Air-conditioners are definitely swinging away from the primary functionality of cooling. While one brand claims to pre-cool your room, another cools your room by detecting the number of people. It’s definitely a move to stay ahead in the race
An air-conditioner is not just for cooling. At least that’s what the advertisements would have us believe. Take a look at the Samsung advertisement. The other day, a friend was astonished when she saw Priyanka Chopra’s face beaming out of a billboard. The catch line was “virus doctor” and my friend was tempted to find the name of the face care product that the beauty queen was endorsing. She was surprised to see it was an air-conditioner brand! Samsung broke all conventional wisdom when it highlighted that an air-conditioner kills all viruses including the H1N1 virus that causes swine flu.
Well, air-conditioners are definitely swinging away from the primary functionality of cooling. Each brand is now trying to improve brand recall by treading an off-beaten track. And Samsung is just one of them. Take, for instance, Panasonic, Onida or LG. All of them have USPs that are nowhere near the original purpose of an air-conditioner. While Panasonic senses the number of people in the room and cools accordingly, a technology that it refers to as “eco-navi”, Onida gives consumers the opportunity to pre-cool their rooms before stepping into the house. “So when in the advertisement, you see a bunch of youngsters who just return from shopping splash water on their faces, or open a refrigerator to beat the heat, you are immediately able to relate to the product which certainly impresses consumers,” says A. Seksaria, Planning Associate, Rediffusion Y&R.
The trend is definitely cool. Opines Saumya Chattopadhyay, Strategic Planning, Rediffusion Y&R, “For a long time air-conditioners have been projecting the image that they purify the air, kill germs and promote good health. Now brands are moving a step further and coming up with various other strategies to improve brand recall.”
Chattopadhyay talks about other air-conditioner advertisements that make a dent. LG, for instance, claims to energise the consumer while the “sensible cooling” features of a Voltas air-conditioner is definitely kind to Mother Earth. The category has moved ahead in a new direction beyond cooling. As S. Chatterjee, advertising copywriter points out, it is a frantic attempt to be different from the competition. “After all, air-conditioners more or less, have the same features. There must be at least one feature which can set one product apart from another.” Chattopadhyay also says that consumers are a very aware lot these days. So each product is trying to promote a feature that will set it apart from the clutter. As long as the claim is realistic, it should augur well for the brand and thus also with the consumer.
Says M. Deb, a senior copywriter, “It’s not just enough to cool alone. An air-conditioner needs to give something more to establish itself in the mind of the customers.” In the future, the air-conditioner category may swing further towards emotional space. “Like the mobile phone category that needs to move beyond the territory of communication to stay ahead in the race, this category too, needs to do a similar thing,” says Seksaria. It appears this cool trend is here to stay!

The writer is a well known industry watcher