What makes a Good & Effective Advertisement?
Theme
Since this ad has been flashed long time back, I’m pretty sure everyone remembers the whole ad. So
I’m not going into the details.
Now lets analyze this ad against this set of parameters.
Theme
The theme of this ad is how Nokia 3650 is effective in helping you with its built in features. How is that done? The guy’s 3650 gives the result in the form of a small replay of umpire’s signal. That too when the TV conks off and the Cricket Family (their whole family is a cricket crazy ppl). Also this ad is based on the Delhi-ites who normally add a ’’-ji’’ or ’’Haanji’’ to each line they speak!! So this one does have a basic Theme : The GPRS Replay Comes in Handy when your TV conks off.
Is it actually possible?
Amidst countless ads which show girls following you, people dumping their mobiles in soups, Cars, bar tables and drinks come to you, all just because you have a cute mobile, this ad, I feel, is reflects WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get). Is it so? Well, Hutch (in Bangalore) were offering replays of wickets and shots in all GPRS enabled phones!! (Dunno if it was in Delhi). So they don’t show chasing cheetahs or doing bungee jumping with phones!! It actually is possible.
Short & Crisp
The ad is pretty simple formatted and gets over in a crisp, say, 20-30 seconds. I know all ads are only for that duration (Grrrrrr) But there are ads which stretch out quite too far and irritate you to the core. This aint one. And it is crisp in its message too. Not an ad that is filled with Tech information about its features blah blah blah...
Abstract / Real
You might have seen many ads end of which it leaves you confused with a question : What does he want to say? E.g.: All people shouting ’’Pepe’’!!! Also there are ads which have no link with the product but they are there just for visibility. E.g.: McDowell’s Mera No.1 ad.
This one aint any abstract. They don’t make you to try understand the ad and then correlate it with the product. The ad is clear and it has proper and real link to the product. So it scores high there too.
Viewer recollection
This is one aspect which seems to have taken the ad world by storm. Everybody ignore all the points above and only concentrate on this aspect. That’s why you have all those stupid looking, meaningless, sexy (supposedly) ads floating around.
This ad has infact garnered a good score in terms of recollection. People from Mumbai and M.P always take a dig at Delhi-ites and to an extent at UP-ites for the ’’-ji’’ reason. I remember, I had a friend from Delhi in my old company, who called everyone, young or old, as Sunilji, Sirji, Watchmanji..... His name was Deepak. Whenever he comes to the dinner room we say ’’Deepakji aaoji bhaitoji aurji kyaji khayengeji...’’. So this aspect along with the Third Umpire stuff in this ad seems to have added to the recollection rate among viewers.
Attention to Details
Now this is one thing that many advertisements tend to ignore totally. For example, remember the Prudential ICICI ad where this guy puts an extra tomato to make the weigh machine level and makes the Petrol Pump to go upto 500.. There are two major flaws they have.
When the weight is level in both pans, the weigh machine doesn’t level out on the indicator, it keeps oscillating for sometime. But here he shows a click sound and the level indicator levels out!!!
In all new generation Petrol Pumps (as shown in the ad), you have an option where these guys can enter the exact amount say Rs.100 and fill petrol exactly to that amount. Probably he should have selected a old version of the pump which doesn’t have this feature....
That’s what I mean by attention to detail. I felt this ad has made tremendous effort in covering this aspect.
Cast Performance
I like the guy in the Pru ICICI ad. He had a contaminating smile. Probably this one thing was missing in this ad. This Nokia ad probably is successful in breaking a smile in your face, but I felt the ’’Rahul’’ in this ad was not that ok.. but the rest of the crowd, including the "Third Umpire" were just fine...
End of the day, this all boils down to the fact does a buyer gets influenced by this ad to buy this product? I kinda think yes. Reason being I myself would like to have a GPRS phone with this video cap, but it is the cost of this set that is very huuuuge!! Yet If I had that spare money, I will surely buy this phone. 90% because of its features etc, but 10% because of this ad....!!!