The guy with the moon in his matted hair responds to my question about the Indian Airlines ad. The discussion started with my question about the Indian Airlines ad that has been airing on TV and it has done a to and fro round over email.
I still disagree with the guy with the moon.. etc.
A well-established airline like IA doesn’t have to explain all those things that CCG says the ad should cover. The rules of thumb are:
If the concept is new, your ad should introduce the concept.
People have been flying since the beginning of the last century. Ads talking of the advantages of flying belong to back then.
If you are an entrant in a competitive space, you introduce yourself.
CCG’s says:
“I expect an airline to tell me they will fly me anywhere in the world.
I expect an airline to tell me, at-least, if they don’t fly everywhere, they can help me get anywhere with their partners.I expect a commercial for an airline to tell me that the pilot is an expert. He can land the plane safely in any kind of weather. He has more flying hours than the crow. That I won’t be seeing 60 year old women serving me chocolates with a toothless grin.”
This really would apply if Indian Airlines were an unknown entity trying to introduce itself.
If you are an established competitor in a competitive space, talk about what differentiates you.
That’s self-explanatory, and that is what Indian Airlines should be doing. But that is not exactly what it is doing. The advertisements are actually battling the well-known image problem that it has, i.e. it conjures up images of grumpy airhostesses, bad service and delayed flights. So it makes sense for the campaign to focus on just those areas. It is another matter that the image problem exists because it reflects reality and IA can’t do a shit about that. But if you were the advertiser I think it is a good effort.
There are other quirks about Airline ads. They never mention safety explicitly because it scares passengers.
Then there is the question of whether any TV ad can do all the things CCG wants it to do or whether it is better to split it up into smaller commercials, but that is a question that he, as the copywriter, is better placed to answer.
SIngapore Airlines, which is now probably the best (maybe after BA) had a commercial airing on TVs sometime back.
Now, everyone knows Singapore airlines flies all over the world. But still, their commercial talked about it. They had their beautiful air-hostesses to frolic around in different cities of the world. They had their air-hostess to smile at small children, yet, they proved very effectively that they were huge. With the closing shot of that huge fish shaped plane and the other torpedoes occupying the entire sky.
Now, Singapore Airlines needn’t have done that. They could have just had their air-hostess to smile. But did they do that? No, they very effectively demonstrated their power and capacity. I expect IA to do it. And they didnt.
But you are arguing with the brief not the ad. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but it is really the client’s call, not the advertiser’s. The first question is, *given* the brief, is the ad campaign effective?
The second question is, given IA’s competitive position and its strategy, does the brief make sense?
The two are separate questions. If as an agency, the client tells you to come up with a campaign to combat IA’s image of grumpy airhostesses, is the ad campaign make sense?
The second question is for the Marketing Exec of Indian Airlines. He has to design his tactics as part of the company’s overall strategy. Perhaps the object of the campaign is defensive, i.e. it wants to prevent people from switching. It may want to get back people it lost to other airlines. It may want to attract people who have always travelled by other airlines. Perhaps it wants to attract people who are travelling for the first time. The ad campaign may stand by itself or it may be part of a larger promotional campaign. The objective of the ad campaign may be to tip the decision in the passenger’s mind in favour of IA, or it may just be an attempt to move IA into the “consideration set” of the passenger. It may target individuals or it may target corporates.
The point I am trying to make is, the first question is a closed-ended question. Given the brief, the question of its effectiveness can be answered by just asking the target audience or carrying out surveys of some sort.
The second question, on the other hand, is open ended because we don’t know what IA’s strategy is, what its market research tell it, so we have to guess, and your guess is as good as mine.
But you have ignored the first question, but answered the second question without even going into the complexities that the answer involves.
I bow to thee, oh great master of logic. true. I ignored the question of the brief. And as usual, i went combative.
I agree. If the brief was to change the dowdy image of IA, it works to a certain degree. (Though the commercial is a dated way of saying it)
Given a brief like that, I might have come up with something similar, but a lot less infantile.