Well here we are then. At the starting line of yet another era in Pakistani advertising, but one that promises to turn the industry on its head as much as the television did at some point. We are poised to head into a playing field that will empower the viewer, and will be judged through a much more discriminating lens. This is going to be the age of the highly liquid, opinionated and interactive consumer; the young, who have an attention span of 2.8 seconds; the consumer who will eventually tell you openly that they don’t give a 0.000000000000000003 bitcoin for your jingle-based, chest-beating themes.

In September 2017, Pakistan won its first major international digital advertising award for a commercial brand: PepsiCo’s Sting picked up a Silver trophy at the prestigious Spikes Asia in Singapore for its effective use of an influencer or talent in a social media space. The digital campaign by BBDO and Proximity Pakistan, which went against the commonly heard adage in Pakistan that “digital won’t convert directly into sales,” grew sales by 30% for the brand. This was a campaign that mastered the art of crowd-sourced content through engaging and interactive social media: online participants actually helped ‘coach’ UK boxer Amir Khan back into the ring after an online film launched the campaign.

More recently, the world’s first transgender chatbot was built in Pakistan for the Asia Pacific Transgender Network in a campaign called ‘Change The Clap’. The chatbot, written through the most commonly searched questions on Google, was aimed at helping people understand those that they fear approaching.

It has taken us a long time, but Pakistan is finally starting to claw its way to the future in advertising technology usage and the digital space – we have moved beyond ‘Like if you agree, comment if you don’t’. Admittedly, Pakistan is still far behind the rest of the world but shows promise, as the above cases exemplify. The very meaning of traditional advertising is changing due to technology. In an astonishingly smart move, Burger King in the US transformed what a 15-second commercial meant when they used their TV spot to trigger a Google Home device and continue expanding on what a Whopper contained. Elsewhere, in an incredible example of real-time response affecting sales prices, the ‘Hungerithm’ campaign for Snickers gauges the mood of the internet and adjusts the price of their candy bars in 7-Eleven stores accordingly, in real-time. Basically, the angrier the internet, the cheaper the candy – to make everyone a bit happier. In a world which constantly argues on the internet, it doesn’t take much to calculate how successful this campaign was.

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” said Arthur C. Clarke, and technological advances such as 360 VR or holograms do feel like magic. Whether you are standing at the top of the World Trade Centre, or watching an army of hologram protesters walk by, or getting Nicole Kidman to give you a tour around the Etihad Airbus A380, advertising that taps into geeky technology can be incredibly impactful.

360 VR has been around for a while and brands have tapped into its power of bringing about wonder very creatively. Of course, as the saying goes, content might be king, but context is emperor; and so, some brands have used it much more effectively than others.

How applicable is such abracadabra to Pakistan? I spoke to David James, Director of Projects at Valkyrie, a company that specialises in hologram technology and has worked with the folks who did the Tupac Shakur hologram. He was pretty enthusiastic: “Imagine being able to watch Naheed Siddiqui perform with her younger self, or Noor Jehan serenading us one more time. Imagine the biggest names in music, film and theatre gracing the floorboards of Pakistan’s fledgling events and stage industry. Imagine Pakistan’s universities hosting lectures by some of the finest minds of our generation, or teaching their medical students how to perform life-saving procedures on holographic body parts. Imagine interacting with someone who seems to be right there in front of your very eyes at the next board meeting, despite them being 10,000 miles away. Holographic technology is literally transforming people’s lives across the world. It is going to change the way people in Pakistan live, learn and play. The possibilities are endless; the only boundaries are our imaginations.”

It is an incredibly playful time for creatives, and a scary one too. Tech changes rapidly, as do trends, and it is vital to stay in touch with what is capturing eyeballs and share of discussion. For a creative, the question to ask is simple: what is an interesting and modern piece of technology that can help me deliver my message in a highly immersive manner – one that can provide the level of disruption and engagement that is so elusive in traditional marketing? Or, in other words, how the hell do I do something that is newer than putting lights on a billboard? (As an example, McDonald’s in the UK uses traffic data to change the headlines on its digital billboards.)

Of course, this is not to say that all modern technology will evolve advertising to a new level anyways. What a marketing person needs to figure out is at what point of the curve will they decide to jump in: will they be trend-setters or will they be copycat followers? I am guessing that this new era will inspire clients to become braver – something the industry much needs.

For Pakistan, the biggest change technology and the digital space will bring is that it will give more control to the viewer on what they want to consume, which will force brands to build better content that is not only sales-oriented but is more focused on entertainment that eventually translates into brand building and sales.

I keep going back to Helmut Krone’s quote: “I am only interested in the new.” There is no better a motto to adopt if you want to stay ahead in advertising and give your brand a better chance at being noticed and remembered. The kind of content you produce certainly bears the lion’s share of responsibility in achieving this, but the medium you use can sometimes be just as important.

Pakistan is now featured constantly on the global map of advertising and creativity; this year, the country was listed in the Top 40 Creative Countries by the WARC Gunn Report, an index that measures excellence in the field. For a country that before 2014 never featured in any award show, we have come a long way by winning more than 150 medals in the last four years.

Here is an opportunity to make it through the next 70 years – not as followers, but as trend-setters in this new age of adverteching.

Ali Rez is Regional Creative Director for Middle East and Pakistan, BBDO Worldwide.

First published in THE DAWN OF ADVERTISING IN PAKISTAN (1947-2017), a Special Report published by DAWN on March 31, 2018.

Films are content gold mines; the challenge is to build anticipation within a short period of time. Luckily, films are stories and stories sell, especially when you involve the audience in the story via social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat.

Dawn Films used these platforms in their marketing strategy for their forthcoming film 7 Din Mohabbat In, leveraging viral marketing by doing something that would create talkability. The first introduction to the film’s content was to present the audience with the protagonist, who is searching for the love of his life and whom he must find in seven days.

Drumming up interest and seeding your trailer online is always a challenge, but the marketing effort for the film, bridged the gap by offering a storyline and enabling fans to respond, thus generating a buzz.

He turns to the audience for help to go about this in the best possible way. His earnest request garnered an equally sincere response from some of the industry’s big stars, as they gave advice on the right way to go about his quest for love.

Numerous blogs and digital content powerhouses picked up on the subject matter, which in turn fuelled interest, adding to the conversation about the young man’s quest. Added to this, glimpses of the romance, drama, humour and action contained in the film gave audiences a peek into the unfolding storyline.

Drumming up interest and seeding your trailer online is always a challenge, but the marketing effort for the film, bridged the gap by offering a storyline and enabling fans to respond, thus generating a buzz. The stage was set and audiences were drawn in with content such as clips, articles, conversations, GIFs and behind-the-scenes shots of the protagonist’s journey, leaving a taste of what is to come.

This is the tip of the iceberg. Stay tuned to your digital screens for more creative content as we weave in and out of the story, taking fans along for the journey. 

Elhaam Shaikh is Manager Programming, CityFM89.

First published in THE DAWN OF ADVERTISING IN PAKISTAN (1947-2017), a Special Report published by DAWN on March 31, 2018.

Mehran Bottlers have a strong vision for Pakola; they understand the love Pakistanis have for the brand. Pakola has become the essence of what defines Pakistan. The satisfying taste drives the loyalty of consumers at home while for Pakistanis abroad, Pakola evokes intense nostalgia whenever they see the brand.

Pakola is a brand that evokes pride, love and patriotism. Pakola connects our hearts and minds with the national spirit. After all: ‘Dil Bola Pakola!’

Pakola’s vision is to provide our consumers the world over with a variety of premium quality beverages that guarantee satisfaction while refreshing the national spirit. These efforts are indicative of the brand’s progressive attitude and a determination to continue the journey of being the drink of the people of Pakistan. In recent years, Pakola has revamped itself in order to appeal to younger audiences, both in terms of the message and the look.

A recent example of Pakola’s new approach to create brand love was our 70th Independence Day campaign, where we launched limited edition Pakola cans along with a social media campaign ‘#PakolaAurPakistan’ and ‘#70thBirthday’. The cans paid tribute to the Quaid-i-Azam, while Pakistan’s flag and truck art motifs were incorporated on the cans, thereby emphasising the brand as being the drink of Pakistan. This resulted in people posting photographs on social media and creating a buzz online.

Pakola is a brand that evokes pride, love and patriotism. Pakola connects our hearts and minds with the national spirit. After all: ‘Dil Bola Pakola!’

Saniya Naqvi is Creative Manager, RG Blue Communications.

First published in THE DAWN OF ADVERTISING IN PAKISTAN (1947-2017), a Special Report published by DAWN on March 31, 2018.

In the fifties, there was something innocent about Berger’s ads. Focused on the benefits of using the paint, there is naiveté in the messaging. It is simple and straightforward; there is no spin. An explanation of what the paint does, with simple illustrations delivers the point.

The sixties saw the introduction of the ‘Robbialac Look’. It was about having a freshly-painted look throughout the year and the availability of a wide range of colours. The illustrations became better, the copy got a bit creative. In the seventies, the illustrations were replaced by photographs. The headline stated the problem, and the body copy gave the solution.

Every ad illustrated a new USP – appealing to the rational mind of the consumer rather than the emotional side. In the eighties, graphics were introduced. The message was that Berger was a global brand offering high-quality paint. The nineties focused on health. Lead-free paints were introduced and the copy emphasised benefits of these paints. The brand was evolving but not connecting. Human emotion was missing.

This has changed. Berger now engages with young homemakers for whom paint is as important as their furniture. Berger took a huge leap by focusing on a younger target group. A celebrity endorsement has been introduced with Mehwish Hayat, because celebrities inspire people to be like them.

From a rational, somewhat distant brand, Berger has evolved into an emotional, connected and iconic brand. From selling paints to selling lifestyles, the brand has left a footprint in every household.

Sarah K. Yaldram is Creative Director, Firebolt63.

First published in THE DAWN OF ADVERTISING IN PAKISTAN (1947-2017), a Special Report published by DAWN on March 31, 2018.

A legacy brand, UBL’s mantra is to provide the best banking services and products. Evident from its first print advertisement in 1959, UBL’s customer communication has focused on the bank’s reliability, efficiency, customer centricity and wide presence in and out of Pakistan.

Creative messages showcasing UBL’s efforts, be they about financial inclusion, its extensive network of customer touch-points, supporting social causes or reaching out to the next generation – all have one thing in common; UBL is striving towards building a customer-centric brand.

In the initial decades, the bank styled itself as ‘The Progressive Bank’. This was in keeping with a series of firsts the bank ushered in Pakistan’s banking landscape. As UBL expanded its footprint outside Pakistan, ‘The International Bank’ tagline highlighted the aspiration to be a world-class bank. The branch network advertisement printed in 1976 establishes the might of UBL with a daunting domestic as well as international presence – an institution that ‘helps you to stay ahead’.

Imagery has played a crucial role in the evolution of the UBL brand. Whether it’s the image of a computer spool expressing the bank’s innovative outlook, a mother and son photo depicting dependability and trustworthiness, or a hand holding a smartphone, striking images have always ably complimented the Bank’s advertising copy.

The UBL brand is now positioned to leverage the digital future and its advertising on social media bodes well for a future that will see FinTech take centre stage.

‘Where You Come First’, UBL’s current tagline came into force in 2003. The essence behind it is that UBL customers come first, and in every interaction they have with UBL, they must always feel that they are more important than anyone else.

Creative messages showcasing UBL’s efforts, be they about financial inclusion, its extensive network of customer touch-points, supporting social causes or reaching out to the next generation – all have one thing in common; UBL is striving towards building a customer-centric brand.

