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Millward Brown: Point of View
The Advertiser’s India: One Country or
Many?
As the focus of global business shifts firmly to the BRIC economies, marketers and
advertisers face an increasing need to understand the marketing environments in
those countries. What brands do their consumers desire? What advertising resonates
within their borders?
A recent Millward Brown Point of View by Sana Carlton titled “Ads That Travel: Planning
a Safe and Profitable Journey for Your Campaign” discusses the challenges in creating
advertising that can cross borders effectively. But the BRIC countries are such complex
and colorful amalgams of languages, cultures, and ethnicities that they present challenges
in creating advertising that travels even within their borders. And nowhere is this truer than
in India.
Shiv Moulee
Chief Client Officer
Millward Brown India
[email protected]
India, with its sure and steady growth and its alluring size (in terms of purchasing power, it’s
the fourth-largest economy in the world), has created a buzz within corporate circles. But
those who want to understand what makes this large and diverse country tick may find
themselves both fascinated and frustrated.
For Advertising, There Is No One India
It may seem a cliché, but
considering India as one Table 1:
EU
INDIA
country is akin to encountering
a family with brothers named Official Languages
23
22
Giancarlo, Goran, and Gordon.
Countries/States/UTs *
27
35
Though it’s certainly possible,
495M
1,198 M
we’d take the odds against it! Population
By way of illustration, Table
* Union Territories
1, which compares India to
Europe, clearly highlights the linguistic and cultural differences that exist within India.
But do these differences affect the way consumers perceive and respond to advertising?
Our data suggests that the answer is yes, they do. We have tested close to a thousand ads
in multiple markets across India. Only one ad out of seven is a strong performer across
markets. Among ads that do exceptionally well in one market, more than a third perform
very poorly in others. Thus there is truly no one India when it comes to advertising.
Millward Brown: Point of View The Advertiser’s India: One Country or Many?
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What Makes Ads Travel Well or Poorly?
Numerous factors play roles in determining whether ads travel
well or poorly. The relevance of the brand promise and the
marketing task in each geography (defined in part by brand
status and category maturity) often limit the portability of
an ad. However, these are usually “known” variables. A more
uncertain variable has to do with cultural nuance.
To understand how the cultural context of a piece of creative
may impact its ability to travel, we reexamined our database.
Looking specifically at enjoyment (a good measure of the
power of the creative idea), the numbers improve but still
point to significant differences — only one in four enjoyable
ads is seen as enjoyable in the other markets in which it was
tested.
For marketers, the obvious implication is that they need to test
in multiple markets to get a full understanding of an ad’s likely
effectiveness. But it becomes equally imperative to understand
what it takes to beat the odds and create truly pan-Indian
advertising. Do celebrities work well across markets? Does
humor become a barrier?
To understand the answers to these and other questions, we
compared the characteristics of ads that traveled well with
Table 2:
Ads with...
Good Travelers
Indexed to
Poor Travelers
Children
Celebrity
Humor
164
147
116
197
Established Brand Cue
Well-Known Music/
Music Used by Brand
Written Message
Slogan Used Before by Brand
Demo of Product Benefit
180
163
155
74
©2010 Millward Brown
those of ads that traveled poorly, and have supplied some
indexed results in Table 2. Our observations are as follows:
Celebrities can be the glue that binds markets
Celebrities can work across markets, but that doesn’t mean
you should simply pay big bucks to get Shahrukh Khan in
your ad. Rather than being a guarantor of success, using a
celebrity simply reduces the risk of failure across markets. A
popular celebrity can contribute to an ad traveling well, but
ultimately success comes down to the power of a good script.
A phenomenon peculiar to India is the presence of regional
celebrities, particularly in the South. To leverage celebrities
effectively, brands at times use a common advertising
proposition but different celebrities in different regions. For
instance, for its tariff ads, Vodafone uses Prakash Raj in the
South and Irrfan Khan in other regions.
Children can certainly help
Children can help ads travel, but the mere presence of a
child or two in the ad isn’t sufficient; in fact, one third of ads
that travel poorly have children in them. It is not simply the
“cuteness quotient” that adds to creative portability, but rather
a child’s unique perspective or reaction to an event. Similarly,
it’s about an endearing situation coming together with the
brand offer in a meaningful manner. An excellent example
is the memorable “Dirt Is Good” ad for Surf Excel, in which a
brother “fights” the puddle his little sister fell into.
Millward Brown: Point of View The Advertiser’s India: One Country or Many?
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The relevance of the brand promise and the market- We see four broad but clear themes when we analyze the
ing task in each geography often limit the portability performance of ads across regions.
of advertising.
First, something that all of us (in India) suspected: North is
The effect of humor is quite variable
Humor can work, but its effect is variable because it relies on
the “I get it” factor. Humor in India works particularly well when
it is derived from visuals and music. Exaggeration and “filmy”
spoofs work well as do lighthearted, cheeky ads. Humor can
fail if the references are potentially embarrassing or taboo. An
ad with humor that is overly reliant on verbal wit or regionspecific situations is also less likely to travel well. For example,
a toilet soap brand used the idiom “as soft as a jasmine flower”
as a lighthearted analogy. While it worked in one region, it ran
into rough weather in the other.
