Infomedia Yellow Pages: When fortune comes knocking at your doorstep

Contract Advertising has crafted a commercial for Infomedia Yellow Pages, based on the insight that business will come pouring in from all kinds of sources if one gets listed in Infomedia Yellow Pages.

Infomedia Yellow Pages may be a popular brand, but many may not fully understand how being present on it can actually benefit them. Infomedia Yellow Pages, through its campaign that targets corporates, working professionals and entrepreneurs of all kinds including those in SMEs, hopes to bring across ways by which one can actually grow his business and gain new clients through visibility in the directory. And, this has been brought to the fore with messaging that encourages its target group to visit the online version of the directory and register themselves.

Ali Siddiqi, assistant general manager, marketing, Infomedia 18, remarks, "Infomedia Yellow Pages has been a popular business directory connecting buyers and sellers for the past 21 years. The online market for local search is growing at a rapid pace. It's driven by its ease of use, is quantifiable, and has perceptions of being up-to-date and modern."

Infomedia is making a foray into the online market through its website yellowpages.co.in, to leverage its advertiser base. To position Yellow Pages as an up-to-date, modern brand offering online solutions, the company has targeted mainly males aged between 32 and 38 years of age, and who maybe small and medium business owners.

The TVC shows people in ordinary-looking small offices, where the entrepreneur sees a red card in unexpected places -- like on a sofa, or in a bookshelf, or even on the tiles on a floor. On pulling these cards, a 'client' emerges each time, and the jingle explains how more and more clients and business arrive with increased visibility on yellowpages.co.in.

The task is simple: to convey to people the fact that finding clients is now easier with an added online presence, with the brand's large advertiser base.

Raj Nair, executive creative director, Contract Advertising, says, "We exaggerated the creative thought, and by showing clients being pulled out of shelves, floors, and sofa corners, we want to portray that finding clients is now 'as easy as that'." A subtle nuance here is that after 'acquiring' a new client, the small offices are shown undergoing a transformation of sorts and getting plush with increased progress and prosperity. The film has been shot by E Suresh in a 'Stop-motion' style.

The film is currently on air, primarily on business and news channels, as well as on the digital medium. Hoardings across India, including cities such as Bengaluru, Ludhiana and Ahmedabad, besides the metros, have also been unleashed.

Communication through email and text messages are being sent out to business-centric databases, in addition to ads in B2B magazines (including Modern Machine Tools and Modern Food Processing) and B2C magazines (Chip, Better Interiors, Better Photography, etc.), and PR through online sites is also being leveraged.

Furthermore, a radio campaign also encourages young entrepreneurs to take up this medium in order to help grow their business more seriously.

Prosperous enough?

Rahul Jauhari, national creative director, Everest Brand Solutions, remarks, "This is a hard-working ad, if you ask me. The messaging and benefit are straight, but I find the ad pretty straight, as well -- there isn't anything new here."

Jauhari though agrees that it does talk to the small businessmen, and it does have a catchy jingle. "But, the ad doesn't jump out at me," he says.

Sameer Aasht, vice-president, strategic planning, Percept/H, feels that the ad is interesting to watch with a fun background score, but 'compromises on the brand's role in the growth of its customer's business'.

"The entertainment value of the ad would have been helpful if the brand was unknown, but 'Yellow Pages' is a familiar brand. The task should have been to drive relevance for a small business owner," Aasht opines.

For a skeptical small business owner, who considers each penny precious, the explanation of how Yellow Pages helps growth is critical, feels Aasht. "New clients, emerging from innocuous locations, makes this a matter of chance rather than an outcome of registering onto Yellow Pages," he says, adding that the explanation should not have been left to the last voiceover, but should have been at the core of the story.