The UBL brand is now positioned to leverage the digital future and its advertising on social media bodes well for a future that will see FinTech take centre stage.

Ali Habib is Head of Corporate Affairs & Marketing, UBL.

First published in THE DAWN OF ADVERTISING IN PAKISTAN (1947-2017), a Special Report published by DAWN on March 31, 2018.

Social media has changed the way we view the world. The evolution has been exponential; for example, in Pakistan, Facebook has gone from 11 million active users to 34 million in the past four years alone. The way people use social media has also evolved. Nowadays, they don’t go online to connect with family and friends; they go there to express themselves about anything and everything. It has also changed the way we view and interact with the world and the communities around us, and it has changed the way consumers behave online.

• Audiences are less concerned with privacy. Since Facebook is free, many people do not necessarily realise that they are the product. ‘Likes’ and ‘comments’ are the currency that most Millennials and Gen Z thrive on and so, they give away vast amounts of personal data publicly to gain popularity on social media. The Pew Research Centre for internet and technology finds most young people more than willing to hand over their personal details. Ninety-one percent post photos of themselves, 71% post the city or town where they live, more than half give their email addresses and a fifth, their phone numbers. This gives advertisers a great deal of leverage in terms of data-backed targeting, which they never had before.

According to a Forbes consumer study, 82% of consumers are more likely to trust a company with a digital media presence.

• Brands need to adopt causes and give a collective voice to their consumers. It was the Arab Spring that gave traction to the idea that anyone can bring about a revolution on social media. Consumers know how powerful a social media platform can be and are willing to use it, be it for political issues or consumer complaints. As a result, brands need to tread carefully on social media as a single piece of negative news can snowball into a business damaging situation.

• Consumers are more likely to trust a brand with a social media presence. According to a Forbes consumer study, 82% of consumers are more likely to trust a company with a digital media presence. It adds to the transparency, two-way communication, engagement and in some cases, social responsibility as well.

What is the effect of all of this on how brands advertise on social media? Pakistani brands have become savvy. They have come a long way from acquiring ‘likes’ on Facebook and realise that simply posting on their social pages will not do anything to give them traction online. High levels of clutter and increasingly distracted audiences means that brands need to invest in breaking through the barrier of limited organic reach and create engaging content.

In a world where customers want instant gratification, social media provides a platform where the consumer can connect to brands whenever they want. Being always-on and ready to answer consumer queries goes a long way towards building brand credibility.

Here are some examples of how brands are using social media to its full potential:

1. E-Commerce. E-Commerce has grown in an extremely interesting way on social media. Not only has it benefitted large-scale online retailers such as Daraz and Goto.pk, which use the platform to drive large numbers of traffic to their websites, it has helped a huge number of small businesses reach out to their customers with as little as Rs 100 per post promotion.

2. Influencer Marketing. The ‘democratisation of stardom’ is what this phenomenon is being called globally. Micro-influencers and vloggers have become huge social media celebrities without ever having been on the big screen. They have grown via popular demand on social media and are people which audiences can relate to. As a result, a lot of brands have signed on social media celebs such as Zaid Ali T and Ali Gur Pir to be their brand ambassadors, leveraging not only their popularity, but their individual social media profile to secure incremental and relevant reach.

3 Customer Service. In a world where customers want instant gratification, social media provides a platform where the consumer can connect to brands whenever they want. Being always-on and ready to answer consumer queries goes a long way towards building brand credibility. Facebook has made this process transparent by making public the ‘response time’ badges on brand pages, so that customers know the approximate time by when their queries will be answered. This is now considered to be an important KPI for social media management. Brands like Careem and KE have added to their credibility by actively responding to messages.

Social media and the way consumers use the platform will keep evolving at a rapid pace. Media experts need to be ahead of the curve and leverage new trends to their maximum potential. 

Urooj Hussain is Associate Director Digital, Brainchild Communications. urooj.hussain@starcompakistan.com

First published in THE DAWN OF ADVERTISING IN PAKISTAN (1947-2017), a Special Report published by DAWN on March 31, 2018.

OOH advertising is one of the oldest mediums, globally, as well as in Pakistan. In Pakistan, we can divide its evolution into three eras: hand-painted signage (1947-1990), large format spectaculars (1990-2010) and outdoor to out of home (2010-present).

Hand-painted signage

(1947-1990)
Lahore’s film industry contributed immensely to the development of hand-painted boards – and some of us may still remember the large format Maula Jatt (Sultan Rahi) and Anjuman portraits painted on cinema façades and their impact in drawing in the crowds.

Initially, only a limited number of brands leveraged the medium. Hand-painted boards were found at railway stations promoting electric fans, beauty creams, tobacco and tea. From the seventies onwards, there was a spurt in the usage of the medium.

Lahore owes a lot to the outdoor industry, given that the city’s horticulture landscape was mainly funded by taxes collected from the outdoor media.

Large format spectaculars

(1990-2010)
OOH was given a boost with the advent of large format spectaculars and digital printing in the nineties; companies such as Coca-Cola, Nestlé, Pakistan Tobacco Company and Unilever were among the first to invest in these new formats that provided both scale and impact.

All the top brands soon followed suit. Along with this, came a shift in pricing. The earlier hand-painted boards cost only a few thousand rupees annually; now prices went into hundreds of thousands per month. Despite this, huge structures started proliferating across the major three cities and city municipal authorities started to impose taxes on them, which were then used to develop the city landscape.

In this respect, Lahore owes a lot to the outdoor industry, given that the city’s horticulture landscape was mainly funded by taxes collected from the outdoor media. So aggressively did the authorities collect funds in exchange for permission to erect billboards that an unprecedented number of structures went up between 2000 and 2010, especially in Lahore. Inevitably, clutter began to compromise the effectiveness of the medium and in 2008, the Punjab Government took measures to rationalise the installation of outdoor structures.

All billboards in Lahore were removed by the Parks and Horticulture Authority (PHA) and bylaws were enacted to prevent their installation. This was a blessing in disguise as the reduction in the clutter enhanced the effectiveness of the medium, and brands started reassessing OOH with renewed interest, leading to a demand for further innovation, such as backlit billboards and large cut-outs.

With new options coming on stream, the need for specialised planning and execution agencies arose and the concept of outdoor media agencies (OMA) started taking hold – pioneered by Unilever with the appointment of Adservice, and Nestlé with the appointment of Adkings.

This is a paradigm shift, given that not until too long ago, OOH was viewed as a support medium and has now moved to the centre of the overall media planning effort.

Outdoor to OOH

(2010-present)
Until 2010, outdoor was considered to be a support medium to TV and print. The artworks were a basic adaptation of print ads, with little thought going into the effectiveness of the communication.

Then, another major shift took place when international specialist agency brands, such as Kinetic, entered the picture and outdoors started evolving into OOH. This included the activation of new touch-points in the OOH space within retail spaces and on-ground.

Clients started focusing on rationalising their OOH media planning in terms of target audience, with increasing focus on the quality of the execution. Monitoring and tracking (once a huge transparency challenge) became a standard service offered by all OMAs.

Consumers are spending 70% of their waking life out of home and finding their entertainment on the go. Another benefit of OOH for advertisers is that it cannot be turned off, blocked or skipped and unlike TV and online advertising, it cannot be so easily avoided.

Today, tools are available to evaluate campaign coverage, assess creative impact, select sites according to specific target audiences and monitor and track results. In 2015, the Pakistan Advertisers Society (PAS) appointed Measuring OOH Visibility and Exposure (MOVE) to conduct OOH measurement and despite the slow traction it has received, this development did provide a number of criteria (reach, frequency, Gross Rating Points [GRPs] and Cost Per Rating Point [CPRP]) for the selection of OOH, based on the target audiences of each brand (rather than selecting the sites most likely to be seen by the brand manager and the marketing directors).

Today, with more capability and professionalism coming into OOH, brands are engaging OMA’s at the strategic level. This is a paradigm shift, given that not until too long ago, OOH was viewed as a support medium and has now moved to the centre of the overall media planning effort.

We will remember 2017 as the year OOH started going digital in Pakistan and digital, once introduced, expands rapidly.

The factors contributing to this development are changing consumer behaviour patterns (not least the fact that they are spending more time out of home). There was a time, when during the airing of popular TV dramas, the roads would be relatively empty with people glued to their TV sets. Today, there is no TV show that audiences need to stay at home to watch live; they can watch it on their smartphones or watch the repeat the following day.

In fact, consumers are spending 70% of their waking life out of home and finding their entertainment on the go. Another benefit of OOH for advertisers is that it cannot be turned off, blocked or skipped and unlike TV and online advertising, it cannot be so easily avoided. OOH and mobile are becoming increasingly interlinked and more and more brands are leveraging both media.

We will remember 2017 as the year OOH started going digital in Pakistan and digital, once introduced, expands rapidly. In the UK, digital inventories increased from 6,181 to 17,356 (almost 300% increase) in two years between 2014 and 2016 and is expected to cross 50,000 units in 2021 (source: Outsmart / Kinetic).

In Pakistan’s case, the important factor will be how effectively all stakeholders leverage digital in terms of creative execution, effectiveness and placement.  

Article excerpted from ‘From support medium to starring role’, published in the November-December 2017 edition of Aurora.

Ahsan Sheikh is CEO, Kinetic Pakistan.

First published in THE DAWN OF ADVERTISING IN PAKISTAN (1947-2017), a Special Report published by DAWN on March 31, 2018.

As we enter 2018, consensus has largely been reached that digital in its many evolving forms, is the future of publishing. One individual stubbornly continues to disagree though – the accountant. Her lament is built on a point that should have everyone concerned; publishing on the internet is nowhere close to generating the kind of revenue seen in print, and compared to TV, it is a mere blip.

Print ad revenue increased by 11% compared to last year and digital increased by 22%. Even if digital were to continue growing at this rate, it would be years before it would earn half as much as print.

Unfortunately, even card-carrying digital advocates such as myself cannot call this a short-term problem that will resolve itself as digital continues to grow. There are many challenges, some of which will take years to overcome, and some that may never be resolved. Disclosure: in my role as Chief Digital Strategist at Dawn, I am involved in online marketing/sales and oversee the sponsored content desk.

Earning at scale. Let’s start by taking a look at the numbers drawn from the annual Aurora Fact File. Of total ad spend in FY 2016-17, print accounted for 23% (Rs 20 billion) and digital for six percent (Rs 5.5 billion). Print ad revenue increased by 11% compared to last year and digital increased by 22%. Even if digital were to continue growing at this rate, it would be years before it would earn half as much as print.

It can be argued that in the long-term, digital will catch up and pass print earnings but until such a time, the mantra of digital being able to ‘save’ print is mostly myth. If anything, print revenue will have to shore up digital operations for some time. Facebook, YouTube, Netflix, Snapchat and other giants are now putting all their weight behind video and making a comparison with TV necessary. To keep it brief, total ad spend on TV in FY 2016-17 was Rs 42 billion – digital will simply not be challenging that.

Frenemies. Then there is the Google/Facebook duopoly to contend with. For publishers, both are a blessing, extending reach, engaging audiences old and new, increasing traffic to sites etc. On the earnings front, not so much.

The two companies earn a majority of global spend on digital advertising, to the extent that a recent forecast by GroupM sees the two attracting 84% of all ad spend next year, excluding China. This is almost exactly in line with the Pakistan market, where the combined revenue of Google and Facebook accounted for 83% of total ad spend in FY 2016-17.

There is little chance for publishers to grab a bigger slice of the pie, especially when it comes to banner ads. Inevitably, programmatic advertising (which both Facebook and Google excel in) will negatively impact anyone involved in the business of creating, procuring and running banner ad campaigns, possibly to the point of redundancy. The problem is further exacerbated by the growing trend of users installing ad blockers for banner ads.

