It had always bothered me. The irritant in question is an advertisement on TV about a soap brand called ‘Nature Power’ by some RKN group. It shows two women discussing about the ‘best’ method to buy soap (where one model actually says – ‘by watching advertisements!’) and you see a third one popping up from nowhere, providing unsolicited advice after committing the offense of eavesdropping. The ad in itself is extremely lousy; a half-hearted, amateurish effort. What caught my attention was some ‘TFM factor being more than 76%’ or some such info the models provided; apparently soaps above 76% are supposed to be very good. And this seems to be criterion for recommending this soap to random strangers in the store.
At one point the camera zooms in on the product cover and the inscribed word ‘TFM’ with the percentage is displayed. At no point of time in this entire ad, does anybody bother explaining what this percentage or the acronym means. I expected at least one of the characters to bat her eyelids and ask ‘What is this TFM?’ like they show in many other advertisements – the usual, obvious leading question used to introduce a concept. No such luck here. They even show the fair maidens getting impressed by this mystery jargon they neither have any clue about nor care to get clarified.
I googled out TFM and found the details and it’s evident from the information on net that TFM is a fairly common term used when it comes to quality of soaps. However, I did not know about this and I am sure, there are millions others who wouldn’t know either.
The advertisement, per se, is not worth a glance but it definitely would have made a difference if I was told upfront what this ‘TFM’ was all about.
Or, may be not – only because it gave such an incomplete message, this ad stuck to my mind. And, that is a pretty roundabout way of making people remember a brand isn’t it?
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6 comments:
ohh there are several of these 'informative' ads that do not make any sense at all! I have worked in advertisement industry and not only genuine creativity but even common sense if often misssing!
In advertising terminology the technique is called "Glittering generalities", where appealing words are used to sell the products.. sometimes just the uniqueness of the word gets attention..just as it did in your case..
Personally I had no clue about TFM :)
DC: I really wish they could put in a wee bit effort to change that!
Rambler: Yeah, now that you mention it, I can recall several such instances..
:) you know, this TFM is not even that important.
Haha! Yeah, silly ad. But a whole lot of other ads are far more silly. May be we could write a post giving them a rating, but again it would be too long a post!
hari: Yes!! I know...but this one was so striking!
Remember the Ujala liquid blue ad? it had "B Plus", which made it unique. Nobody bothered to question it, and in the unlikelihood of me ever buying blue, I am sure my childhood brainwashing will automatically make me select only the one that has the magic B Plus in it!
Ridiculous.
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