Delhi: Imagine a life devoid of random YouTube searches for the amusing Nirma girl whirl commercial, silly hum sessions with performances of the nasal "Kya aap close up karte haiiiiinn" or a melodic whistle of the Airtel tune that occasionally escapes your lips.
Can't? There are some TV ting-tings stuck in our head decades after they've passed off the social scene, still strongly, silently proving to be one of the most effective, long-lasting advertising strategies adopted by mankind.
But here are our ad agencies in the WebChutney era, constantly innovating in terms of content, style and duration, and yet ignoring the prowess of the musical mode that shook consumer behaviour like never before. Here's telling the song-sell storyâ¦
Then and now Agreed, a pampered celeb's la-di-dah lingo may've well replaced Liril's waterfelled babelicious la las and Happy Dent White's 'enlightening' human chandelier may have outshone Bajaj electricals' erstwhile "Jab main chhota bachcha tha," but business biggies believe jingles are still very much alive and kicking. "They're not really out.
It's just that today, everything is fleeting. Jingles are done, but changed before people can establish the connect that they did with Lifebuoy because the same tune played on for more than 20 years," says ad honcho Prasoon Joshi.
The reason isn't just a short attention span and the blink-switch trend of surfing TV channels, but also the constant change in brand-handling. "New professionals come on board and experiment with new ideas, without seeing music as the primary impact device.
Earlier, the same person masterminded a brand for years together, so you could feel the continuum in ideas and the consistency in melody," he explains, adding that the contemporary here-and-now approach causes long term harm to image-building.
Comeback karega! A chat with ad guru Alyque Padamsee makes one hopeful of the fact that the musical mnemonics, some amusing, some awe-inspiring and others merely catchy, could soon be the comeback buzz. "There's no real reason behind the drop other than what the audience wants.
Today, agencies want to make a quick impact in 20 seconds and so there's no time for a jingle. Everyone puts money on the table for a celebrity endorsement instead, because that's the fad. However, Hutch, Airtel and Vodafone are excellent examples," he praises.
Idea mobile services is another one, we say. But, have most other wonder dings lost their power in the current day world? Padamsee answers with an example "I created the Britannia jingle a long time ago, it was like shorthand for the brand logo.
But it still works. With a jingle, you don't have to see anything on TV whether you're in the next room, hear it as a caller tune or SMS tone, or on the radio, you instantly identify the brand.
So, recently, at one of my advisory meetings for Emami Navratna Talc, I told them to retain the 'thanda thanda cool cool' song sign-off, which some wanted to do away with. It's just a question of when the creative heads rediscover the jingle yet again, and then it'll be everywhere once more!"
