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Quick quiz for the Bollywood geeks!

Remember the washing powder, Rajpal Yadav’s character Pandya used in ‘Chup Chup Ke’?

The phone, Shah Rukh’s character Rahul from ‘Chennai Express’ threw away from the train?

Which site did Naina from ‘Yeh Jawani Hai Dewaani’ use to book her last-minute trip to Manali? Or the courier service that took Aditi’s wedding invitation to Kabir?

Do you think these brands were randomly placed or was it all in the plan?

Product placement as a form of advertising is nothing new, especially in the huge fan-based Bollywood where such tricks have been in use since movies like ‘Mother India’ and ‘Anand’. Product placement is when a brand or a product is subtly slipped into frames or positioned into the character’s hand in such a way that it secretly finds a corner in your brain, where it stays until someday it occurs to you on a re-watch.

The Widening Horizon of Product Placement

While the placement started indistinctly in past, with time it started becoming more ‘on-the-face’. From a scene starring Salman Khan sipping Thumbs up in ‘Dabbang’, Shah Rukh Khan having a moment of win at the McDonald in ‘Chak de! India’ to having songs like ‘Fevicol se’ and then a whole movie based on a car called ‘Mere Dad ki Maruti’ and ‘Ferrari ki Sawaari’, the journey of product placement has sped up. From Bollywood blockbusters to regional cinema, with approximately of 1.2 billion viewers, brands have found the immense potential of tapping into their audience along with the crazy fans. With OTT platforms and the digital boom widening the scope, brands have found another platform to include themselves in the frames with people’s favourite characters making themselves more relatable to the audience. A recent example would be the conversation that sparked up when the brand ambassador of Realme, Shah Rukh Khan’s character was found using a Poco phone in his recent film ‘Jawan’.

The key to Product Placement: Making it all Relatable

Product placement helps products gain the characteristics of the character they are associated with. With films being the longest way of storytelling and narrative setting, what better way to form an image for your brand than associating it with a character similar to it? Though it might not guarantee a boost in sales, product placement promises brand recall. Of course, a Ray-Ban Aviator reminds you of a fearless Chul Bul Pandey, action-packed Vikram Rathore, or say the romance king Raj from ‘Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge’.  You dreamt of your ‘Hum Dum Suniyo re’ on a Kawasaki moment along the Marine Drives after watching Vivek Oberoi in ‘Saathiya’.

Evergreen Endurance

With the recent development of dislike for advertisement among the audience and the availability of an option to skip ads, product placement helps to achieve the target, that too in the subtlest way possible. Product placement has slowly also seeped into the content of social media influencers. Though the success of these placements largely depends on the success of the movie and the smartness with which the brand is placed. Certainly, you do not wish for the hero to stop mid-movie and tell you all the features of his bike as he rides to save the actress in distress. Hrithik Roshan’s character Krishna in ‘Krrish’ drinking Bournvita as an adult seems absurd but sure helps form a connection with its previous film ‘Koi Milgaya’ and its character Rohit. The recent ad campaign by Oppo using the characters from a generation’s favourite movie ‘Wake up Sid’ leaving the fans confused with the hope of a sequel can also be an example of product placement, though not exactly. Product Placement as an advertising form has stood the test of time and sees no near future perish and also places a long-term beneficial platform for both producers and advertisers. 

So the next time you see a brand being endorsed by your favourite actor know it’s all a part of the plan.

Let me make my point by talking about something that all “creative” people love to talk about when they have nothing else to say, The Creative Process™. Let’s specifically talk about copywriting since I’m a copywriter and I don’t know anything else.

BRIEFS

The process starts with a brief. You get a brief and it is usually either too brief or not brief at all. So, you have to ask again to get some clarity. That’s standard procedure, that’s what always happens. Nobody knows how to give a brief properly and nobody knows how to pay attention while somebody else is giving it.

INSIGHTS

Moving on to the second step, getting an insight. This is the step where your brain will betray you by going completely blank. Then entails a lot of doodling and procrastinating to avoid facing the blank screen. You’ll scroll endlessly on your phone in hopes of getting an idea but your brain will refuse to think a single thought.

You lose hope. You finally accept that you’re an imposter and all this time you’ve managed to fool people into thinking that you are an extremely creative person. You prepare to pack your bags and leave this industry forever because it’s for creative people, not for you. You’re a fraud. This is exactly when an idea hits you. You run back to your desk as you scramble for your diary. You quickly write down the idea, you open your laptop, and type away.

ACTUAL WRITING

Then comes the step where you write and rewrite. You read and reread. You just can’t seem to find the right words. After a whole lot of staring at your words, pressing backspace, staring at the blank screen, Ctrl + Z, you decide to give up. You realise you just don’t know enough words, you don’t know any grammar, and you have the smallest vocabulary. You seemed to write perfectly well yesterday but today is the day your skills and creativity finally run out. Time to pack all your stuff and move to a remote island where nobody knows that you don’t know how commas are supposed to be used. Before leaving though, you give it a last try. You try to delete that exclamation mark and put a full stop instead. And…

Voila! You’ve hit the nail on the head! You’ve done it! There is your perfect copy! You send it for approval. Of course, it’ll get approved. It is the epitome of creativity. Shakespeare would be jealous if he were alive today. As you’re about to close the laptop and go make a cup of coffee to celebrate, you get an email. Not Approved.

APPROVALS

You realise you’re a hack. You don’t know how to write at all. You can’t channel your ‘creativity’, if you even have it in the first place. You think of that remote island where people don’t know that you’re a loser. You are about to book your flight tickets to escape and you get called into the cabin. They’re gonna fire you, you think. And you know you deserve it.

