* The television commercial opens with the shot of a kid on a sofa whose chachoo has just come back from office. He wastes no time in informing chachoo that dada-dadi are looking for a chachi for him and with an air of self-importance asks chachoo to describe the girl he would like to marry. After hearing the long list of expectations from his chachoo, our protagonist advises, “For all this you should go for LIC’s Endowment Plus unit linked plan and marry the girl who loves you!”
* In another ad, the protagonist describes how she discovered the perfect hair colour. Her original brand only ended up discolouring her hair as she discovered when she visited her friend. Her friend’s son, Bittu, on seeing her, announces that ‘Orange Aunty’ is at the door. In a state of utter chagrin our lady decides to change her hair colour brand and grabs a pack of Godrej Expert powder hair colour. After use she is off for the Bittu test! Off she goes and purposefully rings the front doorbell at her friend’s house. Bittu opens the door and is completely bowled over by Orange Aunty’s makeover.
* Two young boys are seen huddled next to a water cooler, presumably in their school premises, engaged in an animated conversation about one Sagar. Boy No 1 informs how Sagar is scared of buying products online using his credit card. He hastens to add that Sagar finally bought a mobile phone online. How come?, asks Boy No 2. Simple, says Boy No 1, Sagar bought the mobile phone off Flipkart.com as it offers the option of paying by cash after the product has been delivered. And who is Sagar? My dad, Boy No 1 says helpfully.
The imagery is different, brands unrelated and the categories worlds apart. One thing is common: both the ads use kids as their brands’ ambassador, as a metaphor of wisdom and trust. The idea, evidently, is to ride on the credibility that kids enjoy, the freshness they can impart into any story and use the positive rub-off of the association to the brand’s advantage. Be it in terms of recall or likeability. Or both.
So what’s new, given that kids are almost ubiquitous in advertising? From products aimed specifically at children like chocolates and toys to those in which kids can act as an influencer, like detergents and snack foods and real estate, when you have a bunch of cute kids they immediately grab attention. The difference this time is our children are no longer just cute props or wimpy kids in the background. “They have usurped the roles adults played in advertising earlier,” points out Kishore Chakraborti, vice-president, consumer Insight & HFD (Human Futures Development) at McCann Erickson India.
So they are appearing in every second ad serving up lots of everyday wisdom, and not just a lot of silly platitudes. They are taking the lead in ads of financial products doling out advice on the best places to put your money in, in breakfast foods telling their dads and moms how to lose weight and stay healthy and even in categories like surfactants explaining to family members the virtues of keeping your surroundings spic and span.
And from the looks of it, no one is complaining. Universal appeal is a plus, but what really clinches the deal for advertisers is the trust factor, their ability to infuse a brand with a certain degree of respectability. Take the Flipkart ads. The kids have a very specific role to play in an otherwise simple storyboard—they highlight how idiosyncrasies of habit are due to ignorance. “Kids were cast to break the clutter for a message which was otherwise direct,” Ravi Vora, vice-president, marketing, Flipkart, had told Business Standard in an earlier interview. Kartik Iyer, chief executive officer, Happy Creative Services, which created the TV campaigns for Flipkart, said how the idea behind the campaign was to shore up trust. “We featured kids because they are the ones who give you unconditional trust,” he said.
The changing role of kids in ads, in a way, reflects what is happening in the society at large. Adds Chakraborti of McCann Erickson, “In the earlier joint family scenario, moms and dads used to go to the elders for advice. In a nuclear family they don’t have that luxury. So the child becomes the arbitrer in case of disputes and the one you turn to retrieve a message from the hand phone or download music from the net. Indeed, the digital child, in many cases, is much ahead of his/her analog parents. We all know that and so we don’t mind when we see kids being all smart and wise in ads.”
But then using kids in advertising has been the butt of a long-standing ethical debate. Also, in the long term, can the kid save the day for the Indian advertiser? Or is it just lazy advertising, a reflection of the lack of ideas?
For one, Madhurima Bhatia, head of media engagement with market research agency Ipsos India would like to disagree. “I won’t say its lazy advertising,” she says. “For Flipkart, the kids were just a means to break through the clutter and the job has been done. The kids in such ads are just like they are in real life—aware and vocal. Today we refer to this as the consumption clout of children and not just pester power.”
Of course, the thing to remember is that kids cease being credible when they mouth ‘manufacturer speak’ and are not an inextricable part of the story. In other words, kids might be able to rescue you if you are down in the dumps, or may be trying to shake up the audience, but in the long term they cannot be an alternative to a sound strategic or creative idea.
Because ultimately, as Bhatia sums it up, “the purse strings lie in the hands of the person who brings home the moolah”.
