Advertisements of TV ad

The growth of Bangladeshi advertisement on television or TVC is not a story of long ago. It had started to flourish in 1990s with open market economy in Bangladesh. Advertising firms started to develop as industry. There were also advertisement before 1990s but that was a period when television advertisement was more an information vehicle and less a marketing weapon to increase sale.

With the expansion of market economy the number of new private group of industries and sister concerns of old private group of industries have started to increase just like growing mushroom. It certainly paved the way to make more advertisement both in digital and print media. Previously a group of industry gave advertisement of one or two of its best products out of many.

 Now group of industries have started to release advertisements or TVCs of almost all of their products. Previously the objective off TVCs was highlighting the best product in order to ensure proper branding. Now the emergence of all products TVCs in all possible ways has its motif to increase mass selling instead of mere branding.

It is relevant to mention here that 1970s and 1980s were the period of mass marketing in Bangladesh when the objective was mass selling with the idea as one size fits all. 

One company gave advertisement of one soap in TVCs. Roughly from 1990s, we see even four catagories of soap are introduced to the audience in one advertisement of soap. That is called product segmentation. Based on customer needs products have started to vary and TVCs have now started to show variation of the same product for different customer group.

It will not be wrong to claim that  in 70s and 80s television commercials were mostly about products than services. In modern marketing, we have learnt to acknowledge that service is also a product. For this, advertisement of private hospitals offering healthcare as product occupied television commercials side by side with advertisement of soap, car, wooden furniture etc. Even in 1980s we have seen in Bangladesh advertisement of insurance companies service package offer. But  television commercials of service issue were less dominant than television commercials of any product.
Now a days television commercials have become so much dominating that sponsors claim the name of program should be selected right after their product name like Grameen Phone TritioMatra, Robi connecting Bangladesh etc.

 It is very difficult to say if we should consider it victory of television commercials or failure of our advertisement policy.  Many think there should be a limit up to which a product  sponsor should be allowed to interfere a program. But when we see international cricket or football players playing putting on jerseys of  different products , then what else we can do?

In older days advertisement related to female monthly, sex, condom were rarely seen. With the growing awareness on sex issue, these advertisements become more frequent as television commercials than ever before. To disseminate the importance of sex education is the main marketing strategy of these television commercials.

Dubbing television commercials is another aspect of Bangladeshi advertising industry. Since Bangladesh has large market of indianfilms , the advertises of indian artists dubbed got a huge market. However, local advertising agencies is their main competitor as they have to survive in marketing arena fighting with each other. The Lux advertisement of indian actress Aishwaria Roy is locked in competition with the lux advertisement of Bepasa Hayat or Api Karim and neither of them get defeated probably because each of them have different acceptability from different perspectives.

The day of non-digital form of advertisement is over long ago.  Now digital TVCs compete with one another. It is now a days the content of advertisement that matters more than anything else. People choose a product not for its same attributes like product of the same group but people prefer one product over another for special offer or attributes.

 A special attribute that differentiates one product from another is the reason for purchase and modern TVCs try to highlight this special attribute. For example: Most of the advertisement of Grameen Phone boasts of its uninterrupted frequency  all across Bangladesh that is absent in all other mobile operators.

Being market leader, they emphasize on this Unique Selling Proposition or U.S.P. Banks like Dutch Bangla always boast over its  largest number of ATM Booths all across Bangladesh and this is their U.S.P. that they highlight on most of their advertisements.

Bangladeshi advertisements usually select two types of characters for TVCs: One, sophisticated people or artist or famous celebrities and two, common people or lay men. Both have their psychological justification. Those who use sophisticated people or celebrities believe that mass people always like to trust people above their status and people equivalent to their caliber are not fit as artist for TVCs.

On the other hand, another group who select lay men or unknown face as advertise artist think that people like to see themselves in the advertisement or TVCs. It is just like what is 6 from one side is 9 from another end and both are right.

With the growth of Bangladesh cricket and its move to international games, cricket players like Sakib have got the status of celebrity not only for cricket world but also in television commercials and print media advertisements. Many think that it helps in sale increase. When people find an international standard celebrity in TVCs they believe it without question, many say.

