It’s a great time to be a Below the Line agency - more brands are hatching new ways to catch attention in non-mainstream spaces. But is it a different world down there at all, and if so, where is it headed?
Not so long ago, we lived in times when every brand aspired to be on national broadcaster Doordarshan. Just appearing on DD was perceived to be a landmark status. The directive for advertising agencies then, was to create communication that appealed to DD’s vast audience. Not surprisingly, this was also an era when a single agency would work on creatives, juggle with the media and do every other bit in a campaign. Cut to now, and we are using terms such as Above the Line (ATL) and Below the Line (BTL) for communication and there are specialised agencies and teams within them for every aspect of a brand’s life.
ATL and BTL are no Greek propositions though; they are simply the two sides of a line that lies between the mainstream media and the on-ground space. And of course, the expertise of agencies is only a product of evolving media and fragmenting market.
Drawing the line
While ‘above’ is all about brand persona glorified on mass media, the space ‘below’ the line refers to making the brand come alive through experiences.
In an expensive and cluttered media space, brands having limited geographic presence find below the line activities beneficial to connect one-on-one with their target audiences, engage them and convert them into customers - a full circle in real time.
So what all does this ‘below the line’ entail and why are we going gung-ho about it now, you wonder? Well, gauge the BTL umbrella for starters – it includes everything from activations, events, exhibitions and dealer meets to conferences, sports marketing and awards. All of these concepts have evolved over the years only to give a grand experience to consumers, partners and promoters. Remember watching Katrina dancing inside a bottle or the ZooZoos at play at your neighbourhood mall? These are only instances of activations where mainline ideas get adapted to entertain on-ground consumers.
And as for the gung-ho bit, here’s why: with growth in non-traditional forms of communication, BTL is becoming a crucial element of marketing budgets, which clients are expanding with each passing campaign. As per data available from Ernst & Young, this industry is worth Rs 6,000 crore today, divided between organized and unorganized players in a 40:60 ratio.
While we know that marketers have evolved in their liking towards this medium, it is time we ask industry heads if the medium itself has evolved in terms of creativity and longevity.
Merely an ATL shadow?
“Almost all ideas must take inspiration from the core communication - you cannot create experiences exclusive to the communication of the brand,” explains Roshan Abbas, MD, Encompass Events (part of the WPP Group), one of the largest experiential marketing agencies in India that handles blue chip clients such as HSBC, Airtel, Pepsi and Mercedes.Should that necessarily mean that BTL becomes just an adaptation of the ATL approach, with little creative space of its own? Unfortunately, this is becoming a case with many brands, experts feel. “The overall creative quality is still very low,” opines Alok Agrawal, COO, Cheil Worldwide South Asia, (which has handled activation for Samsung among other clients.) “Most of the activations tend to follow a set format, define the space, play with the design and promote it differently. The innovations that have happened also seem to be aping the West, like the whole flash mob craze that picked up recently,” he adds.
Agrawal also feels that there is little regard for cultural sensitivities and not all campaigns are custom-made for optimum mileage. “Most agencies that are activation specialists have been experts in events and have later got into consumer engagement. For effective campaigns as also to improve creative standards, they must understand the needs of each brand they work with.”
Popular campaigns such as Gillette’s ‘Women against Lazy Stubble’ and Aviva’s ‘Great Wall of Education’ were ideas created by mainline agencies, then amplified on ground.
While talking of BTL, a special note must be made for alcohol brands. Thanks to the restrictions they face in mainstream advertising in India, they have grown to be the biggest spenders in the ‘below’ domain. Even then, not many are looking to convert restriction into opportunity. “Whenever an agency comes to me with an idea, it’s usually about a concert or free sampling - where is creativity in that? If I have to launch a new brand, how would I differentiate from others?” asks Bharat Gandhi, Head – Trade Marketing, Remy Cointreau, the French luxury Cognac maker (a company spending 60 per cent of its budgets on BTL activities.)
A victim of perception
Speak with the agency players, and we get the other side of the story – that there is enough creativity and innovation in the sector, but the perception that BTL agencies are ‘execution specialists’ makes all the difference. “This is changing fast. Experiential is not influenced by ATL/media agencies anymore,” states Ankur Kalra, CEO, Vibgyor Brand Services & General Secretary, Events and Entertainment Management Association.
Pratap Bose, COO, DDB Mudra Group feels, “Most of the innovation is happening just in non-traditional space. Most award shows are also pointing towards the same trend.” Bose, who was on the jury of Promo & Activation Awards, Cannes Lions 2012, witnessed India returning without any metal in this category.
But those calling it a shadow beware, there have been instances when BTL has led to repositioning of ATL communication. Showtime’s tagline for Tata Ace mini-LCV ‘Small is Big’ became the ATL tagline for a long time. Another worthy case is the Boomer Bubble Blowing Championship by Percept Activ, which was designed from a BTL perspective but later got amplified across media. Sanjay Shukla of the firm is upbeat, “BTL ideas are no more an off-shoot from ATL. They are like a challenger brand in the market, that must do disruptive stuff to seek attention”.
Matter of partnership
BTL’s exemplary growth over the past two decades has been thanks to rising disposable incomes, rise in modern retail and an increasing access to consumer. Almost every industry be it FMCG, telecom, consumer durables, luxury goods, automobiles; is making use of BTL aggressively now. While some brands have taken their BTL spending to almost 40 per cent of their marketing spends, others are gradually catching up.
