“Psst! Psst! Ma’am, Ma’am…came a sound, as I walked down the elevator at Select City Walk on a Flea Market Wednesday afternoon. Suddenly from behind a column a young, earnest looking young man sprang out with a tube of some kind of cream and said “Ma’am, can I ask you something? You must have used a special cream for your face and rubbed the remains on your hands. Don’t these two areas have any difference? And as I stopped in my tracks, he put a blob of cream on my hand and asked me to rub it in. Some 200 metres farther down there was a black and white mini gym space that was approximately 8x8 feet in size. It was sort of decorated with silver and black dumb bells and in one corner there were these look-a-like Mr. India hunks ready to spray the new Davidoff fragrance on you from a dumb bell shaped bottle.
These are commonplace variegated spots that one encounters in any bazaar-like setting of a mall or any large bustling shopping place. All of them are different forms of one of the oldest and most widely used medium of reaching out to the consuming public — Out of Home media or OOH as it’s referred to.
The idea is to use strategic locations to convey the brand promise. The motive however, is not uniform, while one brand is using the stationary space as a platform for the introduction of Fitness First — a lifestyle gymnasium, another uses it to make an exciting offer to the consumer — one kg of besan free with a five kg Aashirwad atta pack. Then there are others like Cadbury (éclairs) and Gillette (Mach III) who hang danglers near the store’s cash-ier to entice you into un-planned buying.
Traditionally, the mechanics of OOH advertising has been the same — an extremely cost effective means of educating/reminding the common man. And even though, there have been revolutionary innovations in the medium the brand uses to showcase itself, by and large one can classify the communication under two distinct categories…
On the go communication: These would vary from psychedelic neon lights, ala Times Square, New York and Nathan road, Hong Kong, to billboards and hoardings and balloons and banners that one would view as one is on the move. The prime objective here is to educate and deliver the intended message. These could be messages from State corporations — such as 30th January polio Ravivar, to safety first — wear a helmet. Makar sakranti and Lohri greetings from a political candidate, reminding you — Main hoon na. Or just great offers and deals at Tanishq or Croma which you would regret if you missed. The location — usually heavy traffic areas or in the vicinity of the shopping area — in this case becomes extremely critical. The message has to be crisp — Change the Game. And second, approximately two thirds of the message should be a visual or graphic making fearless eye contact with the passer by — Mr. Bachchan for ICICI Prudential.
Stop, look, go: These fall into the second category of OOH advertising. These, like the car or bike or microwave oven displays that one sees in the midst of a busy shopping place, seem to be crooning to you Ruk ruk, ruk, jana zara ruk jana. The intention here is not merely to acquaint but stop you in your tracks, to touch and feel the new Galaxy tab, the Blackberry torch, the Burberry perfume, and to evoke the desire to purchase and own the object. These 3-D displays of the product prototype sometimes come accompanied with a sample and trial opportunity as well. As in the case of the billboard, the location becomes critical, for example the steaming hot samples of the new Knorr soupy noodles, available outside a food store on a cold winter’s evening.
In fact if one looks around, the billboards and the neon lights, the flyers, banners and showcased product displays are all part of a consumer’s world. So how does one withstand the signage clutter and rise above it? Well, thanks to the tenacity of man, there is many a brave heart that has accepted the gauntlet and risen to the challenge!
The writer is professor, marketing, International Management Institute (IMI), New Delhi