Giving the devil his due

No, not Chandru who celebrates the return of the devil….

One of Indian advertising’s most written-off campaigns turned out to be one of the most memorable and lovable….

Chandru says, the Devil told people it is OK to be a show-off. It’s OKAY, really, to flaunt what you have, cause you deserve to.

Absolutely. And it also told people – it is ok to want – to aspire, to covet what is now not yours. And remember this was the time when the advertising fraternity in India had not bought into terms like ‘instant gratification’ and ‘consumerisation of society’.

Was trying to understand this ad within my favourite framework : Transactional Analysis*.

The devil spoke to us from a child state (characterized by instinct, impulse and emotion). And surprisingly, we as consumers, responded from a child state. An equal transaction here. No wires crossed.

Not as the critical parent, or the rational adult shocked by the imp’s suggestion to go ahead and turn green. And why? The devil spoke straight to the child hidden within the wannabe rational adult – wanting to make a rational decision on a product category like television (still a high value product in India).

Most of our reactions to everyday transactions, as well as their outcomes, can be understood better using TA. I had blogged long ago on my reaction to a couple of other ads…

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* Fundamental to TA is the notion that our personality consists of three ‘ego states’ : Parent,Child, Adult. A sender communicates from one of these three ego states. At the other end is the receiver(‘s) ego state. At the core of Berne’s theory is the rule that effective transactions (ie successful communications) must be complementary. They must go back from the receiving ego state to the sending ego state. For example, if the stimulus is Parent to Child, the response must be Child to Parent, or the transaction is ‘crossed’, and there will be a problem between sender and receiver.