SMH B/C #FAIL (Shaking my head because #fail). This brings us to the next great challenge – one that applies to everyone operating in the digital sphere, not just the publishers. To put it bluntly, brands, ad agencies and marketing teams appear to be sailing rudderless, both on the strategic and creative front.

Brands are allocating more and more to digital spend every year and publishers are pumping money into their digital operations, irrespective of the bottom-line.

This has given us banner ads with tiny fonts and over 20 words of text; tired, old press releases labelled ‘sponsored content’; 30-second long online video ads that are copy-pasted TV commercials; absurd tenancy requests for ad space; far more absurd requests for permanent access to a publisher’s real-time analytics; paid content published on the worst possible day of the week because offline deadlines matter more than traction; social media posts that require $2,000 of boosting to secure 200 comments because that is the KPI; laughably bad Facebook videos/Insta stories/Snapchat updates posing as content, with the brand integrated with the subtlety of a sledgehammer; requests to run full TVCs on Facebook pages, buying bloggers (and journalists) to shamelessly plug products/services and my personal favourite – paying double to publish a press release because it’s the end of the year and budgets must be spent.

The situation is grim. Brands are allocating more and more to digital spend every year and publishers are pumping money into their digital operations, irrespective of the bottom-line. But if 83% of revenue is going to Facebook/Google and the rest is being put into churning out subpar campaigns that audiences are bored by, blind to or block, there is need for a big rethink.

Some of the above challenges admittedly have no clear solution. Those require acceptance, adaptation and more importantly, inclusion when making decisions. For those problems that can be tackled however, a lot can be done, and done fast.

After all, we are blessed with not having to invent or reinvent anything; global trends, strategies, creative ideas and solutions are just one Google search away. It is only the will to change how we conduct business that appears to be lacking.

Jahanzaib Haque is Chief Digital Strategist and Editor, Dawn.com.

First published in THE DAWN OF ADVERTISING IN PAKISTAN (1947-2017), a Special Report published by DAWN on March 31, 2018.

An Agency of Record (AOR) is commonly defined as an advertising agency authorised by an advertiser to buy advertising space and/or time on its behalf (businessdictionary.com). While this is still relevant from a media buying perspective, the adaptation of this concept in the creative, strategy and execution space may not be so intuitive in a digitally-driven, highly fragmented communications environment.

The relevance of an offering (AOR or any other relationship) depends on what the customer (advertiser) needs. The traditional agency model was a strategic partner relationship with the advertiser to manage their brand communications providing strategic planning, creative idea generation, production, execution and media planning and buying.

The AOR has been a prerogative of multinationals and large national clients. In Pakistan, multinationals adopt brand strategies developed at the global or regional level, with an aligned AOR. Major thematic campaigns are beginning to move in a similar direction, where the trend is towards global and regional creative.

"CMTs are part strategists, part creative directors, part technology leaders and part teachers; they champion greater experimentation and more agile management of that function’s capabilities.”

So the selection of AOR agencies by multinational clients is based on regional or global agency alignment. The local agency affiliate is more execution or tactical focused. It is unlikely that this will change in the near future as multinationals are able to better synchronise and manage cost with globally or regionally aligned AORs.

Very few local advertisers invest in strategic planning and the focus tends to be more on execution. In many cases, large local advertisers appoint AORs, but the selection is often driven by price or triggered by new decision-makers in the marketing department. They also tend to maintain flexibility by keeping a roster of execution agencies.

In Pakistan, similar to the rest of the world, media planning and buying has become a specialised area thanks to the advent of media buying houses. Whether an advertiser selects a full-service agency or a media buying house to plan or buy media, economies of scale support the consolidation of media buying to a single or few entities. Hence the support for AOR in case of media, continues to stand for now.

The likes of Google and Facebook have changed the traditional advertising model. Google has consolidated the majority of website content publishers and Facebook provides a platform for user-generated content to be monetised as media.

However, some media buying houses are offering creative services, particularly in the content area, by partnering with content producers or smaller creative agencies. While they act as a single AOR for the advertiser, they are forward integrating with smaller entities and freelancers.

There are different permutations of AORs when dealing with specialist areas such as mass media versus digital, versus PR, versus activation. The decision is driven by the advertiser’s legacy system, the organisational structure and capabilities, the agency’s offering in the marketplace (full-service versus specialisation) and the cost structures of the industry.

Although in the short term, the AOR model seems to be working in Pakistan with different variations, the debate brewing globally is will the concept of AOR continue as digital’s share of advertising grows? The answer depends on several factors.

Digital savvy advertisers are developing their own online assets that can be managed internally, or by the agency which either comes up with the idea, or is best equipped for it: AOI (Agency of Idea) versus AOR (Agency of Record).

In the good old days, the agency was perceived as the expert on consumer behaviour, a reservoir of creativity and the shrewd negotiator making deals with different media owners on behalf of their clients. A centralised role was important to synergise at least parts of the advertising value chain.

Currently, it seems agencies, at least in developed countries, are going through a midlife crisis experimenting with various business models and flirting with technology companies, while soul-searching to identify who they are. What is causing this?

The likes of Google and Facebook have changed the traditional advertising model. Google has consolidated the majority of website content publishers and Facebook provides a platform for user-generated content to be monetised as media.

The inherent advantages the big technology companies have is their ability to provide the following: centralise negotiations and serve ads through their networks despite the exponential increase in content publishers; seamless content integration through the likes of YouTube or Facebook fan pages; designated representatives to work with large global agencies and advertisers and offer direct advisory services in local markets to better plan their media spends with them; improved customer insights through unprecedented data on users, which they can crunch in real-time and deliver to advertisers and agencies through user-friendly interfaces and predictive capabilities, deploying algorithms to target and engage consumers.

While AORs are common in traditional advertising, they are not necessarily the dominant arrangement in digital. Digital savvy advertisers are developing their own online assets that can be managed internally, or by the agency which either comes up with the idea, or is best equipped for it: AOI (Agency of Idea) versus AOR (Agency of Record).

The global debate on AOR is less likely to impact Pakistan given the dominance of traditional media. However, in an increasingly digital world, global trends are likely to disrupt the local scenario.

The impact of digital is also evident on the advertiser side with ‘The Rise of the Chief Marketing Technologist’ (source: Harvard Business Review, Jul-Aug 2014).

According to the article, “CMTs are part strategists, part creative directors, part technology leaders and part teachers; they champion greater experimentation and more agile management of that function’s capabilities.”

Is the AOR relevant in the fast-paced digital, ideas-driven world? If media planning and buying is being simplified at the tail-end of the communications value chain and a CMT is in place on the advertiser’s front, what services will the agency of the future provide?

Global communications groups are hedging their bets by investing in technology-driven companies with different areas, including data analytics and insight, digital creative agencies, ad serving networks and content platforms, including e-commerce sites.

WPP’s recent investment in AppNexus and Publicis’s interest in Criteo are evidence of their foray into data and technology to provide alternatives to Google and Facebook’s ad serving capabilities.

Which of the bets by the global communications will pan out is the billion dollar question. Whether the ad agency networks will be successful in maintaining AOR status quo in the digital age through its acquisition of technology companies is uncertain.

In the short-term at least, the global debate on AOR is less likely to impact Pakistan given the dominance of traditional media. However, in an increasingly digital world, global trends are likely to disrupt the local scenario.

Article excerpted from ‘Of the record or of the idea?’, published in the November-December 2014 edition of Aurora.

Amin Rammal is Director, Firebolt63, The Brand Crew and APR. amin.rammal@firebolt63.com

First published in THE DAWN OF ADVERTISING IN PAKISTAN (1947-2017), a Special Report published by DAWN on March 31, 2018.

Throughout Pakistan’s tumultuous 70-year history, the advertising sector has undergone significant changes, reflecting changing global consumer patterns as well as the development and evolution of local trends. Indeed, as a developing economy poised at the intersection of South and Central Asia and the Middle East, Pakistan’s changing advertising landscape is a witness and an archive of changing mindsets and practices, as well as of wider socio-economic trends.

Throughout these changes, Pakistan’s oldest advertising medium – Pakistan’s print industry – has continued to maintain its position not only as the source of record for news and analysis, but as a medium of choice for advertisers seeking high-impact and high-visibility solutions.

In addition to changing consumers, Pakistan’s advertising landscape has been transformed by the introduction of new media. From 1947 to date, Pakistan has witnessed the growth of radio stations and outdoor advertising options, in addition to the mushrooming of private TV stations in the last 20 years, as well as the more recent explosion of digital advertising. Indeed, as internet penetration continues to grow, particularly on mobile devices, Pakistani consumers are now irrevocably linked to the wider world.

Throughout these tectonic shifts in the media industry, the ability among audiences to access content relevant to their interests (and increasingly on the go) continues to expand further, facilitating the flow of information and ideas.

Despite the introduction of new media for content delivery, Pakistan’s print media has continued to flourish, with advertisers placing their faith in a medium that will gain them visibility and deliver results. The resilience of print advertising can be attributed to three main factors. The lack of advertisement clutter versus other media, the higher attention and engagement rate of readers and the prestige and permanence attached to advertising in print versus other media.

As print publications focus on providing easy-to-read designs centred on providing readers an engaging reading experience, newspapers and magazines are increasingly limiting the quantum of advertising per page, focusing their efforts on delivering high-quality content and maximising the visibility of insertions.

Indeed, the clutter in advertising in other media further enhances the effectiveness of print advertising – while TV commercials or radio spots may be aired a few times, their impact is limited to those moments during which they are aired. As a result, print emerges as the place of record for advertisers to announce new products or lines, driven by the permanence of a print insertion.

A large part of the resilience of print advertising can also be attributed to the dynamics of print readers compared to radio or TV audiences, because print remains (in a world increasingly focused on multi-tasking) a high-engagement medium, requiring the full attention of readers compared to more passive media. For advertisers, print advertising thus provides an opportunity to reach consumers while they give their undivided attention and focus.

As Pakistani consumers have evolved over the last 70 years, the advertising industry has kept pace, providing brands with new and innovative opportunities to target consumers. Throughout all this, with the introduction and mass availability of TV (initially restricted to a few terrestrial channels but now expanding to a multitude of cable channels) as well as the growth of digital advertising options, Pakistan’s oldest advertising medium continues to flourish.

Leveraging the hallowed relationship between readers and their morning newspaper, print continues to provide advertisers across Pakistan the opportunity to reach out and leave an impact on an engaged and loyal readership. 

Ali Hasan Naqvi is Senior General Manager Marketing, Dawn.

First published in THE DAWN OF ADVERTISING IN PAKISTAN (1947-2017), a Special Report published by DAWN on March 31, 2018.

CEOs Must Perform An Integral Role In Approving Media Selection
Informed media choice is made on the basis of the media that has the reach and audience profile that corresponds to the brand’s target market. Such choice is made on the basis of a medium’s effectiveness to deliver on the brand’s communication objectives. Instead, such choices are informed by what translates into the self motivated perceptions of a brand manager or marketing director who may insist on selecting certain media based on the fact that the tariffs of such media make ample provision for kickbacks to be paid directly to them or to be funnelled through an advertising agency. The outcome: the brand is advertised on the wrong media, resulting in a virtual disconnect between the brand message and target audience.

CEOs Must Play An Integral Part In Selecting The Right Creative Agency
The selection of a creative agency depends on an agency’s track record of working with brands as strategic partners. Before appointing an agency, CEOs need to ensure that the agency possesses the required understanding of the business challenges and competitive environment posed to their brand.

