the not-so-pretty young thing says we should try and fine someone from Air India, but since there's no Air India booth inside the departure area that's a bit like looking for incriminating documents in Kalmadi's residence six months after the CWG. And we can't go to the check-in counters since we've gone through Immigration. So off we go to try and harangue the security chappies who sit at a table just after Immigration to either let us through to the check-in counters or locate an Air India rep. One of them relents and gives me the number of their Operations Manager, a Ms Bodhisattva or something, and when I call, she actually answers. A good sign, I think, but what she tells me turns the blood cold. "Mr Gupta, I am in the Operations area but I think the flight's not taking off due to the fog."

"But I was told that all the pilots are CAT III trained?" I said. Apparently the fog's a CAT IV or something so no go there. But she tells me she'll call me back, which of course I believe.

Anyway, I toddle back to Gate 18 (by the end of this story I'll have done my hard yards for the week) and find (hold your breath) a couple of pilots and a gaggle of cabin crew, all very spiff and coiffed. Hallelujah, I think, if they're there then chances are that there's a plane somewhere waiting for us too. But there's still no one manning the gate which is shut and there's still no flight featured on it.

So I ask (timidly) the pilots if they're waiting for the same bus, er, plane. Actually they're the chaps who're supposed to be flying us to Singapore, but what they tell me turns my already cold blood into a bit of Arctic ice: "We're the crew but we don't know where the plane is." Now I've heard a lot of excuses before but this one leaves me gobsmacked. By now there's a bit of a crowd gathering, sensing there's a bit of drama building. "We believe it's in Bay 29 which is across the airport but we don't know how to get there. But it's definitely not at Gate 18."

It takes a bit of time to digest this. Finally: "So what happens to us?

I mean, do we go there too, by bus or something? And where are the chappies who're supposed to be manning the gate?"

This one's in the solar plexus. "We don't know where they are since we're from Air India and the flight's operated by Indian Airlines." All this said as if imparting age-old wisdom. I almost said "Oh, I see" till I realized the implications of that statement. However, would you know what to say? No? I didn't too. "I thought you were one and the same now?" I ask.

They give me a withering look as if to say "you're really a greenhorn, aren't you?", and explain, as if to an idiot child, "the ground staff's Indian Airlines and we're Air India". No sense, I know, in repeating the one for all and all for one line, so I take a hike back to Information but get no jollies there either.

By now it's well past 1 am. I toodle back to Gate 18 to find that the crew's done a bunk too. Everything's looking bleak and gloomy in T3 now, like a cave conceived by Voldemort. Then I notice that at Gate 20 there's some activity, and an Air India (yes!) flight to Tokyo is boarding. "No Tokyo Cancelled" I think to myself, feeling rather aggrieved, as I charge there as no doubt there'd be some AI or IA staff (or both?) doing the boarding. There are! It feels like I've found my own true loves, but when I ask about the Singapore flight, I am told (hang on hard) that "What are you doing at Gate 18, it's going from Gate 4." "Gate 4?" I chorus, sounding like a weary echo. "But the monitor says Gate 18!"

"Yes, we know, but it's a mistake," they say triumphantly. "Go to Gate 4 and you'll find someone from AI there."

So off I go, promising the other passengers I'll send them a card when I arrive as Gate 4 is about a 15-20 min walk from Gate 18. When I get there I find some Sikh security men who say yes, they've seen some AI guys in the wild, so to speak, who've gone out into the foggy bottom (as it seems) to "find the plane" (their words). This is beginning to feel like a Beckett play. Seeing that I'm at a loss, they say kindly "Wait a while, they'll come back."

So I sit. And sit. Calls from the family are getting more frequent. I tell them (authoritatively) that though the flight is an AI one, it's operated by IA. Doesn't cut any ice. Didn't think it would.

This article appeared in the April 16th, 2011 issue of Businessworld.

http://www.businessworld.in/bw/2011_04_16_The_Truth_Test.html