 If the same TVC was filmed by a footballer, no one would probably respond. Along with the increase of international standard private hospitals and diagnosic centers, a new horizon of TVCs opened up to increase potential no. of sale. What is sold in private hospital? In capitalist society, health care is to be considered as commodity and to increase sale of it means to provide different healthcare services.

 This is based on which advertisements of healthcare sector developed. Even private hospitals or clinics that are capable to provide healthcare in affordable price to general people give television commercials as part of their public relation policy to increase sale.

Conservative culture is an important reason why Bangladeshi advertisement industry does not and  cannot make indecent TVCs or TVCs showing nakedness. The TVCs of soap are made very carefully keeping the issue of censor. Because of censorship many dubbing advertisements have to cut off to make it adoptable in Bangladeshi culture.

As elsewhere, television commercials are presented in two forms: either vocally/verbally or in written. However, with the elapse of time vocal form or verbal presentation has been becoming more popular than ever. A character or presenter vocally presenting the products attributes is more convenient than a written form notification on television screen.

Since the number of private televisions have been increasing fast, television commercials have been occupying larger market share than printed media. Advertisement in printed media are less focused compared to television commercials. To expedite the focus and to compete with television commercials, many newspapers  sometime give advertisement on the very 1st page in half or full or use another page on top of the first page.

Female glamour is always a dominating feature for television commercials. The beauty of nature coupled with the beauty of women contributed to the conceptual development of a product in many television commercials. The aestheticism behind womens beauty and natures beauty have a tremendous influence on advertisement back ground creation to justify the use of a certain company product in television commercials in many cases.

Usually women age groups between 20 to 35 are selected as models for such television commercials. The playboy image of many male models have become value addition to such advertisements. The manliness of many male models likemodel Nobel enhanced the appeal of the womans beauty in many Bangladeshi advertisements. No matter what the product exactly is, a suitable combination of male and female model have made many Bangladeshi advertisement successful in terms of increasing selling of many company products.

Now we see TVC break even in live program that affects not only the concenration of audience but also the sincerity of the program content. Silent TVCs are also noticed during the program is running. It seem as if private television have become slave to many corporate houses for getting advertisements. People feel so fed up on TVCs that many stop watching programs on TV and watch it on YOUTUBE later on.

Understanding this, now TVCs have made their way into YOUTUBE as well.  Since abnormal frequency of  TVCs have become audience nuisance during watching TV programs, many private televisions now show duration of TVC intermission like 03 or 04 minutes so that audience do not loose patience.

Creativity in TVCs is expected but not at the cost of distortion of true information. Some TVCs appeal to our Head (our thinking level) and some TVCs appeal to our Heart (our emotion). But no such advertisement will have value if it distorts information, history or facts. Creative TVC makers must take them into consideration so that they cannot be silly liars to promote products of different companies.

They must remember that to bring someone into the world of imagination for creative advertisement is one thing and to distort information, history, facts to establish such creativity is another. However, there is also argument from the opposite side in favor of the creative.

As many think, the movement direction between drama/movies and TVCs is just opposite. While drama/movies create fiction out of fact, TVCs creates fact out fiction and that fact has to created on the basis of the product attributes. So, naturally for a short period of time audience is missing from real world and this is to realize the fact or attributes of a product or service probably through some exaggeration of few seconds.

Actually any evolution of any type takes place because of technological upgrade as well as human conceptual upgrade. If we also look at advertisement other than TVCs we see that in 1970s and 1980s neon sign were used in the side of the streets for advertisement. Later neon signs were replaced by billboards and now-a-days old bill boards have been replaced by digital bill board that frequently changes images or pictures.

 TVCs also experienced same evolution from simple technology to high-tech and from simple concept to complex concept like use of  flash back and flash forward in TVCs particularly in relation to products that need comparative analysis to be exposed before the audience.


The writer is first Assistant Vice President, Business Development & Marketing Division, ShahjalalIslami Bank Ltd

----Mohammad Manzur Rahman