My 18-year-old nephew was watching an IPL match on TV with me last week. The Onida ad with the devil was aired in one of the ad-breaks. He turned to me and asked, “What is this funny looking devil doing in this air-conditioner ad?” I had not noticed anything amiss about either Onida or the devil. But my nephew’s question made me sit up. Why did he think that the devil was funny and why did he want to know why the devil was in the air-conditioner ad for Onida?
At my age, I had, and have, over the years, seen the Onida campaign take shape with the creation of a devil who was the neighbour’s envy, and owner’s pride. So, to me, so many years later, the devil in the air-conditioner ad had context. On the other hand, my nephew had not seen the Onida brand or its advertising in his growing-up years. Onida had gone missing for a full generation of consumers like my nephew. Onida is now back, and so is the devil; but while the same devil has meaning and context for me, it does not for my young nephew.
So, Onida has hooked its entire current advertising on to a brand property that had perhaps a lot of franchise 20 years ago, but is largely unknown to contemporary audiences. The devil in the current advertising, besides lacking context and history, is also poorly rendered, and set in a very exaggerated ‘hell’ which does nothing to either embellish the Onida brand or contribute to its goodness. As a standalone communication, the Onida ad and its ambassador/mascot, the devil, conveys very little sense to potential buyers.
The original devil of 20-25 years ago had a certain playfulness about him. He was not scary; he was not evil; he was actually fun. Also, the persona and the character of the devil had been built up through consistent, and large, investments in advertising those days, making him instantly recognised and associated with Onida. With the passage of time, Onida fell on bad days and the advertising dried up. Now to revive and relaunch the Onida brand, the devil may have been a natural choice, but unfortunately no one can turn back the clock. The devil has been forgotten.
Similar attempts have been made by other brands to revive old memories associated with their brands and bring back the good ole times when their brands were at the peak. Rasna is one such example. Rasna had a very successful ‘I love you Rasna’ campaign with a young girl in the late 80s, early 90s. Very cute. Very lovable. Very successful. Then Rasna meandered off into other brand messages. Some 10-15 years later, Rasna brought back its little young girl of the 80s. The campaign did not take off. The generation that loved the ‘I-love-you-Rasna’ girl was no longer Rasna audience.
It is not my business to suggest what Onida could have done better with the devil; but one thing is for sure, the current Onida ad is hardly doing any good to the brand. It talks to a generation of buyers now well past their prime buying years, and therefore not perhaps any longer active buyers for Onida’s products. The current generation is not really familiar with the devil. Lingering memories from a campaign that ran over 20 years ago can really not be used to push brand Onida any longer. It is like trying to revive ‘Hum Log’ or ‘Nukkad’. Today’s audience may not even know these programmes ever existed.
Brand managers at Onida need a serious round of introspection and course correction if Onida’s new avatar has to succeed in today’s highly competitive market place. With or without the devil.(Sandeep Goyal is an advertising veteran. He has worked at leading ad agencies like JWT, Grey, DDB, Rediffusion and Dentsu for over 30 years)