Full Marks to the Ad

I am hardly a morning person. Gaining senses after waking up is a big challenge for me and for easing the early hours, I usually put on some music channel with high volume awaking probably everyone living on my floor. Following the same routine one day, ironing clothes and keeping my ears attentive towards the TV, I heard an advertisement about marks on the face. In the very first few lines, it was evident where the ad was headed.

The ad starts with a woman moping about her husband not noticing her. She has changed a number of things about her appearance, ranging from dresses to haircuts and yet the doesn’t see anything different about her. She finally decides to do something, which is the most significant change in her life: Start using the ‘Bajaj NoMarks’ Cream. This cream has an Ayurvedic formula that shows results  from Day 1 and provides her a face without marks. The husband returns, watches his wife’s glowing skin… and… here is the catch. As is experienced from the data of previous ads, I expected him to go gaga about the glow on his wife’s face and fall in love all over again. However, he instead picks up the charger and goes away smiling at her.

Just when I was going to put this ad in the #anothercliche zone, it takes a U-turn and apprises the audience towards something they were not looking at! Here is where the substance of the Ad comes in. The husband does not “fall in love again” or “be mesmerized” by her looks. He continues doing whatever he had been doing; highlighting the fact that he did not notice the change in her skin. The woman is then seen to be contently saying, “He did not change, but my skin did!”

The advertisement is a treat to the eyes, ears, heart, and mind for the viewers. It portrays the one big reality of relationships that men accept a woman for the person she is. They only notice the changes within her, not in her appearance. They love the soul, not the body; and a body cannot magically change a man. Being very subtle in the approach, it makes no fake promises of giving the skin a “glow” or making men drool over. It instead persuades women to change themselves for themselves. It urges them to have a skin without any marks because they want it to be so, inspiring them to be self-reliant.

This campaign by noMarks does not only position itself very well amongst the sane, thinking women, but also differentiates itself from its competitors who portray their products as a male attracting magnet. As the Indian consumer moves away from the traditional methods of belief to modern methods of analysis, such ads can be of utmost utility as they appeal as genuine instead of mystic.

This course of re-positioning beauty products as being a symbol of self-sufficiency has become a trend and can be seen being adopted by many brands. Layer shot and Nivea could be counted as its early adopters, while some others follow.

So, what do you have to say about the repositioning trend in advertisement industry and the social outcome? Please let us know in the comments!

Also, let us know if you have seen or come across any ad that you think stands out from the crowd and needs special mention. We would be happy to cover them in our next blogs.