Arcopol Chaudhuri 
 
Mumbai: The popular joke in advertising circles goes:

Client: Okay. Our soft drink - ‘Juice’ is ready. We need a baseline.
Agency: Hmm. How about this? “Juice. Energising you”.
Client: Too imposing. Seems like we’re pointing fingers at them.
Agency: Lets see. “Juice. Energising ourselves!”
Client: Huh? Are we only talking about us? It should be inclusive, no?
Agency: The copywriter, tearing his head apart -  “Juice. Energising yourselves!”?
Client: No….
(Things fall silent now. Everybody is waiting for eureka, the moment when the perfect baseline will strike them.)
Agency: (Triumphantly) “Juice. Energising Life!”
Client: Gotcha! Open the beer bottles!

If you are wondering why the client jumped at the last baseline, then you’re not the only one. Advertising agencies till date are still clueless about marketers’ obsession within product baselines and clichés in them.

A simple observation at the current product baselines is suggestive — Big FM (Suno Sunao, Life Banao), Tata Safari (Reclaim your life), Tata Sky (Isko laga daala, toh life jhingalala), Videocon (Whatever role life gives you, play it big), Smirnoff (Life’s calling, where are you?), Kodak (Share moments, share life), LG (Life’s good), General Electric (We bring good things to life). Even Cadburys had Asli swaad zindagi ka (The true taste of life) as its baseline.

Why are brands holding on to the word ‘life’ so much in their communication campaigns? “The common practice is - if you don’t have anything else, just use ‘life’. And marketers love it. ‘Life’ is the overarching thing that every product wants to be associated with,” says Ramanuj Shastry, chief creative officer, Rediffusion DYR.

For instance, Tata Safari, a four-wheeler, would sport a positioning around speed, mileage or looks - going by the traditional standards. Then what does a ‘Reclaim your life’ do for the vehicle?

Shastry along with Sagar Mahabaleshwarkar, chief creative officers, Rediffusion DYR worked on the ad campaign and conjured images of people who want to reclaim some portion of their lives that they’ve lost out.

Shastry says, “We’re all caught in a daily grind that erodes us. Sometimes, you want to quit your job on a Monday morning. At times we realise that we’re caught in this 9-5 work cycle so much, that we’ve lost something that’s precious to us. The ad campaign and the positioning essentially wanted to drive home the fact that the vehicle could help them reclaim it.”

For private FM radio station Big FM (Suno sunao, life banao), which aggressively promoted its baseline as it launched two years back, entering the second phase of private FM radio expansion in the country.

“As the new expansion began, we went deeper into Tier-II cities,” says Big FM VP marketing Anand Chakravarthy, who was part of the team that decided on the baseline. “Indians have woken up in the mornings listening to radio. Now, that role would evolve as a private FM becomes a companion and bring about a positive change in their lives, not only for listeners, but also for small entrepreneurs, who got the opportunity to advertise.”

DTH service provider Tata Sky, which adopted - Isko laga dala, toh life jhingalala broke new ground, because it was entering a product category that Indian television viewers were getting introduced to.

“Indians till then, had been seeing grainy images on cable television, which wasn’t providing the best picture quality. Since we spend so many hours watching TV daily, a certain amount of positive rub-off was expected to happen, if the quality of television service improved and new services such as video-on-demand and more channels were offered. Life would certainly be impacted, at least in the Indian context,” says a Tata Sky spokesperson.

Brand gurus agree that it’s an indication of certain brands assuming responsibilities larger than what they set out for. Anand Halve, consultant, Chlorophyll Brand Communications says, “The truth is - 24-hours have remained constant, but the number of things one could do within those hours has multiplied. Why should he make your brand part of his life, unless there’s a compelling reason to do so? A brand today has to make itself more relevant to the consumer’s life than ever before.”

Interestingly, senior advertising professionals are asking “what is the deal about baselines”? And they believe a baseline is almost akin to a moral of the story, a tradition which has become archaic in advertising.

Brand significance apart, advertising professionals admit that ‘life’ is a pet-term with clients and copywriters and it’s often taken as an easier way out.  Life’s not the only cliché, though. Words such as ‘spirit’, ‘care’, ‘joy’, are some of the favourite baseline that are chewed upon at an agency table.

Shastry says, “Does the consumer really buy a product because of its baseline? I don’t think so. I don’t think he even cares. People buy stuff from Mercedes, Giorgio Armani worth millions of rupees and don’t care about baselines!”

That’s something marketers and admen will need another ‘life’ to ponder over.

Source : DNAIndia