A sexy woman picks up a large bowl of chocolate chip ice cream and
slowly begins eating. The taste delights her and she purrs. Soothing
music and a candlelit room make up the rest of the scene. A voiceover at
the end gives the brand name of the ice cream and a tagline.
If that was your idea of a great TVC to promote a food product, burn it
and go back to the drawing board.
That's because a major, regional survey has revealed that the average
Asian person largely distrusts food product advertising and that a
completely different approach needs to be taken to cut through the
cynicism.
Conducted by Ogilvy & Mather, the study across 21 cities in 14 countries
found that about 65 per cent of respondents said they didn't trust
advertising as a source of advice on healthy eating.
A similar number said they even ignored the information provided in the
manufacturer's label.
So who do they trust? More than 80 per cent pointed to their mother.
Other members of the family and friends were also up there. At almost 70
per cent, even the government scored highly.
Contamination scandals in the pre-packaged food and drink sector around
the world - not just in Asia-Pacific - and the fact that consumers are
constantly being bombarded with countless new choices and advertising
messages on a daily basis are behind the public cynicism.
Mr David Elsworth, O&M regional planning director, said, "Your mother
wouldn't give you a physics or chemistry lesson every time you saw
her.
She wouldn't hit you with so many messages inside a 24-hour period that
it confuses you."
The study, titled 'Eating Disorders', also found that the media's
credibility had been eroded compared with five years ago.
"You would have expected women's magazines to have a higher credibility,
but according to 'Eating Disorders', less than 50 per cent of
respondents said they trusted ads in women's titles," Mr Elsworth
said.
"But this isn't a surprise because as it is the news media's job to go
out there and find the news, you'll have stories like 'Eat more
potatoes' today, and 'Eat less potatoes' in six month's time, with the
resultant effect being that you are once again confusing the
market."
He said, therefore, that the current general creative style of
advertising in the food sector - showing the product as being beneficial
in some way - was all wrong.
Reverse psychology, he stressed, was the way forward.
The survey found that people felt guilty when they ate junk food and
bored when they made more healthy choices.
"No-one seems to be completely satisfied and they aren't satisfied
because every time they make a choice, there is a trade-off involved and
that stresses them out. For every positive there is a negative," Mr
Elsworth said.
"So," he asked, "why don't we overcome the feeling of guilt or boredom
by leveraging the sacrifice?"
He cited a number of campaigns, which illustrate how to successfully
overcome the negatives.
In the Philippines, for instance, pure water brand Viva is positioned as
a product, which is healthy for the body.
However, its latest TVCs, launched just recently, showed people dancing
at a disco and an overweight man eating a hamburger and fries before
cutting to the imagery of the product and the tagline, "Wash away your
sin".
Upmarket coffee brand Left Bank created a fantasy Parisian cafe through
a series of television and print ads, which successfully sold the
product to an unsuspecting market in Taiwan.
"Neither Viva nor Left Bank had the benefit of the findings of 'Eating
Disorders', however, the survey identifies key insights into how people
think about food vis-a-vis health. This type of data helps advertisers
make their ads less of a hit and miss thing," Mr Elsworth said.
It goes without saying that advertising should build up trust with a
target market, however, Mr Elsworth pointed out that food manufacturers
needed to take more care with how they translate product labelling from
English to the language of a local market.
"In the Philippines, 'healthy' means a fat man dressed in a Hawaiian
shirt, but that same word in Singapore implies someone who goes to the
gym every day."
