Godrej Security stays with humour, promises freedom from the fear of theft

The new campaign for Godrej Security Solutions takes forward the earlier positioning 'Musibat bataake nahin aati' to the next level.

Explaining the brief, Mehernosh Pithawalla, assistant vice president, marketing, Godrej Security Solutions (GSS), said, "When we started our awareness campaign three years ago, we realised we were up against the basic Indian fatalistic attitude of ‘Whatever will happen, will happen. I can’t do anything to prevent it.’ Security as a category seemed to suffer from the inertia to act. Our objective was to build category relevance and work around this mindset. In our communication, instead of stoking fear, we wanted to stoke vulnerability without raising the defence barriers of consumers. The communication worked very well in terms of creating awareness."

"While the brand witnessed market-defining growth over the last couple of years and the campaign helped garner tremendous saliency for the brand, there was still tremendous growth potential in the home market for the category which was untapped. After three years of closely observing the Indian consumer, GSS realised that people’s concern for security is heightened - more than ever before. What consumers were aspiring was for was an idealistic space where the security concerns could be eliminated. While the campaigns undertaken over the last few years had built category relevance, the need of the hour was to demonstrate the brand’s ability to perform a role in the consumer’s life. The need of the hour was to instill confidence in the minds of the consumers by giving him control over the situation."

The new TV ad shows a couple sleeping in the night being disturbed by some sounds. The husband goes to check on the source and sees a couple of thieves trying to break into the safe. Instead of panicking, he puts cotton balls in his ears to block out the noise and goes back to sleep. The message at the end is, "Ab musibat se darna kaise".

Pithawalla said, "To demonstrate the brand’s role in the consumer’s life in the changed scenario, we adopted the simple but powerful approach of swapping the protagonist. We decided to make the home owner the hero of the campaign. The TVC was constructed in a manner that provided control of the situation to him. Keeping the brand communication codes intact, we decided to amplify the messaging by using a subtle dose of humour. This had worked wonderfully in the past and helped the brand pierce the cultural shield that the consumer had used in his defence. The take-out from campaign has been mnemonisized through the ‘Ab Musibat Se Darna Kaisa’ (AMSDK) button and this is really the consumer response which we wish to evoke."

Commenting on the creative execution and the use of humour in the ads, Ashish Medhekar, vice president and executive business director, JWT India, added, "We use subtle humour, not over the top or farcical. The easiest thing to do in the category is make the execution serious. By injecting some humour, it brings a smile to the viewer's face and makes it believable, while communicating the underlying emotion of the brand that you're self-assured when you're in control of the situation. That's the fine line that we tread in the tonality of the communication."

Asked whether the TVC will be supported by other mediums, Pithawalla said, "The potential of undertaking path-breaking campaigns utilising the ‘AMSDK’ message is tremendous and we have planned a series of initiatives that will bring the concept alive to consumers through engagement and activation ideas. All ideas are built in a way to provide complete control to the consumers in way that is fun and engaging for the consumers. We are doing both ATL and BTL activation with a 360-degree approach. Our major focus is on TV but we are also planning to get into the social media and events for sales promotion. The majority is TV, though social media and digital is on the rise as we are looking at targeting the youth and engaging with them. We are looking at a marketing budget of Rs 10 crore for the campaign."

Credits:

Client: Godrej Security Solutions
Creative team: JWT Mumbai
Production house: Footcandles
Director of film: Ayappa
Media agency: Mindshare