Unfortunately, selection is too often based on a personal pecuniary advantage to a brand manager or to a marketing director who will intervene in selecting an agency on the basis of noncompetitive criteria. Thus, creative output from an agency is thrown to the dogs, and the kickback is born.

This unofficially negotiated retainer fee and kickback commissions are often translated into highly inflated TVC production costs and freebies in the form of excessive travel and entertainment to crucial decision makers in the firm’s marketing and sales structure.

The fallout for the brand is that successful agencies have no motivation whatsoever to do any real work on growing the brand on the basis of creative excellence and consumer top-of-mind recall. The advertiser ends up paying the unnecessary cost and the process of an even media selection readily suffers.

Lux uses star appeal to drive the brand message. Over the last 40 to 50 years, top actresses, in Pakistan and across Asia, have endorsed Lux. An important reason for choosing film stars is the mass appeal they draw among audiences. Only in recent years has Lux included women in its advertising who do not belong to the TV or film industry.

From a category perspective, Lux has been the market leader. In the early years, the focus was on driving usership (in those days, consumers did not use soap regularly). If you look at the earlier advertising, it almost seems as if they are trying to justify the use of soap; it is not about switching. Later, the communication moved away from the awareness aspect and the emphasis goes on making Lux the top choice. From the task of category creation and encouraging women to use soap, the brand takes on an aspirational positioning to ensure brand loyalty.

Coloured soaps were introduced about 15 years ago; before that, they came in white only. Typically, once a category becomes larger, the need to differentiate arises and this is often done through colours. As the market leader, Lux has the responsibility of driving category upgrades and for the last two years, we have been working on converting consumers to liquid soap.

Our media mix is driven by what our consumers choose. Earlier, print was the only medium; this was followed by cinema, then TV and in between radio and OOH. Now, over the last four to five years, digital has overtaken all other media except TV. Our priority in terms of share of ad spend is TV, followed by digital, OOH and finally print – the latter only for the Lux Style Awards.

Raheel Pasha Khan is Marketing Director, Personal Care, Unilever.

First published in THE DAWN OF ADVERTISING IN PAKISTAN (1947-2017), a Special Report published by DAWN on March 31, 2018.

Every Pakistani child has gone through the drill, but have you ever wondered, how did we go from merely buffing our shoes with a cloth to using shoe polish? Cherry Blossom had a lot to do with the transition.

In the early sixties, Cherry Blossom was one of the most aggressive and engaging advertisers across mediums. The print ads showed a man who caught everyone’s attention by his polished look, obviously a result of his impeccably polished shoes. Taglines such as: ‘Of course he uses Cherry Blossom Boot Polish’, drove the message home. Targeting the right audience with the right message is another aspect to success. An advertisement a few decades later showed a young girl whose shoes not only shined throughout the day, they also benefitted from longer life. Here, Cherry Blossom draws on a mother’s love for her child, with a clear message: Cherry understands the activities a child does during the day and is there to help mom keep her child’s shoes shiny; it also protects the shoes.

Having established the brand promise of shiny shoes, Cherry Blossom then focused on the ancillary but important set of benefits it provides. Subsequent campaigns focused on the top reasons to use Cherry Blossom.

Through campaign evolution, Cherry Blossom established its equity. Cherry Blossom then shifted the focus to achieving maximum reach and in-store execution. Moving forward, Cherry Blossom will yet again need to reinvent itself to remain relevant. This is how it has remained successful for over five decades.

Marketing is about deciding which combination of tools is going to win over consumers and keep them riveted to the brand promise. Cherry Blossom remains focused on predicting the evolving needs of the consumer and then tailoring its strategy accordingly.

Itrah Sohail is a management trainee at Reckitt Benckiser Pakistan.

First published in THE DAWN OF ADVERTISING IN PAKISTAN (1947-2017), a Special Report published by DAWN on March 31, 2018.

Initially, we advertised on radio and print, because the majority of our policy holders did not own a TV set then. The ‘Ae Khuda Mere Abbu’ campaign was developed in the 1980s, and showed a father-and-daughter situation; the emotional appeal of the little girl praying for her father’s life won people over and the TVC became an iconic ad.

We did a remake of the TVC in the 2000s, which showed the girl as a grown up, but it didn’t do well, because times had changed and so had the target market. Earlier, a father was the sole breadwinner; today, almost everyone in the family earns. Furthermore, earlier, the perception was that life insurance is only of benefit after death, whereas today people can use the money they have invested over 20 years time. This was the idea we tried to communicate in our Eid TVC.

Earlier, it was about a father who had to stay alive, now it is about a wise father who has invested in insurance for his children’s future. The branding of life insurance products has changed.

We have reduced our advertising on radio; our ad spend is equally divided between TV, print and digital.

Razia Dossa is Manager Corporate Communications, State Life Insurance Corporation Pakistan.

First published in THE DAWN OF ADVERTISING IN PAKISTAN (1947-2017), a Special Report published by DAWN on March 31, 2018.

Rooh Afza’s recent ‘Zindagi Mubarak’ campaign by Hamdard Pakistan showcases the unconditional love of a father for his daughter when he sends her Rooh Afza as a gift, so that she does not miss the fragrance and flavour of home. This TVC devised by RG Blue Communications took audiences by storm, and the Mubarak platform was extended to Ramzan Mubarak, Dosti Mubarak and Sardi Mubarak; engaging the daily relationships of life.

Everything began in 1906, when a red syrup was introduced by a small matab in India. After Partition, this refreshing syrup was launched in Pakistan by Hamdard. The advertising campaigns of the first two decades were based on functionality, taste, colour and being the drink of the East.

The brand was promoted with captions such as ‘Splendour of the East’ and ‘Knowledge and Wisdom’ (due to its rich history). In the early eighties, Rooh Afza positioned itself as a pioneer, with the caption ‘Every New Syrup Is Red but Every Red Syrup Is Not Rooh Afza’. In this way, Rooh Afza became the pioneer of the red syrup category in Pakistan and paved the way for many other ‘me too’ products.

Given changes in consumer behaviour and new trends in the beverage industry, Hamdard made the transition from a glass to a PET Bottle. Inspired by this success, the media was bombarded by functionality based advertising by our competitors and the younger generation slowly started drifting away from the pioneer brand. When Usama Qureshi took over as CEO of Hamdard, he felt there was a need for a stronger brand connect with young people and decided on a total revamp of the brand.

The challenge was to position Rooh Afza as a family brand that can be consumed all year round. This approach has resonated with consumers, one reason being the honest, yet heartfelt, storytelling approach. As a result, the perception of Rooh Afza as only a Ramzan or a summer drink has changed and Rooh Afza is now seen as a family brand and a drink for all seasons and occasions.

Syed Qasim Raza is a content writer at RG Blue Communications.

First published in THE DAWN OF ADVERTISING IN PAKISTAN (1947-2017), a Special Report published by DAWN on March 31, 2018.

As consumers of brands, we have come a long way in the last 30 to 40 odd years. Gone are the days when we accepted advertising at its word, didn’t read brand labels and assumed that big (and small) businesses always functioned in moral and ethical ways. We now live in the age of the ‘better informed, more sceptical and less likely to take bullshit from brands’ consumer. And just how did we get here? In a word: technology.

Before the advent of the internet and social media in particular, access to unbiased opinions from consumers wasn’t nearly as easy, despite living in an increasingly globalised world. News travelled slowly, people had less access to information and most importantly, only a handful of people – be it politicians, lobbyists, journalists or brand managers – controlled (and often censored) the narrative that was fed to the public.

“Millennials want to work for ethical companies, patronise brands that make them feel good and invest in socially responsible companies."

Until the fifties, phrases like ‘doctors recommend’ were commonplace in tobacco advertising and even as late as the eighties and nineties, smoking was considered cool remember, ‘Come For The Style, You’ll Stay For The Taste’ type ads; the unethical practices of companies like Monsanto, among others, were hidden from the public eye and consumers put their confidence in advertising that sounded good but lacked authenticity (Dove, I’m looking at you).

Fast forward to the present, where my favourite columnist, Nicholas Kristof, in a recent article wrote: “Millennials want to work for ethical companies, patronise brands that make them feel good and invest in socially responsible companies... doing good is no longer a matter of writing a few checks [cheques] at the end of the year, as it was for my generation; for many young people, it’s an ethos that governs where they work, shop and invest.” (New York Times, January 24, 2018)

Driven by an unprecedented access to information and opinion, younger consumers ‘care’ about who stitches the clothes they wear (big fashion with third world sweatshops beware), who makes the movies they watch (no more Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby please) and whether their food is safe and healthy (think crackdowns on MSG, hormone and antibiotic pumped dairy).

But while this concern can occasionally – although not always – be shallow in that it doesn’t always translate into action (some of us still shop at Zara right?), what is unwavering is the trust that consumers place in the words and opinions of others, over that of brand messaging. To put it another way, unbiased peer reviews trump advertising… Every Single Time.

Although price and quality remain important, the brand’s ethos, the ethics of the company’s executives and most importantly, what other consumers think about the brand, are paramount to the expression of value.

While brands have accepted consumers’ rights and ability to express their opinion freely in a socially connected space, what has been harder to stomach is the fact that the consumer decision journey has changed almost entirely. People have always sought to gain value from their purchases and that remains the only constant.

What people perceive to be of value and how they obtain it, looks very different from what it did a decade ago. Although price and quality remain important, the brand’s ethos, the ethics of the company’s executives and most importantly, what other consumers think about the brand, are paramount to the expression of value.

What is interesting, and disconcerting, is that sometimes a brand that doesn’t necessarily have the best in class product or even offer the best value, can become a hero, based on how it is perceived and portrayed by ‘influential’ consumers.

This is the dark underbelly of the new consumer revolution, one in which consumers, because of their sheer reach and influence, have the power to destroy brands, and will sometimes use this influence maliciously while at other times, they may ‘sell’ themselves out to brands that seek to harm the competition.

Consumers have become incredibly particular about what they eat, what goes into their food, and under what conditions it is manufactured.

Still, it is fair to say that more brands use consumer influence in positive rather than negative ways and converting social media influencers into brand advocates has proven to be a very effective strategy.

These brand advocates, as evidenced by hundreds of full disclosure statements on blogs and Facebook groups, are generally very concerned about transparency because they know that it is easier to lose followers over dishonest reviews than it is to gain them.

While there are many international examples to speak of, in the Pakistani sphere, there are two areas in particular where this strategy has worked exceptionally well for brands. The first is food (the industry in which I currently work) where influencer recommendation and/or criticism can pretty much make or break a business.

Facebook groups like Soul Sisters Pakistan, Soul Bitches and a plethora of others have followers in the thousands and the word of the handful of women leading the group is considered gospel.

Consumers have become incredibly particular about what they eat, what goes into their food, and under what conditions it is manufactured. Going further up in the Maslowian order, ‘new’ and ‘exciting’ product offerings are embraced with great enthusiasm and the influencer who is able to cover the most launches and offer the best reviews, is most likely to have the greatest following. And it is natural that where consumers go, brands will follow.

Another area of growth in the realm of influencer marketing is women’s products and by this I mean fashion items, makeup, baby paraphernalia, books and anything else that a woman is likely to buy. Now this is pretty much the Holy Grail for Pakistani marketers because every product, with very few exceptions, is targeted towards the ‘housewife’.

Facebook groups like Soul Sisters Pakistan, Soul Bitches and a plethora of others have followers in the thousands and the word of the handful of women leading the group is considered gospel. As always, it is a time of challenge and opportunity for brands, but more pertinently, it is an incredibly exciting time to be a consumer of brands.

