How bizzare is too bizzare: The Do’s & Don’ts of being disruptive and out of the box

Into its 8th year, MOBEXX Summit and Awards 2024 featured a powerhouse line-up of industry leaders, innovators, and marketing experts who shared their insights and expertise through keynote addresses, panel discussions, and fireside chats. This year’s theme, ‘Connect, Engage, Transform: The Power of Mobile Marketing in the New 5G Era’, underscored the transformative role of mobile technologies and 5G connectivity in redefining business marketing strategies.

The event saw an interesting fireside chat was held on ‘Bizzare Marketing - How Bizzare is too Bizzare’. The session was chaired by Shradha Agarwal, Co-Founder and Global CEO, Grapes Worldwide, who was in conversation with Manoj Singh, Head of Marketing, Cornitos, and Rohan Mascarenhas, Head - Brand & Marketing Comm, Volvo-Eicher JV (VECV).

Setting the agenda for the conversation, at the outset Shradha Agarwal asked Manoj Singh, “What do you think how much bizarre is too bizarre?”

Manoj Singh responded by saying, “I think bizarre is a perfect thing. Of course, the bizarre word is an elementary task, right? But there will be a fine line between bizarre and engagement, because as a FMCG brand we have so many things that need to be covered to do any marketing thought, marketing campaign, or digital campaign. To cover anything bizarre, there would be both pros and cons. For instance, there will be a chance of your digital campaign going viral, it might be that you come from a different stage than your competitor. On the other hand, if you talk about cons, it might be that the bizarre campaign correlates with your brand tonality or that your brand tonality cannot match with their bizarre campaign. Bizarre can be both a good thing and a bad thing.”

He further added, “As per the current trend of the Indian market, we love to adopt Thai creatives, their digital ads depend on so many parameters – such as they believe in unconventional thought, cultural expressions, storytelling for social training. If we look at it from that angle, the Indian consumer also accepts similar thoughts, we also love to do something innovative, new and out of the box, because the existing one is very boring. This is how we can adopt Thai creatives in Indian markets.”

Shradha Agarwal then asked Rohan Mascarenhas how Volvo-Eicher is bringing that aspect in ad campaigns for trucks and buses.

Rohan Mascarenhas replied, “These days, it’s a toss-up between how much you want to reach out to people and how much you want people to reach you. That’s a tussle I always have with our creative and digital marketing partners – how much of it is the bizarreness of the idea and how much of it is performance-based. The bottomline is that if you want to spend less on performance marketing, then you better make sure that your idea is completely disruptive, and yes, bizarre at times. Before the advent of AI, the one-line brief from all clients was ‘Give me something viral’. In the end, everybody wants to do it, but you need to sit back and ask yourselves, ‘What is the objective?’. It has to be very well-defined and crafted. Is it a perception that you are trying to get rid of? Is it an equity that you are trying to reinforce? A perception of Volvo was that Volvo was boring. Fun and efficiency can go together. That was a clear marketing objective that we wanted to crack and make it relatable with a certain younger and new, evolved audience. It could be even building a relationship, or for an FMCG brand, it could be a new flavour being launched, or a new festive scheme, etc. So, as long as the objective is well defined, go ahead and be as bizarre as possible.”

He further added, “If you want anybody to really remember you, there are only two ways – make them laugh or make them cry. So, humour in my book certainly works. As to how bizarre you can get with it, especially in the Indian context, I think we are a very funny country and as long as you don’t violate the taboo norms, people will really remember you. For instance, death is a very sensitive topic in India, compared to the rest of the world. That’s a no-go area, So, you have to be very clear about these no-go areas in India, given the cultural context, given our religious contexts, and given the political context as well. That’s again an area that you don’t want to overstep and go bizarre. If you are conscious about and avoid just a few areas, the rest of the areas are fine. You can keep pushing the boundaries and have your backers, supporters ready to back you up should it not work as per the expectations set or even backfire.”

These are edited excerpts. For the complete discussion, please watch below:

https://www.youtube.com/live/qh4Dn3tbRLE