Thirty seconds for Creativity
Could you remember LALITAJI ?
She was a household name for the Doordarshan viewers of India. She was neither a heroin of popular tv serial nor a protesting voice like Rajani. She played the leading role of a short film, an ad film where she shouldered the load of carrying the message to the household viewers. She was a spokesperson of Indian middle class home-concerned woman; her physical appearance reflected that attitude. She remained as a memorable character in the Indian Advertising industry as she has luminously influenced the audience in the way as the advertising creative professionals conceived Lalitaji.
It’s a general believe or a comprehension that ad films are being made to publicize a product or to trigger the consumers to buy certain kind products. Audiences think that a model of an ad film should be physically attractive to capture their mind, but Lalitaji did not have those qualities. A simple middle class looking Lalita was a prominent contradiction of those prevailing believes. She had not invited audience to buy product, yet she fulfilled the requirements of the advertisement. It was a thirty seconds short film and within this limited span of time the film maker carried his message to the target with all vigour and emotional bonding.
Ad films are marketing tool combined with creative imagination, research findings to touch and to influence the probable buyers of an product or idea. A successful combination is being created by the synchronization of ideas and believes of the creative persons involved with the film. And above all, though this creation is a product of multi-brain effort, the message must have an accurate projection and perfectly focused. In this context we may recall the famous observation of Advertisement GURU Francice C Runie ‘People no longer buy shoes to keep their feet warm and dry. They buy them because of the way the shoes make them feel – masculine, feminine, rugged, different, sophisticated, and glamorous, ‘in’. Buying shoes has become an emotional experience. Our bussiness now is selling excitement rather than shoes.” Here the shoe represents all and any kind of product. Ad films must create a tension or excitement among the viewers so that they feel attracted to the product and this excitement creation is the first challenge of an ad film maker.
Again let us come to Lalitaji. Her middleclass appearance was convincing in the market where she went to purchase household items. The convincing character and her equally convincing work helped the director to hit the bull’s eye with and easy throw. Director Satyajit Ray once told that if an actor fits to the character in terms of look, it makes the director’s work easier. Same concept is applicable to ad films also. The target audience of the ad film should feel a sense of intimacy with the main character. This concept resolves a different angle in the story and narrative pattern when a celebrity is being utilized for an ad film. Celebrity models instantly attract the attention of audience, but unfortunately they cant always satisfy the audience while they are not properly supported by narrative or the presentation pattern. A celebrity can easily creates a signature for the ad film, but may fail to carry the message to the expected height. For an example an audience does not feel intimacy to a low priced product advertised by a top star. The character must be comfortable with the emotional appeal of the product. The star must be fitted with the ambience of the film. We may have an example from Shyam Benagal’s film Jubeida where bollywood actor Karishma Kapoor and Shakti Kapoor played two important characters. No doubt both the talented actor performed remarkably well under able direction of Shyam Benegal, yet they were not looked comfortable with the ambience of the film. It is hard to believe, but it is true.
In bollywod moviews we see that the stars are being used to expose their star power only, so they are repeated with same characteristics. During the high days of career, Amitav Bachhan played such characters only where his star image was captured may be in various colours. The same STAR Amitav in different get up. But in ad film it does not work. If a Kareena Kapoor is shown applying a low price cream to her skin will anybody believe? No. All audience know that she is telling a lie. If Sahrukh Khan tell something about a dish antenna, people will not believe that he is using such antenna, but the children audience will feel attracted to that product. In a middleclass family children play an important role in the buying decision of such products and Sahrukh Khan demands influence upon the children of middle class family. It is a kind of examination or acid test of creativity for the director or the visualiser to imagine the central character of an ad film.
The screenplay of traditional two hours long feature film contains three major continuous segments of problem, crisis and end result. It is not possible to follow this pattern for an ad film though basically an ad film also had tells a story in thirty seconds. Within this thirty second the creator will have to tell his story and will have to lead the audience to his target creating a positive liking to the message he is throwing. Purpose of an ad film is not to sell a product, but to create emotional attachment with product effectively. Marketing GURU Philip Kotler said “message should gain attention, hold interest, arouse desire, and elicit action.
A feature enjoys a large time span to express its message through various turns in the development process of the theme. But an ad film has only limited thirty seconds toe bull’s eye. So ad films require some other effective elements like slice of life, life style, fantasy, mood and images, music, technical expertise, scientific and proven information. In Indian perspective element of humour is also being considered.
The ad films have no major difference with feature films in terms of the goal of the maker. Both the makers wish to carry their message to the mass and think to create a sense of satisfaction in the spectator’s mind.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
A nice and articulate article on advertising.Keep up the good work.
Thanks a lot dear Cinemausher