Marylou Andrew is Head of Product Excellence, Hobnob. marylouandrew@gmail.com

First published in THE DAWN OF ADVERTISING IN PAKISTAN (1947-2017), a Special Report published by DAWN on March 31, 2018.

Dettol is a trusted household name in Pakistan, thanks to a long history of providing germ protection to consumers. Originally launched as an antiseptic, the brand has evolved while remaining true to its core essence. Up until the late nineties, Dettol was primarily a pharma brand; Dettol soap accounted for about two percent of the market share in the category, while Antiseptic Liquid (ASL) became a part of the first-aid box in the majority of Pakistani households and institutions.

In the early 2000s, the brand launched a range of soap variants, based on consumer needs. These included new variants in the Freshness and Skin Care platforms. In the last two decades, Pakistan has become one of the biggest anti-bacterial soap markets in the world in terms of market share, with three major global players competing in the segment. In such a highly contested category, Dettol has grown steadily and according to Nielsen, holds a double-digit market share in urban Pakistan.

In the last 10 years, the brand has extended into Multi-Surface Cleaners, Hand Sanitisers and Cleansing Wipes, providing consumers access to germ-protection solutions across multiple categories. Today, Dettol is playing an active role in creating awareness about better hygiene practices. Dettol’s School Programme reaches 2.5 million children nationally, who are taught hand-hygiene practices through edutainment and live demos.

Given the lack of antenatal education in Pakistan, Dettol has recently started an Antenatal Programme based on international guidelines and offers free antenatal classes to women in their third trimester around four key modules that cover topics such as pregnancy, labour, post-pregnancy and baby care. The aim now is to make it bigger year-on-year as we join hands with more hospitals.

Salman Taufiq is Marketing Manager, Germ Protection & Personal Care, Reckitt Benckiser Pakistan.

First published in THE DAWN OF ADVERTISING IN PAKISTAN (1947-2017), a Special Report published by DAWN on March 31, 2018.

HBL was the first commercial bank to be established for the Muslims of the subcontinent in 1941. As the bank evolved with the nation, so did the brand and its communication. At the time of its inception and soon independence, HBL’s communication focused on introducing the benefits of banking to the public. The communication was aimed at promoting its product suite in line with the economic needs of the time.

The idea behind building the brand was introduced in the 1970s when HBL Plaza was built as the tallest building in Pakistan and in South Asia. The Plaza was inaugurated to mark the 25th anniversary of the bank and was advertised to enhance brand equity and establish Habib Bank as the industry leader.

When the bank was acquired by the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development in 2004, a conscious effort was made to differentiate the brand and lead from the front. The brand name was changed from Habib Bank to HBL. Investment behind building brand equity became the priority. The phrase ‘Jahan Khwab, Wahan HBL’ was coined to reflect the brand promise of enabling dreams. Over the last 10 years, HBL launched a series of corporate campaigns, which helped it gain the highest brand equity score in the industry, and made it a household name in Pakistan. HBL has positioned itself as an organisation that aims to better the lives of its customers. HBL’s communication delivers a message of financial inclusion and enabling dreams. In 2015, HBL launched a campaign featuring Samina Baig, Pakistan’s first woman to climb Everest and seven of the world’s highest peaks. Its subsequent corporate campaign featured Rosheen Khan, a woman who pushed the limits to achieve her dream of becoming Pakistan’s first female scuba diving instructor.

As a bank that has always been linked to the history of Pakistan, HBL partnered with Dawn to launch a campaign celebrating the dreamers of Pakistan and commemorate the 70th anniversary of the country. The ‘Ek Khwab Kay Naam’ print campaign pays tribute to our nation by identifying all those dreamers who have made Pakistan a thriving country.

Naveed Ashgar is Chief Marketing Officer, HBL.

First published in THE DAWN OF ADVERTISING IN PAKISTAN (1947-2017), a Special Report published by DAWN on March 31, 2018.

There was a time when every neighbourhood had its kiryana store. Families had fixed monthly grocery lists that were handed over to the shopkeeper, who would put all the items together, bag them and hand over a chit with the billed amount scribbled on it. Apart from the haggling (it was expected), the next customer decision was whether to pay in cash or put the amount on a monthly tab and whether or not to have the groceries delivered.

Product choices were limited and the purpose of the ‘shopping’ was to ensure enough rice, flour, sugar, salt, cooking oil, banaspati ghee, masalas and spices to last the month.

In those days, Naheed and Imtiaz in Bahadurabad and Agha’s, Motta’s and Paradise in Clifton, were among the few retail outlets where customers had the luxury to browse shelves stocked with limited varieties of imported brands and/or local packaged goods. Other than those, shopping excursions were limited to Juma bazaars or visits to Laloo Khait (now Liaquatabad), Empress Market or Jodia Bazaar – the wholesale hubs of Karachi.

It was only in the noughties, when due to increased exposure, Pakistani consumers became more aware of what was happening internationally and a significant shift in lifestyles and buying patterns started taking place.

Although still at a nascent stage, internet retail is expected to become a significant complement to brick-and-mortar grocery and non-grocery retailing in the coming years.

Varied product assortments, greater convenience and accessibility, better merchandising, improved service and an enhanced store experience became the new retail rules. Quick to recognise this shift, local retailers began to invest in improving store layouts and their product mix.

There was renewed focus on customer service, rather than relying on price competitiveness. As a result, this growing retail potential put Pakistan on the radar of global retailers.

A new dynamic

According to a study conducted by Standard Chartered Bank last year, between 2011 and 2015, the size of the retail pie in Pakistan jumped from $96 to $133 billion, a 38.5% increase. The current value of Pakistan’s retail sector is estimated at $152 billion, as per Planet Retail (a global retail consultancy). It is the third largest contributor to the economy (after agriculture and industry), accounts for 18% of the total GDP and is the second largest employer (after agriculture) providing jobs to more than 16% of the total labour force. (NB: As most of retail in Pakistan is unorganised, therefore undocumented, industry analysts agree that the on-ground figures are much higher).

Dolmen Group’s prior experience had taught them that the only way to convince the big names to come onboard as tenants was to ensure customer traffic.

With an annual growth of eight percent, retail sales are expected to cross the $200 million mark by the end of 2018. The main factor fuelling this, apart from increasing urbanisation, is an improving employment-to-population ratio which has led to higher disposable incomes, thereby expanding the middle class and increasing consumer spending manifold (estimated at $293 million in 2017 and projected to cross $333 million by 2018). The other trend disrupting traditional retail is e-commerce. Although still at a nascent stage, internet retail is expected to become a significant complement to brick-and-mortar grocery and non-grocery retailing in the coming years.

The morphing of ‘mall’ culture

Dolmen Centre in Tariq Road (established in the nineties), was the first vertical shopping complex in Pakistan built on a multiple floor layout. Before that the concept of indoor air-conditioned shopping areas was alien in Pakistan. If people wanted branded products, Zainab Market or Panorama and Rex Centres were the go-to places. However, the mall did not turn out the way it had been envisioned. There were not enough local brands because many did not want to assume the high rents Dolmen Centre demanded. It was almost a decade later that Pakistan had its first shopping mall, when Park Towers opened in Karachi.

The mall morphed into a social venue, where people went to enjoy the amenities rather than to buy. The opening of Dolmen Mall Tariq Road in 2002 proved to be a game changer. Dolmen Group’s prior experience had taught them that the only way to convince the big names to come onboard as tenants was to ensure customer traffic. The two strategic decisions that paid off were the establishment of Sindbad’s Wonderland and a food court. Positioned as a family recreational spot, the mall began to bustle with activity convincing retailers to invest in space. Over the next 15 years, a number of malls were established (mostly in Karachi), redefining the shopping experience. The entry of Hyperstar in 2012 (operated by the Carrefour retail chain) as an anchor tenant at Dolmen Mall Clifton was another game changer.

Hyperstar became a retail success, prompting other mall operators to adopt the idea of having anchor tenants. North Pakistan is now at the forefront of the retail race and several multipurpose malls are under construction in Bahawalpur, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Islamabad, Lahore, Multan and Rawalpindi.

“One thing that will not change is that people will continue to shop; what will change is what, where and how they shop. For retailers who are able to read the market pulse and predict future buying trends, the sky is the limit.”

A facelift for grocery shopping

This shift in consumer shopping preferences, from a ‘product-price focus’ to an ‘assortment-experience’ focus, did not go unnoticed by local grocery retailers, such as Naheed and Imtiaz supermarkets, which underwent a 360-degree remodelling and transformation after 2008, by adopting a multi-level department store format.

Both supermarkets began as small kiryana shops in Bahadurabad. While Imtiaz’s strength remained budget grocery offerings, such as flour and masalas, Naheed differentiated itself by introducing imported brands.

Naheed expanded its footprint from the original 1,100 square feet of retail space to a 32,000 square feet, four-level departmental setup. Imtiaz followed and established outlets in DHA, Gulshan-e-Iqbal and Nazimabad, three of the most densely populated neighbourhoods in Karachi.

A roadmap for retail

Macroeconomic indicators point to a sustained boom in Pakistan’s retail industry and modern grocery retail market represents a key area of expansion. Increased competition is likely to further boost the sector and the entry of foreign players will force local retail giants to rethink, revamp and remodel their businesses. A second area of opportunity is projected to be in the ‘mall culture’, particularly in the northern part of the country, as well as in second-tier cities where there is a demand-supply gap. A policy initiative increasingly asked for by the stakeholders is the establishment of a national retail association that can represent the sector’s interests, negotiate with the government over tax reform and introduce consumer protection laws. Abbasi sums up the future of retail in Pakistan: “One thing that will not change is that people will continue to shop; what will change is what, where and how they shop. For retailers who are able to read the market pulse and predict future buying trends, the sky is the limit.”

Article excerpted from ‘Retail revs up’, published in the May-June 2017 edition of Aurora. Ayesha Shaikh is a leading advertising and communications expert at Aurora. aurora@dawn.com

First published in THE DAWN OF ADVERTISING IN PAKISTAN (1947-2017), a Special Report published by DAWN on March 31, 2018.

It was the mid-eighties in Riyadh. Most kids my age were out playing cricket, but I was busy hacking into a computer game called King’s Quest by Sierra. The official versions of computer games were not available in Saudi Arabia; consequently, the usual hints and support were always missing. If you got stuck, you either waited until you, or someone else, figured the way out.

I chose to hack into the code. With that came the need to transfer a large amount of data between friends and in 1990, I brought home a bulky odd-looking device, called a modem, that would connect my landline telephone headset to the PC. Boom! Just like that, this one, unassuming device ushered all of us into the online digital age. Although I was only a young kid having fun, it hit me how powerful this could be. I had no doubt it was the future. Yahoo came along in 1994, ushering in the internet for people like you and I.

However, in Pakistan, the internet was mostly a space to experiment in and have fun, and I did not use the internet in a professional capacity until 1996, when I tried to share account management data between the Lahore and Karachi offices of Interflow. Even by 1998, when Google was born, only two other agencies were using digital as a means to communicate. As a natural progression, IT departments at the client end volunteered to develop websites for their companies and as they were techies, they did the most obvious thing... they looked for technology vendors.

Although the first digital agencies had started popping up in early 2000s, it was not until 10 years later that they began receiving serious business propositions.

As a consequence, Pakistan’s first digital companies were born from small departments, developing websites within larger software development companies. From thereon, until as late as 2006, two years after the entry of Facebook and a year after YouTube came into existence, it never occurred to anyone how user-unfriendly these websites were. They were fully functional, but they lacked aesthetics and did not even attempt to make the user experience easy. The flaw was that technology people are very good with coding but useless at design and communication.

