Most of us should still remember the iconic Berger Paints TVC aired in 1998, where a newlywed couple plans to decorate and paint their house with Berger. Nostalgia hit us all hard, especially the millennials. Recently, Berger Paints released a sequel to that ad more than twenty years later, with that same couple celebrating their twenty-fifth anniversary. The TVC portrayed the same colours on the walls they were planning about in the old advertisement and also exhibited their growth as a couple over the years with unchanged love for each other. People felt a strong reconnection to the same old warmth that they felt in the case of the first ad two decades back; at the same time, the audience felt satisfied to witness the growth of an imaginary couple. This is the power of constructive advertisement- it can make us travel through time, make us laugh or cry within a short clip of a minute or so, and it creates an emotional value for a brand.
The definition of modern ventures has been immensely evaluated over the last two decades, and so has the style of marketing gimmicks and advertisements. And after the global pandemic flustered almost every venture with an entirely new set of challenges, brands have been compelled to think out of the box in terms of reaching out to potential consumers effectively and efficiently. This has actually created a positive impact to set an appealing trend of innovative marketing strategies and advertisements in Bangladesh.
COVID-19 has certainly brought some key changes in Bangladesh’s market dynamics and consumer behaviour. The biggest change it has enforced would be the swift rise of e-commerce which has made almost every industry more competitive than ever. Besides, due to being stuck at home for a while, consumer behaviour has also shifted towards online products and has continued even after the pandemic. Many of the prevailing and emerging brands were smart enough to grasp this shifting pattern and reacted accordingly. It was essential to understand the significance of effective marketing in order to stand out in the fierce competition of a new world. Digital marketing got its biggest push as well. It most certainly happened not only because of technological advancement but also for the greater dependency of customers on digital ventures. While corporate houses are more focused on push-marketing to ramp up sales, digital marketing is becoming the present and future tool of SMEs to boost their sales. The pandemic gave businesses room to rethink and improvise new strategies. As a result, we have witnessed dozens of innovative outreach campaigns and advertisements on digital platforms. One key factor to notice here is that a fair share of this new trend has been heavily influenced by humour.
Such creativity was exhibited by the pizza outlet “Cheez” when they turned their new pizza launch into a full-on promotional campaign. Their mix-and-match pizza, named “Kolongko”, made a big fuss over the internet because of the humorous advertisement created around it. Two of the most popular food joints in Dhaka- Madchef and Chillox, have also caught their targeted customers’ attention using unique marketing styles. Both of these food chains started their journey from street food carts and have grown into what they are today.
Nowadays, we often see these brands engaging with each other through playful, friendly banter about their journey, food and experience in the food industry on their social media handles. This is a healthy association between the marketing teams of these two brands and is serving the cause of both ventures by bringing in consumer engagement through entertainment.
Nevertheless, there is a flip side of this coin where brands have targeted opponents for the cause of their own promotion. Such strategy can be seen in the case of the country’s two biggest mobile financial services (MFS)- bKash and Nagad.
bKash has been the country’s most prominent MFS, whereas Nagad grew rapidly, taking out multiple competitors to become the number one competition to bKash. Both companies have launched several TVCs where they have sarcastically sent out subtle messages to each other and the customers on who is the better service provider and why. Such marketing rivalry is fascinating to witness and reminds us of the “Mac vs PC” commercials between the two leading tech giants of the world- Apple and Microsoft.
Companies have also placed the circumstances arising from the pandemic into their advertisements to connect with their customer base emotionally. Bangladeshi mobile phone brand “Symphony” did so by making a TV commercial on how their devices have facilitated online education during the pandemic through a school teacher’s story. This particular ad showcased the brand’s customer reliance through a highly relatable story and thus received immense positive response and appreciation. Such innovative advertisements have shown us all that an adverse situation like COVID-19 can also be marketized for your own cause with the right strategy.
Ever since the coronavirus breakout, we have witnessed the emergence and rising popularity of numerous lifestyle vloggers on social media. Content watching became an intrinsic part of our daily life during the lockdowns. Even after we are past the lockdowns now, the habit has prevailed. Brands have identified vloggers as an opportunity and used them as an effective medium to reach out to a large pool of audiences by sponsoring their content.
Even though this practice has been very common in the Western world for a long time, Bangladeshi brands have well and truly familiarized themselves with this strategy in the post-pandemic era. The vlogging culture in Bangladesh is expected to grow as well because there is much less headache for content creators to find sponsorship nowadays.
The conventional marketing tools that we are all familiar with have dynamically changed since Covid-19 introduced us to the “new normal”. The pandemic drastically altered the lifestyle of people, and businesses have followed accordingly. Undoubtedly, it has not been easy for brands to adapt to this sudden transformation. However, on the brighter side, this has created a brand-new trend of promotion filled with creativity and innovation.
The age-old face-to-face marketing gimmicks have taken a backseat, and the effective utilization of digital marketing looks to be the way forward for brand practitioners. Many Bangladeshi brands, mentioned here or not, have done a remarkable job of perceiving the changing patterns and rising to the challenge accordingly. The learnings of the last three years will help modern brands promote and advertise their ventures in the post-pandemic era.
Author -Sadman Bin Ahsan
