EcoSport to PhonePe, children play a key role in moving the needle in ads

Children are no longer awareness builders; recent ads have portrayed them as key influencers in family purchases

• The ad opens with a father and son driving across the city in their Ford EcoSport. They spot an injured man on the road who has just met with an accident. As the father drives by slowly, the son appears disturbed by the apathy of the bystanders and asks the father what if the same thing had happened to them. The child’s simple question moves the parent who then steps out and helps the accident victim.

• Meet Gublu, a little boy, who seems to always accompany his grandfather who has this tendency to get into tough situations. Along with his "daddu" he advises older people around them to be more savvy when making payments for the products they buy. He is not only aware of digital payment platforms but also points out that one has to be careful while punching the pin pad.

• There’s a mother who looks older than her age and is obviously not a hair colour/dye user. She is apprehensive of the price of such products. Her kids get her packs of Godrej Hair Colour Expert Rich Creme as a gift and thus introduce her to the world of hair colours. They also seem to know that the product would protect her hair as it does not contain harmful chemicals and tell the mother she gets all the benefits for a very small price.

Remember the Rasna girl or the Dhara boy? A car marque, a personal grooming brand and a digital wallet company seem to be leading the way to reinvent a once frowned-upon marketing tactic — using the pester power of kids to boost sales. Only this time the kids are not just sweet props or pesky appendages —  they are well-informed influencers either telling parents what to do — or not to do in most cases — or how to use new age tools and techniques. 

KV Sridhar, founder and chief creative officer, HyperCollective, and an ad-industry veteran, says in an earlier period, brands were using children to draw attention to product categories like consumer durables as housewives, the typical consumers of that category, were perceived to be averse to new technology. Now, however, there is a more nuanced use of a child in an advertisement. Take the Ford India advertisement that features a father-son duo. Titled ‘A Helping Hand’, the ad is part of a larger campaign by the company titled Discover More in You that draws from the experiences of Ford’s customers. At the launch of the campaign Rahul Gautam, vice-president, marketing, Ford India, had said, “Discover the More in You  draws from the experiences of our customers for whom these situations have led to self-discovery, making them choose what’s right.” 

Not only the social message, what is interesting in this case is that BBDO’s first campaign for Ford India tries to associate the brand with certain higher values — and not just vehicle performance. One doesn’t know if there is a connection but about five years ago, a series of posters for Ford Figo had caused international outrage, and heads had rolled at its then ad agency in India, JWT. The current ad would go a long way in erasing that form public memory, say some observers. 

The increase in kid’s influence in purchase decisions is also a reflection of the growing reliance of parents on their kids for brand/product information. N Chandramouli, chief executive officer of brand intelligence and data insights company, TRA, feels that the age of influence is rapidly going down while the rate of influence of kids is going up. “It is often a parent’s lack of time or lethargy to do research that they leave that bit to a child before making any purchase decision. A greater access to information on the go (thanks to the internet) have made the kid more of a go-to person for parents. This certainly increases their pester power,” he explains. 

This is also a reflection of the brand/product consumption habits of the two age cohorts. Parents today could be found wearing the same brands of clothing, watching the same television shows, listening to the same genre of music as their children.

Take another look at the PhonePe ads. In one particular advertisement, young Gublu is seen asking his uncle if going to office was about having fun. When the uncle retorts that earning money required a lot of hard work, Gublu quips then why was he wasting money by paying in cash when there was the option of a cash-back if he used the PhonePe app. See the difference in their roles from, say, the Rasna or the Dhara ads? These kids are aware and informed and their role is that of an eye-opener.

Sridhar talks about the Flipkart campaign from some years back where children were used as metaphors to show how easy it was to shop on ecommerce platforms. “The children acted like adults in the campaign. That was a metaphor. The main purpose of the ads were to show it is child’s play to shop online and even make payments using credit or debit cards,” Sridhar says. Direct advertising to children still remains popular though. Take the campaigns by Byju’s, an online learning platform. “Byju’s is aimed at students, so if it clicks with children, it would create a loyal base to market to.”