This Post was origionally written for Pak-Media Blog
Advertising is one of the disciplines in marketing and media that has grown in Pakistan over the years, from the era of radio and print to the era of visual ads that has also grown to the higher levels by today. Old and serious ads today make us laugh because they seems to be outdated but still there are many that can be named and followed as classic. AsPakistanis culturally, an enriched country therefore in our ads flavour of culture used to be there. I am using the “used to be” part with full responsibility because that aspect of our advertising is dying. Anyhow, that is a separate debate. Coming back to the topic, advertisements should be created with respect to the time of the year it will be released in.
Ramadan is a blessed month that comes with all the blessings and spiritual benefits, hence the advertisements that are released by companies become talk of the town and recalled for years. The best example I can quote is Olpers Ramadan ad campaigns that glorified our screens till last year. Many products rollout their ads in this month and all these campaigns are forcefully coated in the flavour of Ramadan. It is good to utilize the occasion but it should be kept in mind that does it really go with the image of the brand and the real utility that brand has to offer.
Since the telecom boom, or I should better say Cellular network providers’ expansion, we are experiencing new and interesting advertisements very frequently. The bar has been raised with other brands trying to compete against the clutter. Like others, telecos also try to gain something out of the Ramadan blessings and they come up with the advertisements like this:
Great TVC, nicely made, visuals were good, the audio piece to create the feel of the theme and at the end “the message” synced as well. Where everything is perfect, one-thing bugs me, and I have this complain from all the telecos. This is a month for gaining more and better deeds and devoting yourself to get the best out of this month, and for that, we bring many changes in our daily life so that all the religious obligations can be practiced properly. At such a time, ads and messages like those that we get in the end of the above are a misfit.
The month we should spend in doing something better and different from what we do all the year, we are forced to be attracted to certain number of free calls/minutes, certain number of text messages, or any other kind of VAS. Mobilink is not the only culprit in this almost all the telecos do the same; though they justify it with the term “competition”.
Because of bad timing the creativity becomes counterproductive. So the suggestion is, that at the time when the goal is to gain more blessings, conveying such messages that indulge people in something other than what they were planning to, might bring some more bucks in the financial statements but on the other hand also harms the brand name and image to some extent. Therefore, the demand of duty is to deal with this aspect far more technically. There can be many other seasons to gain more sales i.e. Eid.
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