Knocking down new doors to creativity

Merciless audiences, narrowing attention spans, one video in an endless scroll of content. This is the battle that every advertiser faces today.

Celebrities are becoming commonplace. What was once differentiation has turned into a sea of sameness, and brand speak flits from screen to screen as companies desperately vie to capture mindspace in the audiences they are still trying to woo.

The pressure to stand out has intensified. Brands are resorting to outlandish executions to grab attention. But these 'innovations' often add to the din instead of cutting through it.

Instead of pulling audiences to themselves, brands should seek to occupy spaces of culture that appeal to these audiences. When they participate in these cultural worlds, they automatically become a part of the audience’s preferred worlds, speak and mindspace - shaping that very culture not for but with audiences themselves.

This happens through two critical pillars: entertainment and collaboration. And often, the two entwine with one another.

The entertainment quotient

Every piece of content that is enjoyed today, that is shared, liked or followed, happens only when someone somewhere finds it entertaining. Be it dog videos or watching Tom Cruise do his own stunts for Mission Impossible, entertainment is deeply encoded in everything that is consumed and more importantly, valued today. Therefore, any form of advertising-video assets or otherwise (format agnostic), cannot work if they are not entertaining.

Take Dream 11’s star-studded IPL campaign featuring Aamir Khan, Ranbir Kapoor and some of the biggest Indian cricketers. ‘Aapki Team Mein Kaun’ (Who is your team) was eminently watchable, with audiences looking forward to new iterations.

And here, entertaining does not only mean outrageous execution. It can also mean content that is insightful, entrenched in craft, inherently shareable and/or beautifully wholesome. Or content that becomes a platform for self-expression.

Bacardi’s ‘It’s a Mood’ campaign smartly utilised an upcoming music genre (Afrobeat) when creating a remix for Sergio Mendes’ iconic ‘Magalenha’. The conversation around the campaign was then encouraged on social media through the creation of hyperlocal stickers that allowed everyone in India to have a version of their “mood”.

The magic of unlikely allies

Collaboration could be one avenue to bring this entertainment alive. John Legend and Raja Kumari came together for Johnnie Walker’s entertainment platform, Walkers and Co, bringing to life the brand’s idea of 'collective progress'.

The platform became a place where creators at the edge of culture could come together and build collaborations that would shape culture for tomorrow. A progressive definition of what walking together can mean.

Some of the most interesting and impactful work in the recent past has emerged from unlikely partners and problems coming together to build solutions that last, that are deeply enjoyable and that are memorable. These collaborations create long-term value for brands, along with short-term spikes in attention and conversation. 

Specsavers’ ‘The Misheard Version’, which featured Rick Astley and won a Cannes Lion Grand Prix last year, is an example of an exceptional collaboration with a highly unimaginable, entertaining, hilarious solution to a serious problem, that yielded enviable results. 

Collaborations don’t always need scale or massive spends. They just need to tick relevance to three critical aspects: the brand and its ambition/problem, the cultural play most relevant to its target audience, and the most effective medium to unlock this collaboration. These three filters provide adequate elasticity to find solutions that work for both the brand and its collaborators.

Any brand content needs to answer one critical question: will audiences pay to watch/experience what is being created? The payment could be either their time or money. If the answer is yes, then brands know they have a winner. If not, they must start over.

Is this difficult to achieve? Very. Is it worth aspiring towards? Every single time.

As the world shifts to new ways of communicating and each new day presents newer and more complex challenges, the two pillars of entertainment and collaboration could help brand marketers achieve their most critical task-to build valuable memory in an age where everything is almost immediately forgotten.

 - Saumya Baijal, strategy director-India, Virtue Asia