Brand cues link ads across markets
Brand cues such as slogans, jingles, and music help to signpost
ads for viewers and provide commonality across markets. In
fact, an established brand cue is the feature most likely to
show up in ads that travel well (see Table 2). However, it takes
time, sometimes many years, for such associations to be
established, so a well-known cue is in part a byproduct of
brand success, rather than solely an ingredient. It may also be
that well-established and successful brands invest more time
and effort to ensure that their ads are likely to travel.
Product demonstrations are less likely to travel well
Advertisements that focus on product demonstrations
are less likely than other types of ads to travel well.
Differing expectations from advertising are at the root of
this difficulty. As we will see later, there are clear differences
across regions and town tiers in this regard. South India tends
to be driven more by the need for information, as does smalltown India.
Digging a Bit Deeper: A Look at Regions and Towns
While we have seen some common themes that help an ad
travel, more often than not ads don’t perform consistently across
markets. But to make this observation meaningful to marketers,
we need to dig deeper. For example, are there specific regions
that respond to advertising in a unique way? Is advertising created
for major cities doomed to fail in smaller towns?
©2010 Millward Brown
North and South is South and never the twain shall meet.
These two regions show the poorest creative transfer; an ad
that does well in the South is unlikely to do well in the North
and vice versa.
Second, the West is a poor receiver of ads from the North.
Looking at ads tested in those two regions, only 34 percent
of ads that were highly enjoyable in the North did well in the
West, while close to half the ads that did well in the West also
performed well in the North. Therefore, if we need to prioritize
between the two regions, the West provides a better litmus
test of likely performance.
Third, the South is neither a borrower nor a lender. Ads that
do well in the South transfer poorly to the North, moderately
well to the West, and well to the East. Therefore, if the South
is relevant for a brand, it must automatically be selected as a
test center.
Fourth, successful ads in the East transfer well to other
regions, though within a specific and limited context. To clarify,
the East is an important market for relatively few brands and
categories, so any principle of travel would apply to this rather
specific set of brands. The East also tends to be more critical
Millward Brown: Point of View The Advertiser’s India: One Country or Many?
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of advertising compared to other regions. Hence, purely from
the perspective of creative transference, strong performance
in the East is an indication of good performance in other
zones.
So Why Does Each Region Behave So Differently?
We analyzed the content of top-performing ads in each
region to understand what the different audiences relate to,
and we arrived at some broad conclusions. For example, the
Southerner is a skeptic who seeks strong messaging cues
from advertising. Tell her what (benefit) and why (ingredients,
manufacturer endorsement), all in a story she can relate to.
On the other hand, the Northerner focuses less on the product
story and more on narrative elements, such as the use of
celebrities, music, humor, etc. Tell her how she can benefit
from the brand, but first and foremost, entertain her! The
Westerner is pragmatic and practical; she wants information
about brands as well as situations that she can relate to.
What About Town Classes?
India, all marketers should keep these lessons in mind. While
in smaller, more homogeneous countries, differences in brand
status and category development may not be apparent by
region, they may exist across specific demographic groups and
subcultures. Consumers’ responses to advertising may vary
according to age, life stage, or level of education. Residents
of small country towns will have different needs and attitudes
than those in large cities.
India has over 300 towns with populations over 100,000.
We have defined three town groupings: metros, large towns
and small towns. A metro has a population exceeding four
million; a large town, between one and four million residents;
and a small town, less than one million. (Note: other distinctions
exist among “small towns, ” but for our purposes of evaluating
advertising we have collapsed them all together.)
Not all of these differences will be significant or important
in every country for every category; it is up to marketers to
identify the factors that affect the way advertising is perceived
for their brands. However, the analyses highlighted in this Point
of View should provide a model: Identify the commonalities
and the differences, and conduct your pretesting accordingly.
Ads that test well in metros are less likely to do well in other
town classes, though small towns are more accepting of these
ads than are large towns. An analysis of top-performing ads
compared to poor ads reveals just why there is such a gap
between metros and other towns. While the smaller towns
still see advertising as a vehicle for product information,
consumers in large towns are more aspirational. Celebrities
are their role models; daily scenes and testimonials are not
what they wish to see when it comes to advertising.
To read more about advertising in India, visit
www.mb-blog.com.
If you liked “The Advertiser’s India” you might also
be interested in:
Culture Clash: Globalization Does Not Imply
Homogenization
Ads That Travel: Planning a Safe and Profitable
Journey for Your Campaign
The Global Brand, by Nigel Hollis
In Conclusion
The challenges associated with advertising crossing national
boundaries can also come into play within borders. While these
effects can be extreme in a large and diverse country such as
©2010 Millward Brown
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