The sad part of advertising is that you are just about as good as your last outing. So, you create a good campaign, win praise, get lauded. But soon, it is back to the drawing board for a new idea, a new campaign, a new execution. And, that is the difficult part. Creating a successful sequel is almost impossible in advertising.
Swiggy created some memorable ads during the last IPL. Especially, the famous gulab jamun ad with the old man, which became an instant hit. Now, Swiggy is back with a new campaign created by its own in-house creative team. The new campaign is nowhere as good as the gulab jamun. The latest effort from Swiggy centres on how lakhs of Indians interact with Swiggy’s delivery ‘partners’ each day. These ‘partners’ (delivery boys) take unknown turns to reach unknown lanes to meet strangers with a smile, but remain unknown to consumers who just refer to them as ‘Swiggy’. Through the #WhatsInAName video, Swiggy endeavours to change consumer behaviour and bring more dignity to the job of its ‘hunger saviours’ by urging consumers to call the boys by their names.
Well, prima facie, it is a laudable HR/PR objective, but honestly, I don’t quite agree with Swiggy trying to use it as an advertising idea. Companies spend infinite amounts of monies to bring about standardisation in their product offering and the brand. The Swiggy delivery boy is part of that standardisation — in looks, feel and service. Getting to know him is really not important for the customer, unless of course, Swiggy converts each delivery boy into a relationship manager wherein only that delivery boy will service that specific customer time and over again. Since every Swiggy delivery is randomly executed by a different delivery boy, just knowing that the Swiggy guy represents everything the company or brand stands for — infinite choice, timely delivery and polite 24/7 service — is all that matters.
Whether the boy is called Umesh or Umaid should not come into the equation. Doing that is actually calling for trouble. There have been past reports on how Uber and Ola customers had objected to drivers from another religion and/or community driving them around. To me, name of the Swiggy boy is an irrelevant detail. In fact, if you were to go by the experience of customer service centres and call centres of various brands, the service executives rarely, if ever, use their real names. They keep anglicised names like Peter, Tom or Jane to customers who ask. The brand they represent is all that matters in the conversation, not their identity.So, sadly, this time around, it is a lemon for Swiggy, rather than a gulab jamun.
Last week also saw the launch of a campaign by WhatsApp to combat fake news. Created by Dentsu Taproot, the ads are, at best, lukewarm. One is about a young girl who lives away from home, but uses WhatsApp to stay in touch with her family; there’s an ad about a college group and there’s one on a cooking enthusiast who uses WhatsApp to cook and look, care and share. The ads are strategically correct in focusing on how to share joy, not rumours. But the entire execution lacks fizz or joy. Considering it was their first campaign, WhatsApp could have done better. In all the three ads, the protagonists kind of sleepwalk through pretty predictable and flat narratives. I think Agnello Dias must have been on a vacation when this campaign was being done at Dentsu Taproot. It does not bear the usual stamp of Agnello excellence.
There have been other new campaigns too over the past couple of weeks: the new Deepika Andar Se Strong ad by Colgate, the Flipkart gender equality Gen E ad, the Imperial Blue Men will be Men ad, the Ceat Kunal Roy Kapur ad, the Ishaan Khattar-Great Khali Nestle Munch ad. None of them, however, is outstanding. I think agencies need to work harder, and smarter. If not, clients need to get the agencies worker harder, and smarter. There’s too much of brand equity at stake. And lots of monies too. Guys, wake up and smell the coffee.
(The author is an advertising veteran)