Fewer Friendship Day ads: Social media fatigue to blame?

Remember the iconic Friendship Day campaign by McDowell’s No.1 Yaari that took consumers on a rather emotional ride back in the days, reconnecting them with their close friends. Even top brands like KFC, Cadbury and Domino’s have in the past come out with ad films on Friendship Day, striking a chord with the young consumer base. However, surf for Friendship Day ad films today, and you are likely to find only a few. It’s just a day to go for the occasion, and a google search on ‘Friendship Day Ads 2023’, doesn’t quite throw up a lot of results.

So, are brands and marketers no longer looking at this day worth investing their marketing budgets anymore? Is the consumer sentiment shifting? Or is the economy playing its own game where marketers are  shying away from advertising on every occasion that comes along? 

Experts map the trend 

The concept of friendship altogether is seeing a shift, according to Rohit Ohri, Chairman and CEO, FCB Group India. “The trend we are noticing now is that friendship is being redefined. It is breaking out of the confines of what we think friendship is. Friendship now also comes as say a parent-child friendship or even friendship with your pet. This further provides a larger canvas on which brands can play on,” he said. 

However, he also feels that simply rolling out an ad just because it is Friendship Day is not the right way forward and clients are realising that. “It is really important for a brand to own that particular Friendship Day. It needs to add more meaning and relevance to what the brand stands for at that moment,” Ohri added. 

Take a trip back to say late 2000s. There was no social media hype as such and brands were not constantly visible to consumers across every touchpoint and platform. Hence, on occasions like Friendship Day, Valentine’s Day or the likes of it, it seemed like a nice opportunity to convey a message or remain connected with consumers. 

Now, however, is a time where social media rules and brands are present everywhere all the time, quite literally. Thus occurs the diminishing number of such occasion-based ads. Like Dheeraj Sinha, CEO Leo Burnett, South Asia and Chairman - BBH India, mentions that there is now a social media fatigue. “Brands have calendars, they are pushing out content almost on a daily basis, versus earlier when they would wake up once in a while on say a Friendship Day or a Valentine’s Day to push out content.”  

In this scenario, where there’s in any case so much content by brands around friendships, relationships etc, a special Friendship Day ad today might not add much value, mentioned Sinha.

Sandeep Goyal, Managing Director, Rediffusion, also believes that with brands jumping onto the hype of creating ads and posts for every ‘special day’, the fatigue is now quite visible and hence the diminishing number of ad films. 

Infectious Advertising’s CEO and Managing Partner Nisha Singhania believes that this kind of content marketing is undergoing quite a change. “I think brands now are getting very specific with these ‘days’ and choosing the ones that resonate with their brand philosophy and their target audience,” she added. 

Goyal seconds this, and says that clients have actually now figured out whether or not a Friendship Day ad is at all relevant to them as a brand. 

Many experts feel that amid economic headwinds, the client side is getting more and more clear on where they want to allocate heavier budgets and where they need to allocate resources to maintain a hygienic flow of content. 

With so much of conversation nowadays around the slow economy, one might wonder whether that could be a factor why brands and marketers are being a little hesitant on investing big on every special occasion. However, Goyal believes that is far from true. “It depends on which side of the newspaper you read. Economy is booming, and that does not concern these investments,” he mentioned. 

Those who bucked the trend 

This year, from the very few ads that actually came out depicting friendship, the tonality was majorly towards a humorous and quirky side. Be it Licious getting a King, Clown and Colonel in one ad or be it Pepsi roping in stand up comic Zakir Khan to warn about the ‘friendzone’, brands this year decided to tickle their consumers with their ads. 

https://youtube.com/shorts/lRCYKPa7wp4?feature=share

The ad gurus feel that the tone of such ads actually depends majorly on what the brand wants to represent. To this, Sinha added that it might actually also be because the brand wants to stand out. “There could be an assumption that funny and humorous stuff relatively get more attention than serious stuff,” he mentioned. 

Goyal however says that if a brand makes a quirky controversial ad (for instance, two men kissing) it makes headlines. Later, it returns to say sorry. “But nine out of 10 such brands were looking for controversy,” he added. 

All in all, one can only wait as this is just the beginning of the festive season. Controversies are probably set to make their way into the brand world soon enough!