In 2008, the multinational companies began to wake up to the opportunity and did the smart thing – they asked their advertising agencies to develop their websites or at the least, design them so that the software houses could build a better user experience.

Even as late as 2015, 26 years after the birth of the World Wide Web, most clients still thought a digital presence meant only having lots of ‘likes’ on Facebook posts.

Oddly, most agency owners failed to spot the opportunity this presented. However, along the way, something happened independently that forced the advertising agencies to look at digital as a viable source of revenue. Between 2000 and 2010, agency revenues had started to shrink. Revenues from print jobs had gone as clients preferred to work directly with the printing presses. Then came the media buying houses and the agencies lost their commission revenue on media. Finally, as more and more film directors started to work directly with clients, TVC production also went, resulting in the closure of in-agency AV departments.

Desperate, the agency owners looked for anything that seemed like an opportunity and the fact that the software houses were so bad creatively, was a good way to generate some revenue. Of course, in typical Pakistani agency tradition, they did it in the most unprofessional way. Interns, fresh out of college, were hired to handle their clients’ digital requirements. By 2010, blue-chip companies began to take an interest in social media.

Although the first digital agencies had started popping up in early 2000s, it was not until 10 years later that they began receiving serious business propositions. Along the way, clients experienced many frustrating moments, not least because if the software houses lacked creativity, the agencies lacked technological know-how in equal measure.

While during the late nineties and early 2000s, agencies spent much of their time trying to catch up with their clients’ digital requirements, today, the clients are the ones who need to catch up with global trends.

It has been a long journey. However, today, the frustration has shifted from the client end to the digital agency end, which, to their credit, eventually managed to evolve at a breathtaking speed. It was the clients that were lagging behind.

Even as late as 2015, 26 years after the birth of the World Wide Web, most clients still thought a digital presence meant only having lots of ‘likes’ on Facebook posts; quite astonishing, considering that the version of the software I am using to write this article will be outdated in less than six months. So imagine the frustration digital agencies experience when their clients are still living in 2006.

So, while during the late nineties and early 2000s, agencies spent much of their time trying to catch up with their clients’ digital requirements, today, the clients are the ones who need to catch up with global trends. And they must do so quickly. There was a time when each country could conceivably choose to adopt technology at their own pace; today, this is no longer practical, simply because the speed in the evolution of technology does not permit this any longer. What is required is the rapid synchronisation in the digital capabilities of the digital agencies and of their clients in Pakistan.

Syed Amir Haleem is CEO, KueBall Digital. syedamirhaleem@kueball.com

First published in THE DAWN OF ADVERTISING IN PAKISTAN (1947-2017), a Special Report published by DAWN on March 31, 2018.

Within 20 years of Independence, economists were eyeing Pakistan as one of the fastest emerging economies; countries like South Korea were studying its model to replicate it. It was in this time of prosperity that Pakistan’s first market research company began operations.

Their first office was a humble setup on Tariq Road in Karachi in 1966. The proprietor of this innovative enterprise was Mahmoodul Hasan, a young graduate of the Institute of Business Administration (IBA). His tenet for the business was that there could be no compromise on the quality of data because clients would be making strategic business decisions based on this information.

Clients expected their market research companies to have ‘marketing’ sense and this created the need for a new a mindset, whereby numbers were interpreted to generate insights.

The company thus ensured that the data collectors were well-trained, but it was also important to guarantee that the sample selection was scientifically done and representative of the universe under study and that the questionnaires were designed in a way to make sure they asked the right questions to get the right answers. The people attracted to this field were comfortable with numbers and with inferring learnings by deploying statistical and mathematical tools. The pioneers were graduates from Ivy League universities, such as Dr Ijaz Shafi Gilani and Dr Javed Ghani.

Initially, clients were multinational companies,familiar with market research. In fact, companies like Unilever used to have a market research department as big as any research agency. This was the case up into the nineties, when Unilever, along with other multinationals moved away from this model and outsourced to specialist agencies.

This development led to the growth of the market research industry. Many local advertising agencies opened their doors and the industry saw a boom. It was around this time when mainframe computers were introduced, a development that saw a change in client expectations, as they then began to demand faster turnaround times and reports that would give them learnings rather than outputs.

Market research practitioners need to be comfortable with numbers, but they also need the ability to create ideas that can break through the clutter.

In fact, clients expected their market research companies to have ‘marketing’ sense and this created the need for a new a mindset, whereby numbers were interpreted to generate insights. As technology gathered pace and new tools were introduced, clients wanted their research companies to be their partners rather than data providers. They were demanding insights with a clear direction on how to meet their business challenges.

However, market research companies failed to step up to the plate and the emphasis remained on sharing data, with their output lacking focus, as the ‘data miners’ were mining sand rather than sieving for ‘diamonds’ (insights) and stories.

Humans will still be superior because of their ‘right brain’ or ‘emotions’ and will continue to interpret data and offer recommendations to grow brands based on insights and stories.

Market research companies require a paradigm shift. They need to transform themselves into marketing consultants. They need to understand the business, use the right design to test hypothesis and present findings that are relevant to their clients’ needs. Of course, market research practitioners need to be comfortable with numbers, but they also need the ability to create ideas that can break through the clutter. This transition is important in terms of how the future is shaping up.

It is expected that the market researcher’s job will be replaced by technologies and androids due to AI and machine learning. These machines will master what humans are good at by using their ‘left’ or their ‘rational’ brain. However, this does not mean that technology will replace humans. Humans will still be superior because of their ‘right brain’ or ‘emotions’ and will continue to interpret data and offer recommendations to grow brands based on insights and stories. Market researchers will have to become strategists and planners.

Noaman Asar is MD, Kantar Pakistan. noaman.asar@kantar.com

First published in THE DAWN OF ADVERTISING IN PAKISTAN (1947-2017), a Special Report published by DAWN on March 31, 2018.

In ancient times, cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this – wrote the ever quotable Terry Pratchett. This may be true for some older brands as well. In this context, the brand that comes to mind is Tibet, a 40-year-old brand, famous for making Tibet Snow cream; the beauty cream of the east.

Tibet’s earliest ads had the actress Sabiha as brand ambassador. In terms of TV commercials, they featured white Caucasian models on speed boats singing of the joys of using Tibet Soap. Tibet was a household name then and your mom or grandmother may well have used them.

However, like the cats, Tibet has not forgotten its legacy and somehow the brand has become stuck in time. There have been attempts over the past few years to come out with new SKUs, packaging and fragrances and this makes me happy; I am a staunch supporter of all brands Pakistani. The attempts at humour with comedian Danish Ali and the fruity soap, showing a constantly hungry guy, are good and brave attempts by a brand that refuses to forget its legacy. Clearly the brand wants to evolve but is it evolving fast enough? The logo has not, and even with some fantastic storytelling (the freshman ad), the brand feels dated. There are lessons in the constant engaging with new audiences that we see among legacy brands such as Lux, Shell and Levis. Other brands, such as Rooh Afza, have also been victims of the cat mentality and new players like Jam-e-Shirin are surpassing Rooh Afza and Nauras, who are stuck as seasonal Ramzan brands.

Atiya Zaidi is Executive Creative Director, Synergy Dentsu.

First published in THE DAWN OF ADVERTISING IN PAKISTAN (1947-2017), a Special Report published by DAWN on March 31, 2018.

Somewhere along the line, activation practitioners in Pakistan have lost their way. After the gloss of this ‘new and exciting’ marketing medium wore off, brands realised that they had to justify their spend on activation compared to their spend on ATL. This realisation brought into question the infamous ‘cost per contact’ metric that drives the activation landscape today.

Agencies responded by designing marketing activities, optimised to deliver the biggest bang for their buck in terms of cost per contacts. In all this hoopla, we collectively managed to critically wound, if not kill, the ‘experience’ part of experiential marketing. Walk into any decent grocery store today and you will see this in action. In every aisle, there is a brand ambassador waiting to tell you about this and sell you that. In-store sales promotion is the official term of such activations, although ‘physical person-to-person spam’ would be more appropriate. The crème de la crème of activation channels, the mall, also saw a sharp decline in the engagement factor and potential ‘contacts’ had to be lured in with prizes and other incentives.

A powerful example of this was recently executed by Olper’s. Rallying around their campaign concept that memories are made around the dinner table, they surprised couples dining in a restaurant by footing their bill.

Most consumers, including myself, started avoiding activation campaigns like the plague. At the same time, social media took off and by 2014, most brands had become increasingly confident with the medium. They had gathered a sizable number of likes on their pages and needed content. This paved the way for a new addition to the activation brief; the social media angle. Today, almost all clients want a social media element to their activation.

The evolution social+activation campaign

The social and experiential relationship has grown over the years in a number of ways. The first was simple captive integration. The idea is to create an activity that allows people to connect to their social media accounts and post stuff (ideally branded) about the activity and their part in it. The problem with this approach is that it is restrictive, even with the help of customised software that can make the posting process smoother. In simple terms, participation is low because no matter how engaging the content is, it is a chore to post from a system you are not familiar with. For privacy nuts, it is an even bigger source of concern to enter sensitive login details from an untrustworthy location.

With a massive 140 million mobile phone userbase and a strong data liberation movement from our telecommunication operators, conditions are perfect for brands and agencies to move towards better integrated experiential campaigns.

The second phase came with the advent of 3G and 4G technology. Now, people could do more than just check-in from their phones. This independence of social posting became a huge opportunity for the activation industry. The formula for most activations was accordingly adjusted; custodians realised that if the activations were engaging, people would post about them, enabling a ‘multiplier effect’ online. The cost per contact was now being addressed by an online footprint as well, thereby unshackling it from strict activation targets. This helped brands refocus on creating a richer experience, even if it came at a higher cost and paved the way for visually engaging activations that encouraged people to whip out their phones, take a picture and post it.

The third stage came in the form of social-maximised campaigns. This is where an activity is executed on-ground with the sole purpose of acquiring word-of-mouth on social platforms. The idea is a limited experiential marketing campaign that targets only a handful of people on-ground, but is then fed online and spread from influencer to influencer. This sort of experiential marketing is the rage internationally, but has only been exhibited a few times in Pakistan so far. A powerful example of this was recently executed by Olper’s. Rallying around their campaign concept that memories are made around the dinner table, they surprised couples dining in a restaurant by footing their bill.

Video content was created around their surprised expressions of joy, showcasing a range of emotions and even tiny interviews. The video was released on their social media properties. Although the number of contacts for the activity was minimal, the seeding of this on-ground campaign, along with its feel-good factor helped it spread fast and wide online.

"The trust deficit between agencies working on different aspects of the campaign needs to be addressed and multiple partners need to work in tandem, not in silos."

A future with better experiences

As SoLoMo (Social Local Mobile) gains traction throughout the world, Pakistan is still playing catch-up. With a massive 140 million mobile phone userbase and a strong data liberation movement from our telecommunication operators, conditions are perfect for brands and agencies to move towards better integrated experiential campaigns that seamlessly harness the power of social.

An obstacle standing in the way is institutionalised thinking and a strong affection for the status quo. We need to take greater risks and encourage social to be a frontrunner instead of an add-on. The other big hurdle is disconnected campaign planning. The trust deficit between agencies working on different aspects of the campaign needs to be addressed and multiple partners need to work in tandem, not in silos.

The experiential marketing industry must quickly shape up and provide a pivotal and supportive role in this transformation. If we stay silent and limited to doing just ‘our bit’, we will become the ‘necessary nuisance’ that ATL has become and be chucked out in favour of a better online experience. 

Article excerpted from ‘Activation agencies need to come up to speed or be left behind’, published in the July-August 2015 edition of Aurora.

