Star Bars | beastoftraal.com

A fairly unlikely product category that seems totally obsessed with using stars (from films and sports) in its advertising campaigns is TMT Steel rods. The consistency with which assorted brands that manufacture TMT bars sign up (mostly) male film heroes and use them in their campaigns is reasonably astonishing. It almost seems like a rite of passage for both parties – a male star truly arrives when he is signed up by a TMT steel brand and a TMT steel brand truly arrives when they sign up a male film star!

See the showcase at the end of this post.

Now, on its own, this merits some observation.

The first aspect is about who buys TMT bars? Or, in other words, who is the decision-maker and decision-influencer for this product category?

Let’s look at two kinds of users of TMT bars, in context – people who buy houses/flats/office buildings built by developers, and people who build their own house/home/office/any structure. In both cases, the decision-maker is the home/office/building buyer and they usually do not necessarily have an opinion on the kind of TMT bars used because that is mainly perceived as a technical decision, along with the many things that go into construction like cement, bricks, electrical wiring, pvc pipes, and so on. Besides being technical, other considerations also force the decision, including price.

Of course, a buyer could also make specific demands in terms of brands for cement and TMT bars, but that would mean they need to take a hands-on interest in the nuances of the project, and this may be a smaller minority.

So, the crux is that a fairly small (in the larger scheme of things) set of people make purchase decisions about TMT bars even though they are decision influencers and the ones who pay the money trust their word. And these are the people who actually build the structures or organize the building process.

The use of film/sports stars in marketing and advertising is usually associated with mass-market products where any and every person (in the audience) could be a potential buyer. The simple logic is that the face being used is universally familiar and hence the audience’s attention would be gained for a few seconds as the star makes her/his pitch about the product.

Therein lies the interesting dichotomy – a product category that is bought universally (more of a need, not a want) but not sought universally by people, by brand, using film stars to increase reach.

But it is also clever within the same premise.

Because the decision influencers are so few, and because they are trusted to make the right (best) decision about TMT bars, the brands need to influence this tiny sub-segment of influencer-buyers and not every person on the road.

Is there a consistent, predictable way to reach them? Not really. They are all over India, speaking many languages and probably not the mainly-English-speaking variety. So, the film stars from local language film industries! Almost all TMT steel rod ads are in regional languages and seldom use English.

For the target audience, the idea is a pretty good fit – it gets their attention due to the familiarity with the stars, even though the stars are hardly the most appropriate people to offer opinions on something like TMT bars.

That brings up the second aspect.

Unlike other construction-related purchases like paint, furniture, or fittings that can enhance the appeal of the project because they are external and seen by people, things like cement, pvc pipes and TMT bars are adequately hidden. They are never seen and are not supposed to be either. That’s akin to selling ingredients in food – salt, sugar, etc. Even here, at least salt will show up in another sense- taste, but TMT bars don’t show up in any other sense.

For something that goes inside the walls, the only consideration, besides the price (which is a universal consideration anyway), is the quality.

And quality here is only perceived, never categorically experienced. The keyword is trust.

Rational logic says that to build trust, TMT bar companies need to use authority figures to talk about the bars’ strength and quality, and this is done too, in any case (using actors who look like engineers). But the front-end of the marketing is led by film stars because before you get the tiny subset of buyers to the technical talk to build trust, you first need to get their attention 🙂

It is a smart idea, and I do wonder which TMT bar brand was the first ever to use film stars in their advertising after which it literally became an industry norm.

There is a downside as well, though.

Given the number of TMT bar brands that use stars, in essence, they all look the same! A star espousing the virtues of a steel bar using largely the same words and phrases! Unless the star is made to do something different, the ads may not stand out as well.

Crux: this tactic has perhaps been overused to the hilt. Or, within this tactic, the use of stars has reached a dead end. Almost every single TMT steel ad featuring a star has the star in impeccable formal clothing (most probably to evoke a sense of professionalism) and talking seriously about the bars’ strength and generally looking like they have been paid adequately to mouth these dialogs that sound totally preposterous coming from them.

Kiscol is a lively exception because even as they start with actor Namitha in serious work-mode, they eventually make her so happy with the product that she starts dancing!

Actors – Hindi:

Ajay Devgn