Apparently, you’ve deviated from the brief. You revert it to the first draft, show it to your boss, and suddenly the copy fits the brief and it gets approved. And you’ve finally done it! You were only 2 hours late!

CELEBRATION!!!

You wonder why you’re so anxious all the time, as you proceed to make the 5th cup of coffee for the day to celebrate.

You drink it while you get another brief for writing a blog. As you’re listening, you think of why your friends don’t text you anymore. Nobody knows how to pay attention while getting a brief.

You ask again and go back to your desk to think of ideas, you realise that you don’t really have any original opinions or any substantial knowledge to share so you write on some random topic like “The Creative Process”, trying too hard to be funny and you title it something radical like “Why Creativity is a Myth” as a clickbait. And lastly for SEO purposes, you end the blog with all the keywords: Rioconn, Advertising, Creative Agency.

Okay, this one is a tricky question and the answers can harm those who are seeking a diplomatic response.

Ever heard the term, “Content is the KING”? Well, I wonder, why is this even a question? This statement is not some kind of a joke & the world isn’t just mad saying it again & again & again.

We might have thought people were wrong when they said, “After the 10th grade, life’s a smooth ride”, but hey! People are right sometimes and this is that time!

Content by far is the longest-ruling king the world has ever vouched on. Not even Parle G gave so much validation to the letter ‘G’ as much as this king got– for all the right reasons tbh! The world literally thrives on good narratives and good content.

People love to see more of what they like, what makes them feel an emotion; be it happiness, sadness, anger, contentment, resilience, love, or even fear. And now they also like to feel challenged, questioned while sometimes remain clueless if they watched or heard something that surpassed their capacity to understand. They want something that plays with their minds and provokes their thoughts. If you can manage to tease, you can manage to win; the scenarios are different though.

But it’s not as simple as we think or should I say, it’s rather complex. People really love to have their feelings rushing but their brain interferes a lot, I tell you! While delivering a speech, finishing an act or shooting a reel, what a person in the spotlight fears the most is ‘Will they like it?’ factor. No matter how good a movie, direction, or script is, in the end, a viewer’s opinion becomes the whole & soul of the success or failure of a content piece.

No amount of intelligence, hard work, and skills comes in front of how a viewer feels when he or she sees your content. But what are their feelings, their thinking patterns and their choices governed by in the first place? It’s relatability (that evokes emotions), empathy (they suffered what you did & so you feel it), intellect (if you can’t understand it in the 1st go, it has blown your mind) & logic (horror is supposed to make you scream).

Their appreciation comes from how the video, story or text makes them feel. These feelings again get delusional by a known, favourite or popular face but do they remember the narrative & praise it or go back to a piece of art just for that face?

Does a celebrity’s presence decide whether an ad campaign is good or bad? I don’t think so! The world has turned into a smarter place. I guess…

Here are a few examples.

Did you like these ads? You might have. If not all, then definitely some.

Do they have the face of a celebrity? Some do. Do they have a relatable, quirky, thoughtful or logical narrative? Oh yes! But! Would you come and say this is what you chose to be the best ad campaign just because it had Amitabh Bachchan, Pooja Hegde or Rajat Darmecha in it?

Please don’t kid me. Even a famous face can’t save a bad story (Wink, wink!) today.

And by the way, you’re free to make a list of celebrity-studded bad narratives. You might just have to flip the page to add to the list.

That’s it from us at Rioconn. Also, we weave some amazing narratives. With or without a known face is for you and your accountant/ CFO to decide.

Let’s address the elephant in the room, ‘Strategy’.

The ubiquitous buzzword of the advertising and marketing universe. Everyone wants the ‘STRATEGY’, everyone wants to talk about strategy, everyone wants to form the strategy, everyone wants to go ahead with the strategy, everyone is blaming the strategy, everyone is admiring the strategy, and everything is just about STRATEGY.

Once a word synonymous with careful planning, rigorous research, and consciously planned actions, it now seems to be thrown around with the same carelessness and casualness as a child’s tantrum. In the great theatre of corporates, the term strategy has taken centre stage trying to make the boardroom meetings more sophisticated.

In the not-so-distant past, strategy as a term used to carry knowledge, objectives, facts, observations, insights, and much more. Fast forward to today, the term strategy is now has become a jargon to be thrown, when an individual wants to sound intellectual.

Today the essence of strategy as a term has been reduced to pandemonium. Multiple people talking about multiple strategies, nonetheless let’s talk about the ins and outs of strategies. In simple terms, strategy is a set of interrelated and powerful choices backed by research and facts that enables organizations, brands, industries, nations, and even individuals to thrive and walk towards success and their desired goals. It is a blueprint that is curated by keeping each and every dimension in mind to fulfil objectives and eradicate inefficiencies.

Talking about brands and advertising strategy plays an important role. Brands are ‘the brands’ because of strategy, the strategy that has been made by doing actual research about consumer behaviour, target groups, market etc, and then experts carefully curate communication lines to create ‘THE BRAND’.

The strategy runs deeper into the veins of brands, from carefully crafting the brand persona, writing a tagline, designing a logo, forming a vision, positioning statement, value proposition, and curating campaigns to the creation of the ultimate brand. Today, unfortunately, everyone is forgetting the true essence of the term strategy, and using it like, ‘Oh, I had a strategy for breakfast in the morning’.

People, please stop using Strategy as jargon, strategy is a thoughtful analysis of market dynamics, competitors, consumers, their buying behaviour, multiple emotional insights, and rigorous research. STRATEGY is a powerful word, and its power lies in thoughtfulness, research and precision.

That’s all for now! Riocoon will get back to you soon with some amazing content!

REMEMBER, STRATEGY IS NOT JARGON TO BE THROWN AROUND!