There is no meaning. There are only associations. All the concepts we use are meaningful only in the context of what we associate with them. To a kid who never seen a bird, apart from the sorry fellows living in his father's poultry a bird would not mean flight, much less freedom. In England they have a dozen words (hence a dozen concepts) to identify rain in multiple forms. In Bangladesh we have two dozen words to mean love, and all mean something slightly different from the other.
Advertising people know that. And, that's why the fight is always on to associate brands with stuff that we find relevant. Associating Mountain Dew with extreme sports and associating Lux with Aishwaryia Rai are only two examples. There are so many ways to do exactly that. Banglalink has chosen and extensively used a warm, vibrant and friendly color. Pepsi has used images of high energy fun in everything. Coca-cola has built stories around the word "thanda". Levis has used sizzling models through and through.
The problem begins when the association becomes "it" for a brand. Take Grameenphone for an example. The theme of Stay Close has become so all encompassing for them that no other value, no other story or no other image gets even the slightest of chance there. Good for a short burst. But pretty bad for long term brand building, eh? The same goes for the new Arku Spice campaign. Nice that someone is associating the color red with a campaign for chili powder brand. But, what to say when there's nothing else to it?
Why don't we remember that the audience of today are already tired of the information clutter around them. MTV has brought down our attention span down to a maximum of 3 minutes, and an average of 600 commercial stimuli has taken our capacity to retain to a new height of fragmentation. We are easily bored and we don't care to remember anything for long. Yesterday is always one year back, and the likeability for even the most popular commercials hardly go beyond 3 months. The question is simple - do we really need to overkill an association and make the audience filter it automatically out as garbage? Or do we build on powerful stories and images that are always fresh and innovative while keeping the associative stuff in the background?
It's easy to get associated with boredom and overbearing. You don't even have to try for it.
Advertising people know that. And, that's why the fight is always on to associate brands with stuff that we find relevant. Associating Mountain Dew with extreme sports and associating Lux with Aishwaryia Rai are only two examples. There are so many ways to do exactly that. Banglalink has chosen and extensively used a warm, vibrant and friendly color. Pepsi has used images of high energy fun in everything. Coca-cola has built stories around the word "thanda". Levis has used sizzling models through and through.The problem begins when the association becomes "it" for a brand. Take Grameenphone for an example. The theme of Stay Close has become so all encompassing for them that no other value, no other story or no other image gets even the slightest of chance there. Good for a short burst. But pretty bad for long term brand building, eh? The same goes for the new Arku Spice campaign. Nice that someone is associating the color red with a campaign for chili powder brand. But, what to say when there's nothing else to it?
Why don't we remember that the audience of today are already tired of the information clutter around them. MTV has brought down our attention span down to a maximum of 3 minutes, and an average of 600 commercial stimuli has taken our capacity to retain to a new height of fragmentation. We are easily bored and we don't care to remember anything for long. Yesterday is always one year back, and the likeability for even the most popular commercials hardly go beyond 3 months. The question is simple - do we really need to overkill an association and make the audience filter it automatically out as garbage? Or do we build on powerful stories and images that are always fresh and innovative while keeping the associative stuff in the background?
It's easy to get associated with boredom and overbearing. You don't even have to try for it.