That said, unlike ATL, where most brands have chosen partners, very few clients have dedicated activation partners. Though the concept of ‘Agency of Record’ (one which is assigned specific creative/media buying responsibilities by the client) is undergoing a dramatic change with clients flirting with multiple advertising agencies, mainline agencies are still the brand custodians while others are execution specialists.
While Gandhi of Remy Cointreau accepts that agencies are considered ‘execution partners’ as it’s important for marketers to think about costs, Atul Nath, MD of Candid Marketing puts it in perspective: “Clients are waking up to the importance of cascading ideas across multiple locations and the reality that not all agencies are intellectually honest and transparent in this delivery is the reason they are only shopping for ideas and not dwelling sufficiently on the delivery and dependability of the agency.”
It’s not like partnership moulds aren’t being broken though. Mastercard, which used to work with several agencies till the volume of work increased; later decided to partner with a dedicated agency to maintain consistency. Percept Activ has been its retainer for the past three years and handles all their activations.
Shukla elaborates, “Trends are changing fast! Now we have couple clients on a retainer basis, in an annual contract. We are working directly as an extended arm.”
Speed breakers to creativity
Below the Line activation is not a work of fiction, it has space, time and reality to it. Michael Menezes of Showtime explains the challenge as a client ‘who sees million dollar stuff on YouTube and wants it reproduced for a couple of lakhs in India!’ “This breeds ‘jugaad’ which at one level has become synonymous with innovation and creativity,” he says.
Limitation of time, cost and an expectation to work around an idea already developed by the mainline agency are some of the constraints that limit innovation in this space. Shukla rues, “While we strive to plug in creative innovation in most of our concepts, it comes at a cost, be it technology or otherwise. Even if ideas are appreciated by clients, everything boils down to cost which limits our experimentation as well. Moreover, we have to meander through a lot of legalities of our country which too constrains us from thinking big at times.”
Sanjeev Pasricha, MD, CS Direkt, adds, “ATL agencies can be given a long creative leash, backed with large budgets, while BTL agencies need to get practical and economical. This is an irony, when in fact we can demonstrate greater ROI (return on investment) on marketing spends than traditional agencies.”
The other speed breaker, and a crucial one, is that the activation agency is not a part of the campaign from the ideation stage. As activations are not conceptualised during planning, it becomes difficult for agencies to immediately produce an out of the box on-ground solution. Hence, the regular approach to standard and tested formulas is used with the core brand thought. “Defining a space for ourselves at the strategic level is a challenge,” Roshan says.
Changing Paradigm
On the flip side, it is important to mention that more marketers are now assembling teams to handle various marketing functions. KV Sridhar, National Creative Director, Leo Burnett shares, “We are now sitting with media agencies, PR agencies, OOH agencies, activation agencies, digital agencies and mobile agencies and are asked to brainstorm together on an idea that contributes to the brand. There is no constraint on who gives the idea, it can come from anywhere. Big clients are all for pushing all their partners together. Creative agencies get an upper hand because they’ve been handling the brand more than even the clients but now anyone can lead. But one has to understand the brand and work towards creating brand affinity.”
Ambika Sharma, founder of Pulp Strategy gives a frank say on why agencies lack creativity. “The agency guy is always in a great hurry! Many times the crux of an activation - the balance between the brand and the consumer - is missing. Most of us are caught in the grandeur of the visual when we should actually be giving a larger focus to the consumer journey that reflects true creativity. A lot of activation professionals are stuck in the ‘stall’.”
The reason for BTL agencies to have not established themselves as ‘creative powerhouses’ is also the resources they’ve been focusing on. While mainline agencies invest in creative teams, activation agencies boast of the best production teams. However, the old mindset of ‘execution specialist’ is changing. Agencies now have larger creative teams and creative function has become as important as business development and operations. There is a change in the pitch process too, explains Kalra of Vibgyor. “Perfect execution is a hygiene factor now,” he adds. We’d like to believe that creative ideas are now defining results and that there is a need for them as more clients push the creativity bar.
BTL agencies are also expanding their portfolio of services just as mainline and media agencies are expanding their revenue streams by getting into non-traditional businesses. “We are positioning ourselves with a bouquet of services to offer. Clients see value for money in this new service spectrum, which in our case includes events and activation to exhibitions and retail to films and digital solutions,” informs Pasricha of CS Direkt.
Looking ahead
Growing at 20-25 per cent every year, it is safe to say the BTL Industry has an upbeat future in India. The competition is also increasing tremendously with most of the mainline agencies now strongly establishing themselves in this domain.
There are no barriers to entry, and we see many more emerging entrepreneurs in the industry.
The growth thus would only come by being more meaningful to the brand and consumers alike. If the International Festival of Creativity, Cannes Lions is a standard to go by, disruptive ideas that combine the might of all mediums would make the brands stand out, thus marketers too will have to be more cautious in promoting integrated thoughts and involving all the stakeholders at the same time.
“Of all the mediums, a greater connect between digital and experiential will be truly promising,” Shukla concludes, “Activation and digital together offer a strong opportunity. Together, they can make up for a major weakness of the other medium. Digital makes activation measurable and activation makes digital experiential. We all need to strengthen our services in this space.”
Feedback: deepika@exchange4media.com
