But the limelight and the thunder were undoubtedly stolen by Shashi Tharoor, Undersecretary for Communication and Public Information, United Nations. If Tharoor's was the piece de resistance, the quality of the evening was underlined by the fact that the other speakers, Renuka Chowdhury (Union Minister of State for Tourism), Arun Adhikari, (Managing Director, Hindustan Lever Ltd.), Colvyn J. Harris (CEO, JWT India and Chairman of the symposium) and Srinivasan K Swamy (CEO, R. K. Swamy BBDO and President of the AAAI) were not far behind Tharoor's brilliant address.
Why discuss ‘The Future of Advertising’? Perhaps because the answer to the question continues to befuddle and benumb. Consider this: Search for ‘The Future of Mankind’ on Google, and you get 197,000 hits. ‘The Future of India’ will throw up 33,600 possibilities; ‘The Future of Advertising’, ladies and gentlemen, has 145,000 options for you to wade through.
And why Back to the Future? Because this must be the twentieth panel discussion/ seminar/ conference on the subject I've attended. And doubtless, we'll all be back to the ‘Future of Advertising’, again.
As we go to press, only the inaugural session has been completed, so that
is all that is covered this week. What We See Is What You Get!
Shashi Tharoor, Undersecretary for Communication and Public Information, United Nations, peppered his address on "Promoting the United Nations: A Global Challenge" with humour — both appropriate for the audience and delivered with finesse. One of the many nuggets he employed was this one: The United Nations was concerned about the lack of knowledge the citizens of Washington had of the UN; and was equally concerned with the apathy with which the UN was treated by the decision makers in the US capital. So, Tharoor ventured forth into the streets of DC, and asked an American, "Is it true that there is ignorance of the role of the UN and apathy towards it?" The American pondered on the question before he replied, "I don't know and I don't care!"
It is a problem that the UN suffers: ignorance and apathy. If this is a nightmare for Tharoor and his colleagues at New York, the problem is as real for marketers and advertising agencies: to get consumers to know and to get consumers to care.
Srinivasan K. Swamy, CEO, R. K. Swamy BBDO, too, used humour to lighten the weight of his delivery. He spoke of how the Pope was approached by a representative of Kentucky Fried Chicken with an offer of $100,000 for The Lord's Prayer to be changed to read "….give us this day our daily chicken" instead of "…. give us this day our daily bread". The Pope refused. The persistent representative kept upping the ante, till, at a price of $10 million, the Pope agreed. The Pope then presented this to the conclave the next day. "I have good news and bad news. The good news is, we get to eat chicken every day. The bad news is, we've lost the Wonderbread account!" Endorsements, product placements, mentions, with no holds barred.
Renuka Chowdhury did not need anecdotal props to inject some lightness; she relied, instead, on her innate sense of humour. Speaking on brand 'Incredible India', she weaved into her (unprepared and riveting) speech, the city that hosted the event, Mumbai. Touching on the havoc caused by the record breaking rain recently, she spoke of the "ability of Indians to interfere in others' businesses" as a positive attribute — that prompted them to help others in times of distress, that transformed Mumbaikars of all calling into Incredible Indians, considering the spontaneous help available to stranded citizens.
The four introductory paragraphs ought to give you a feel of the tone of the evening: weighty issues being discussed with authority and delivered in a most entertaining fashion.
Refreshingly absent from the moment, Swamy kicked of proceedings, was a deluge of numbers. The only number of significance bandied about was 60, the age of the AAAI (and of the UN, Tharoor reminded those assembled).
Harris, after dealing with a technology glitch that delayed his presentation by five minutes, outlined the challenges (in his view) facing the advertising industry, including, surprise, surprise, technology. The other challenges that he saw were the change in the needs of, and viewpoint of, clients; the changes in the Indian consumer, the changes in the way the business was structured and the changes in India itself.
Challenges within the way the business was structured included the pressure on margins, the pressure on time and the width of services required by the clients. On retention, Harris echoed the sentiments of all CEOs and unit heads when he spoke of the challenge of retaining talent as a task he has to deal with every day. He also saw the fight for attention as a challenge, suffering as we are from an information overload — which does not seem to be coming to an end.
What stood ought in his pronouncement for the future was the explosion of choice. Choices in the number of categories to begin with, complicated by the choices within each category.
Adhikari did not see the world as such a bad place, with Hindustan Lever Ltd. recovering from a slump to register profits and growth in the last four quarters, ably assisted by the reforms process and benign monsoons. He sees the pyramidal structure of a small rich class, a broader middle class and a very broad poor class slowly transforming itself into a diamond, with a small rich class, a significantly broader middle class and a smaller, yet small, poor class. He saw, therefore, two classes of prospective consumers that would require attention: The first, the aspirers, who have discovered that indulgence is a far better place to be than denial. These aspirers would, in the future, consume more, pay more for better brands in their confident road to their ambitions. The second class, the strivers, would taste their first brush with brands, and would, for the first time in their lives enjoy a clean-up with Lux or a teeth brushing session with a branded toothpaste.
Each of these classes has different demands and will require different communication. The size of the country and the linguistic diversity.
To read the entire story, buy a copy of Impact Advertising and Marketing magazine dated Nov 14-20