Umair Kazi is Partner, Ishtehari. umair@ishtehari.com

First published in THE DAWN OF ADVERTISING IN PAKISTAN (1947-2017), a Special Report published by DAWN on March 31, 2018.

Jahan Mamta...Wahan Dalda. Words: four. Impact: resounding!

A truly iconic brand, Dalda has found its way into the annals of our food and pop culture history... from cookbooks and cooking shows to hummable and endearing jingles. Yet, always keeping mamta as its essence.

How is it that a brand relevant to my grandmother and mothers’ generations can still be relevant to mine? By understanding the subtleties prevalent within the winds of cultural change... and staying ahead... through insight, technological expertise and innovation.

From our grandmothers to our mothers and to ourselves, food and the cooking of it, plays a central part in expressing our love and in the nurturing of our children, making the cooking medium an important ingredient in any recipe!

This has not changed... what has changed is the context within which these recipes are prepared, lives are lived and motherhood is expressed.

One cannot understand the changing context of maternal love unless one understands the changing context of womanhood. Women have worked hard to break gender stereotypes and evolve their roles to become a force, both within the home and outside it! There has also been an evolutionary change in our food trends as we have grown more aware of what we consume and how we consume it.

Dalda have used their technological expertise and insightful wisdom to embrace this change in the lives of women and in food trends. They have supported it unquestioningly... moving with the change to give them Banaspati, Cooking Oil, Sunflower or Olive Oil.

For Dalda, what is important is that no matter how many roles they balance or how they choose to nourish their families, a mom is a mom and an expert in her own right; one that requires appreciation, honour and respect. Dalda have not just given us innovative products; they have brought to life the essence of mamta, a timeless emotion that knows no bounds...and is indeed the hardest, most challenging and fulfilling job in the world! 

Amber Rauf is Director Strategic Planning and Corporate Communications, MullenLowe Rauf.

First published in THE DAWN OF ADVERTISING IN PAKISTAN (1947-2017), a Special Report published by DAWN on March 31, 2018.

Any discussion about Pakistani banking tends to elicit divergent opinions. This is understandable because for an economy as undocumented as Pakistan’s, accurate numbers are hard to come by, even in an industry as heavily regulated as Pakistani banking. Pakistan is unique in the sense of being one of the few countries that can boast of a number of banks that operate within its geographic boundaries for periods that predate its existence. As the young nation struggled to get off to a promising start, banks formed the core of the services industry and were key employers for the educated members of the workforce, which included a large number of refugees from India.

Pakistani banking grew as did the economic prospects of the country. An increase in multinational interests brought many mercantile banks from abroad, while many major business houses established locally-owned commercial banks.

With the opening of the economy and the entry of foreign brands, banks capitalised on both, secured and unsecured lending with a ballooning portfolio of credit cards, personal loans, auto-financing and even mortgages.

However, this changed with the nationalisation of the major banks in 1974, as part of a larger economic reorientation in the country. While many people tend to remember nationalisation as the nadir of Pakistani banking (which it unfortunately did turn out to be), not many of them remember that it was part of a broader vision to provide banking to a larger segment of the population, as well as improve access to banking services in under-served and rural areas. The fact is that post-privatisation, Pakistani banks had a ready-made critical mass of low-cost deposits across the length and breadth of the country, as well as a branch network that served as an example of market potential, is forgotten.

Come the nineties and the post-martial law governments reoriented the economy to a more outward looking slant. Also, like Pakistani banking, Pakistani consumers changed too. The opening of the economy, along with the rise of satellite TV, the Gulf boom, mobile telephony and the arrival of the internet, significantly changed consumer preferences. Despite the ‘on again, off again’ recessive tendencies of the economy, increased competition among banks forced them to look beyond corporate and high-net-worth customers. This broadening of the target audience brought consumer banking in its true form to the Pakistani market.

The rise of consumer banking fed an almost insatiable urge among Pakistanis for brands in terms of automobiles (including Honda, Toyota and Suzuki), consumer durables and electronic appliances such as Haier, Orient, Pel, Super General and Waves. With the opening of the economy and the entry of foreign brands, banks capitalised on both, secured and unsecured lending with a ballooning portfolio of credit cards, personal loans, auto-financing and even mortgages.

Reporting for Aurora during those exciting times, I met a number of bankers across the three main segments of the industry. These were the large, formerly nationalised banks and subsequently dubbed the ‘Big Five’, multinational banks and locally-owned private banks (which were thriving by catering to middle-class customers). Being part of a marketing publication, my focus would be on optics of growth in the industry as well as the advertising that it produced.

Pakistan’s economy did once again see significant recessive tendencies during the post Musharraf/Great Global Recession period, and with major implications for consumer banking.

Those were exciting times as for the first time, banks opted for high-cost productions, TVCs, cross branding, merchant alliances, brand partnerships and direct-to-consumer campaigns. Product development was in overdrive and products from other Asian economies were replicated at lightning speed, along with a drive for deposits and lending that mimicked a full-scale pricing war. Added to this, much work was undertaken in alternative delivery channels such as internet banking and ATMs (with the launch of two countrywide network switches).

My discussions with consumer bankers during that time had three broad themes: consumer banking was causing the overall growth in sectors such as travel, automobiles, home appliances and consumer electronics; the industry was extremely profitable (by some estimates, among the top five most profitable in the world), but subject to consolidation in the future resulting in fewer, albeit larger players; and although default rates were low (as low as 1.5%), this could change as borrowed assets aged or if the economy experienced another downturn.

Fifteen years and a stint working with two major banks later, I saw all these trends play out in different ways. Pakistan’s economy did once again see significant recessive tendencies during the post Musharraf/Great Global Recession period, and with major implications for consumer banking, particularly in terms of unsecured lending.

With the mainstays of consumer banking again on the uptick, coupled with factors such as a consolidated banking sector with fewer players and the opportunities presented by CPEC, the fundamentals of the Pakistani economy show enough promise to keep banks interested.

When I left Pakistan, the industry seemed to be on the cusp of a major consolidation and the focus had once again shifted to core banking products, particularly low-cost deposits, SME-secured lending and inward remittances. Banks had started parking more money in high-yield government securities.

Added to this, the increasing paid-up capital requirements and other regulatory tightening by the State Bank of Pakistan on marketing, coupled with limited legal recourse against defaulting customers, had made consumer banking outreach fairly limited for most banks.

Five years later, things are starting to change. With the maturing of a lot of those high-yield government securities, along with pressures on traditional banking revenue streams, it seems banks are now flush with cash and are once again willing to look at consumer banking as a way to augment revenue in the face of low discount rates.

With the mainstays of consumer banking (automobiles, electronics, travel and mortgages) again on the uptick, coupled with factors such as a consolidated banking sector with fewer players and the opportunities presented by CPEC, the fundamentals of the Pakistani economy show enough promise to keep banks interested.

One hopes that the best days of the industry still lie ahead.

Tariq Ziad Khan is a marketing professional who has worked with major brands in banking, advertising and the media in Pakistan. He is currently based in the US. tzk999@yahoo.com

First published in THE DAWN OF ADVERTISING IN PAKISTAN (1947-2017), a Special Report published by DAWN on March 31, 2018.

When Pakistan came into being in 1947, ways to identify institutions of a new country needed to be devised. Currency, postage stamps, passports, remembering to say Radio Pakistan rather than All India Radio and government stationery – all required attention.

Trucks used for transport of goods developed stencils for the three main companies. New Muluk (New Country), Sitara-e-Hilal (Crescent and Star) and Taj Mahal. Some tentative painted decoration crept in when Haji Hussain, a palace decorator from Kutch Bujh settled in Karachi. In the economic boom of the sixties, the fortunes of transporters grew as industries in Karachi needed raw materials from all over Pakistan. The pride of the new transporters was mirrored in the emergence of excessive decoration that has become the hallmark of Pakistani trucks. When in 1963, Gohar Ayub acquired the monopoly to exclusively import Bedford trucks, it inadvertently created a standard form for decorative elements that continued for decades until adapted for more modern, long-wheelbase trucks.

Images reflect social and religious values, spiritual longing, personal pride, favourite personalities, humour, nature – beautiful landscapes, fantastic gardens, hunting scenes or animals whose qualities are admired.

Vehicle decoration spawned an industry. The trucks, imported as cab and chassis, are constructed according to the needs of the decorators. The format of the original wooden structures is maintained for newer metal bodies to create continuity of compositional techniques. Seats are decorated, interior ceilings, flashing lights, reflective stickers and of course, spaces designed for poetry. While the transport company underwrites the cost, the motifs are selected by the truck driver, who needs to be encouraged to undertake gruelling journeys on badly-lit and dangerous roads. The decoration industry is also an art school with apprentices learning from ustads.

Access to transport has always been greatly valued. The conquest of distance and time is empowering. In 2005, 250,000 commercial vehicles travelled over 270,000 kilometres of roads in Pakistan, most of which were decorated and whose images, verses and messages were viewed by most of Pakistan’s population. This public sharing of art and personal philosophy is remarkable and, along with wall chalking, performs the role of an elaborate public access newspaper and art gallery.

Images reflect social and religious values, spiritual longing, personal pride, favourite personalities, humour, nature – beautiful landscapes, fantastic gardens, hunting scenes or animals whose qualities are admired (lions, tigers, the poet Iqbal’s falcon or shaheen). The most repeated theme is love and sweet romance, with hearts crossed by arrows, bleeding with unrequited love and veiled beauties staring enigmatically. Politics has gradually entered with images of Benazir, Mir Murtaza, Akbar Bugti, the urials of Balochistan or stickers of kalashnikov wielding Baloch. Little known are the coded stickers placed on the dashboard that indicate on whose payroll a truck is when it is stopped for bribes.

The composition devises reference from Rajasthani miniature painting. However, rather than nostalgia for past glory, one can see it as a subversive acquisition of the lifestyles of the privileged. This is indicated by use of terms like taj (crown), road da badshah (king of the road) and mirror work ceilings reminiscent of palaces. The truck itself is feminine, with parandas and beautiful eyes: “Waqt ney aik bar phir dulhan bana diya” (time has once again made me a bride).

The cypress of Indo-Persian poetry also becomes an image of ‘home’ for many truck drivers who are from mountainous areas of the north.

The images used are symbolic, intended less for sharing a physical observation and more for arousing particular kinds of emotions and aspirations. The saturated colours communicate the intensity of experience. As Horkheimer writes, “authentic culture persuades through its forms rather than commands through its content.” The trucks have a more sophisticated aesthetic than one is immediately aware of. Regional styles have evolved: Peshawar trucks are formally restrained with greater emphasis on the older style of Victorian lettering and cameo images placed two-thirds down the panel. High-bodied Rawalpindi trucks have every available space covered with intricate layering of coloured plastic filigree designs. Karachi trucks, followed by Lahore, still have the most painted imagery. A truck has to be seen at night on unlit highways, with its excess of reflectors and florescent stickers, to be truly appreciated.

Enduring images include the Buraq, a flying white horse with a woman’s face, symbolic of the spiritual journey (Mairaj) of the Prophet Mohammed; anything cherished is shown nestling within a rose, associated with the Holy Prophet. The peacock symbolises heavenly beauty, the parrot, humour and the eagle, ambition; the lion symbolises majesty, the tiger, aggressive power, the flowering plant in a vase or emerging from the mouth of a dead fish – prosperity and spiritual rebirth.

The cypress of Indo-Persian poetry also becomes an image of ‘home’ for many truck drivers who are from mountainous areas of the north. The wrapping of decorated metal over objects or architectural details is an old custom as seen on the doors of the shrine of Shah Latif Bhitai.

