Ad Guru Prahlad Kakkar shared the secrets of creating an ad campaign that can win millions of hearts, and help entrepreneurs take their business to unimaginable heights. Here are the 9 tips by Mr. Kakkar to create an awe-inspiring ad campaign: # **Tip #1: Keep Value First and Profit Second** The customer is an extension of your family. You cannot expect your customers to return once you cheat them. You can cheat a consumer only once. When you make an overpromise and delivers less than that, your customer never comes back. Whichever product you are producing, if you are unable to deliver your promise, nobody will use your product as they have many choices. **Build a Value System in the Branding** The main thing that matters in brand building is the value system. In management schools, students are taught that the value comes before ROI. However, today’s world is the other way around, where ROI is considered first. For example, parents are more interested in the ROI of their children; they think that if their child becomes a musician or doctor he will be earning a high salary. They do not think that will he be a good doctor or a musician and will he be happy with that. When you create value, ROI automatically comes, because the value is being created out of your passion and commitment, and when you follow your passion, you do not see the time. You work around the clock to achieve that. # **Tip #2: Build Your Product a Living Being** Every product has a story behind its name, but the people, unaware of the advertising industry, think that a brand’s advertisement is full of product. They consider it as a non-living thing. Advertising professionals turn a product into a human being, which defines its: - Value system - Strategy - Strengths - Weakness # **Tip #3: Create a Brand Story of Your Product** During childhood, our grandmother used to tell us stories of Mahabharata, Abhimanyu or Arjuna to make us sleep. These stories have always had a lesson and moral. These are the stories that create a sense of understanding among children to differentiate between what is wrong and right. They got to know who is a hero and who is a villain. #### **Stories Appeal to the People’s heart** The stories create a value system in our society.  If there is no story in your product, then there will be no connection between your product and the audience. They will forget your ad campaigns in a few days. It is not the mind that you need to appeal through an ad campaign. You have to appeal to the hearts of millions of people, which is why you need to create a compelling story. Storytelling is a matter of the heart. When your advertisement appeals to people’s hearts, they remember your story for years. **Make Your Story Campaignable** Due to the bombardment of media in today’s world, 5-6 images come to you every second, but they do not last long in your memory. What stays longer is the stories. Your story should be campanignable to maintain the continuity of your story. It helps in taking forward the story when you create the next part of it. So, you should have a campaignable story to tell about your: - Company - Brand - Product #### **Do Not Change the Value of the Story** The value and moral of the story should not change ever, because your values and product’s values should remain the same forever. A story can change a bit, but the values must not change. # **Tip #4: Imbibe Emotional Touch in Your Story** While writing a story for your product, you must: - Include some emotional ingredients in it like: - Happiness - Sadness - Include some success factor aligned with the product #### **Google Ad Campaign** The touching story around Google Ad Campaign, made by the director of film Badhaai Ho, Mr. Amit Sharma, touched the hearts of millions of people. The ad campaign portrays the story of a refugee who migrated to India after partition in 1947. Remembering his childhood days, the old man tells his granddaughter how he, along with his childhood friend, would steal Jhajhariya from a nearby sweet shop. The man expresses his wish to meet his childhood friend, which was made possible by Google as shown in the ad. The story had a deep emotional connection that consumers still remember. # **Tip #5: Make Your Brand the Hero of the Ad Campaign** In an ad film stars are not the brands, they are just supporting players. Your product should be the real brand or a hero (a central character) of the story. If a brand does not help the hero to achieve his goal, then it is not a brand. Your brand has to be the hero of the story. Therefore, a brand should be: - The central character of the film - Your everyday companion and a friend to give you the power to fight the world When you include these ingredients in storytelling, your brand becomes a person having human values and qualities of a hero. # **Tip #6: Revive a Dead Brand through a Powerful Story** Many brands have made a remarkable comeback even when they were near their extinction. One such example is the Indian bike - Bullet. **Example:** When the Japanese company launched their 100CC motorbike in India with a mileage of 40-50 km per litre, the Indian brand Bullet, that gave a mileage 17km per litre, witnessed their debacle. People preferred to buy a Japanese bike, which had a technological advantage over the outmoded Indian brand Bullet. #### **Return of the Indian Bike Brand - Bullet** To compete with the Japanese brand, Bullet launched an inspiring ad campaign “Bullet meri jaan, manzilo ka nishan”. The ad campaign invoked the story of pride and grandeur among the Indian bike riders, changing its fortune forever. The campaign was designed in a way that it helped to revive the people’s trust in Indian brand, signifying its reliability, strength and pride. # **Tip #7: Promise Less, Deliver More** A good advertisement can kill a bad product faster! If a product delivers less than what it promised in the advertisement, then no matter how good your ad campaign is, the product will not last more than a month. For example, the prelaunch campaign of New Delhi Times magazine was so good that people were waiting desperately for the launch of the magazine. The first issue of the magazine was sold at an electrifying speed, but the second edition was sold at Chaupati beach with Bhelpuri. # **Tip #8: Do Not Compromise With Product Quality** No matter which product you are producing, you cannot cheat your customers, as they understand everything. Whether you are producing an industrial product, vegetable, ghee or oil, your ingredients must be of good quality. #### **Hire a Procurement Manager** To ensure the quality of raw material in your business, you need to hire a procurement manager. On the shoulders of this person rests the responsibility for the quality of the product. The way a housewife cherry-picks only good quality vegetables for her family, you should also use good quality ingredients in your product to give value to your customers. You have to look at your customers like your family. # **Tip #9: Always Love and Follow Your Dreams** No matter what your dreams are, you must follow them!  Do not worry if you have not become a doctor or engineer because there are many professions in which many people are successful and have earned a big name. A person, who does not love his job, cannot create value as he works just because of compulsion. He is like a government servant, who stays at the same place and position forever. So, you should not end up like that because it is like a living death. Do whatever is your passion, which will give you: - Happiness - Name - Money