The act of decorating the truck is perhaps a parallel to placing a covering of scented red rose petals or brocade cloth on the grave of a Sufi saint in return for his prayers.

The truck is a talisman. The source of livelihood must be honoured for barkat or prosperity. Clues to superstition are all over the decorated truck: the eyes that ward off the evil eye: the manat cloths or religious pledges that hang from the truck body, a child’s shoe hidden in the radiator; poetry that suggests that the owner owes his prosperity only to God or his mother’s prayers. Every truck route is lined with shrines, outside which stand people day and night to collect a token coin or rupee to ensure a safe journey. The act of decorating the truck is perhaps a parallel to placing a covering of scented red rose petals or brocade cloth on the grave of a Sufi saint in return for his prayers.

Ultimately vehicle decoration is a cultural text. It has not only absorbed displaced craftsmen from all over the country, from Kashmiri wood carvers to the taazia makers of Karachi, but reflects the ideals and aspirations of ordinary people, trying to survive the difficult realities of everyday experiences. The aesthetic convention is invigorated, changed and renewed as a reflection of the present, speaking for the life of the individual in that moment of time when he has no other voice.

Durriya Kazi is a Karachi-based artist and heads the Department of Visual Studies at the University of Karachi.

First published in THE DAWN OF ADVERTISING IN PAKISTAN (1947-2017), a Special Report published by DAWN on March 31, 2018.

Horlicks’s initial positioning was of a family nourisher. The early ads were about providing daily nourishment to the family and the USP was energy. Later, Horlicks began to target children between the ages of five and 12, moving away from specifically focusing on energy to addressing children’s growth needs. According to clinically-proven studies, milk alone is not sufficient to meet these needs, although in Pakistan, milk is considered to be the gold standard for nutrition. Our positioning changed to: children need added nutrients in different amounts and when it comes to specific aspects – making a child grow in height, stronger (muscle strength) and sharper (mental alertness), Horlicks is the drink to add to milk.

Over the years, we refined our strategy; we had to be more targeted in reaching out to mums because a lot of brands had jumped on the nutrition and nourishment bandwagon. Biscuit brands are telling mothers they provide energy and other add-ons to milk (such as syrups) to make the milk taste better and give their child added energy.

Children do not make the buying decision; that is the mother’s role. So we have a primary (children) and a secondary (mothers) audience. We reach mothers through various platforms, and because TV is becoming more and more cluttered, we are focusing our efforts online. We know mothers go online to look up nutritional needs or chat with other mothers. We started in print only, then slowly moved to TV and radio; now we have moved to digital. In terms of the media mix, TV at one point accounted for about 60% of our spend, but since last year, this has declined.

We recently launched a new product called Horlicks Growth Plus. So far, Horlicks has been confined to the health food category but we are now moving into the nutritional supplement category, which is where Growth Plus comes in.

Sadia Nasir is Director Brands, GSK Consumer Healthcare.

First published in THE DAWN OF ADVERTISING IN PAKISTAN (1947-2017), a Special Report published by DAWN on March 31, 2018.

Ask any marketer what is the secret behind creating a successful brand and one word that will come up is consistency. In this regard, Dawn, the brand, has remained consistent in the positioning the paper deploys in its advertising communications, be they corporate or product campaigns.

The link with Mr Jinnah

Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah founded Dawn in Karachi on August 14, 1947 (he also founded Dawn Delhi on October 19, 1941, but it ceased publication after its offices were burnt down by Jan Sang demonstrators on September 14, 1947). Mr Jinnah stood for principle and integrity and these are the two values Dawn holds to, in both its editorial and advertising expression.

The link with Mr Jinnah is not simply that he founded Dawn, it is reinforced by the fact that he agreed to be photographed reading Dawn on his 71st birthday – and there can be no more a dramatic brand endorsement than this. As a result, a significant number of Dawn’s corporate communications campaigns centre on Mr Jinnah’s words; the objective, apart from reinforcing his association with the newspaper, is to further his vision of Pakistan.

What has characterised Dawn’s campaigns is that they are extensively researched and thereby stay true to the newspaper’s mission to report authenticated and credible information.

For example, Dawn’s 60th birthday campaign consisted of advertisements that included Mr Jinnah’s words on the importance of young people as nation builders and the treatment of women. The centrepiece of this campaign was an inspirational comic strip that focused on an incident taken from Mr Jinnah’s childhood, which won praise by Stanley Wolpert (the distinguished historian and author of Jinnah of Pakistan), the Press Trust of India, as well as online forums such as Pakistaniat.com.

In 2011, the Jinnah Campaign highlighted Mr Jinnah’s views on women (the campaign kicked off on 100th International Women’s Day), minorities, the duties of a democratic government and the importance of education. The campaign’s theme was: ‘Mr Jinnah’s bequest is Pakistan’s leading media conglomerate – The Dawn Media Group’. The campaign won the Pakistan Advertisers Society (PAS) Award in the Best In Media category in 2012.

The most recent campaign to centre on Mr Jinnah was The Dawn of Pakistan 1906-1948. The objective of this 37-episode photo feature (which featured in Dawn, DawnNews and Dawn.com) was to engage a new generation of readers by bringing to life and documenting the story of the subcontinent’s freedom movement through the full-page display of rare, iconic and sometimes never seen before photographs.

The last episode’s photograph was of Mr Jinnah reading Dawn on his 71st birthday; the detailed caption below it included the lines: “Never in his career has Mr Jinnah ever endorsed what today we would consider to be a ‘product’ or ‘brand’. And yet, at the behest of his colleagues, he picks up the copy of Dawn at his side and agrees to be photographed reading it...”

A focus on Pakistan’s heritage

Another factor distinguishing Dawn’s communications is the emphasis on Pakistan’s heritage. Nowhere is this more apparent than the launch campaigns for the Lahore and Islamabad editions of Dawn in 1996 and 2001 respectively. The Lahore campaigns had a distinct Lahore/Mughal flavour and centred on the city’s prominent Mughal and colonial buildings (in the form of historic prints from the F.S. Aijazuddin Collection, as well as contemporary photographs by Arif Mahmood). The Islamabad campaign highlights the fact that Dawn is once again published from Pakistan’s capital city, as envisioned by Mr Jinnah (this had changed after the capital had been transferred from Karachi to Islamabad in the sixties). The campaign featured photographs taken by Tapu Javeri of historic landmarks in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Taxila and Murree. Here again, everything is documented in terms of the historical context of the images and then linked to Dawn.

For example, an advertisement for the Islamabad campaign had for headline ‘Dawn means contemplating the finer things in life’ and focused on the Cecil Hotel, with details about this historic Murree landmark: “Built in 1855 as a 12-room residence for British soldiers, the house was converted into a hotel in 1910 by a British national known simply as Mr Cecil.” Both the Lahore and Islamabad campaigns included television commercials. The Lahore campaign won the International Newsmedia Marketing Association (INMA) First Place Award for Television Promotion, an award recognised as the highest distinction in newspaper marketing. The commercial was the result of a stellar team put together by Dawn and which included Imran Mir, Zohra Yusuf and Arshad Mahmud.

Ultimately, what has characterised Dawn’s campaigns is that they are extensively researched and thereby stay true to the newspaper’s mission to report authenticated and credible information. This does not mean that Dawn’s advertising is in any way staid; on the contrary, they have their own subtleties. Take the finale of the Lahore campaign – Fragments from a Vanishing Millennium.

The campaign was based on the portraits of seven characters associated with Lahore that were especially commissioned to young artists from the National College of Arts in Lahore. The characters were Qutbuddin Aibak, Anarkali, Nur Jehan, Jehangir, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, Rudyard Kipling and Faiz Ahmed Faiz. All are portrayed either reading or holding Dawn.

The storytelling was about how each character was faced by a problem and was searching for a way (medium) to solve it; the subtlety lay in the fact that Dawn was never mentioned as the solution – each character reaching out to the ‘medium’ that gave them the most satisfaction (for example Aibak goes off to ride his polo ponies, while Anarkali picks up her paint brush).The choice of the miniature style was also very Dawn. Miniature paintings in their heydays were considered a form of communication (as is all art); it is also a vanishing one, which Dawn pays tribute to.

Innovation to create an affinity with the young

In 1998, Dawn launched the Dawn in Education Programme (the only in-paper education programme in Pakistan) to address younger audiences. An offshoot of the programme is the Dawn Spelling Bee, a hugely successful initiative, now in its 14th edition and cited by INMA as being among “the industry’s best recent ideas for increasing youth newspaper readership” in 2005.

Each edition of the Spelling Bee is promoted in Dawn. The 2014 campaign positioned the Spelling Bee as a video game (a spelling saga of bee-licious proportions) and campaigns over the last three years have centred on a cast of characters which make up ‘The league of extraordinary spellers’ – a super-hero team, dedicated to improving spelling among schoolchildren while battling villains who are trying to disrupt the effort.

The 2015 print campaign won the PAS Award in the Best in Media category, and in 2016, the WAN-IFRA (World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers) Bronze Award in the Newspaper Marketing category.

The Spelling Bee is now a calendar event among leading schools in Pakistan; every year, the event attracts participation from over 1,000 schools and 8,000 pupils. Following on this success, last year, Dawn partnered with EdEqual to establish the Math Challenge, an inter-school competition slated to become an annual event like the Spelling Bee.

In 2013, Dawn introduced a redesign of its masthead and pages. On Mr Jinnah’s birthday (December 25), the newspaper published a full-page advertisement which charted the evolution of the paper’s brand identity. The visuals accompanying the text, in addition to Mr Jinnah’s photograph reading Dawn, were the newspaper’s mastheads which since 1947, changed in 1948, 1955, 1966, 1982 and 2013.

The text stated: “As we move to embrace younger audiences through a powerful new communication matrix, we do so within a cogent spirit of preserving our traditions and yet spearheading change. The kind of change fuelled by Mr Jinnah’s vision for a better, brighter Pakistan – the dawn that our masthead so proudly heralds.” The advertisement which ran with the headline Preserving Tradition, Spearheading Change, won the Best in Media PAS Award in 2014. The headline perhaps best expresses Dawn’s vision.

Design excellence

One of the key aspects of building a successful brand is design and to this end, Dawn has been ably supported by Creative Unit, a Karachi-based design agency led by Tannaz Minwalla and Mannan Hatim Ali. Creative Unit have been responsible for most of Dawn’s advertising communications since the nineties and have therefore been an integral part of the newspaper’s brand journey; many of the advertising communications that they have designed for Dawn have won national and international awards. In addition to Dawn’s advertising communications, Creative Unit have been extensively involved in designing the The Dawn Media Group’s publications, including Dawn, Aurora and Herald, each of which have a distinct identity.

Brand recognition

The Dawn Media Group and Creative Unit have won several international and national awards for their advertising communication, including four International Newsmedia Marketing Association (INMA) Awards (considered to be the highest honour in the newspaper profession). These included four first place awards in the circulation promotion, TV promotion, printed materials advertising and community service categories for the Herald (1986), Dawn Lahore (1988), Dawn-the internet edition (1999) and Dawn Relief (2006) respectively.

The Dawn Media Group and Creative Unit have won three Pakistan Advertisers’ Society (PAS) Awards in the Best in Media category in 2012, 2014 and 2015 and a Bronze WAN-IFRA (World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers) Award in the Best in Newspaper Marketing category in 2016 for the Dawn Spelling Bee.

Mamun M. Adil is a leading advertising and communications expert at Aurora. mamun.adil@gmail.com

First published in THE DAWN OF ADVERTISING IN PAKISTAN (1947-2017), a Special Report published by DAWN on March 31, 2018.