"If you don’t like what’s being said, then change the conversation." So said Don Draper, the fictional and brilliant adman at the heart of the hit television show Mad Men, whose sharp insights into the workings of advertising have inspired many a real life marketing executive.

The world of Pakistani advertisements, however, has remained steadfastly resistant to such change. Sit through a local television show and the ten-minute break in between will prove to be an excruciating watch not just for the length that its runs but for the completely banal advertisements that one is subjected to.

Most of them are stuck in a time-warp -- we grew up watching the Pakistani housewife in the kitchen, burdened with domestic chores and seeking the validation of her husband/mother-in-law/children when it comes to cooking the perfect biryani/kheer or taking the stain out of a white shirt. Thirty years on, she’s still slaving away over the stove, despite the fact that women are increasingly taking on working roles outside the house.

But it’s not just gender roles that suffer from stereotyping. The advertising world is full of meaningless, often misleading, statements from "world-class" brands that "go the extra mile for you". In this age of digitalisation and social media consumerism, the customer is smarter than the marketing departments give him or her credit for. They stopped believing these clichéd messages a while ago.

"The clichés jump out at you when you watch Pakistani ads. The biggest one is resorting to khaana peena and mazza to sell everything," says Adil Khalid, the COO and Creative Director at Aura Communication, with over 20 years of experience working for top advertising agencies in the country. "Meaningful messages have completely eroded from our advertisements," he continues.

Meaningful doesn’t have to mean serious or cerebral. Take the recent ad by Shaan Foods that is going viral on media these days. Instead of resorting to the typical ‘one big happy family around the iftar table’ cliché that most companies latch on to during Ramzan, the ad focuses on the homesickness that two brothers studying abroad experience. It dared to experiment within the same genre and struck a chord, especially with expats and families who have children living outside of home.

"The ad works because it has a strong emotional insight that touches a lot of people," explains Imran Afzal, Managing Director Lahore for JWT. "Generally, clients and agencies don’t work on insight that comes from diligent research and data mining, which allows you to understand your target audience and how to touch them emotionally."

Read also: Contradictions in terms

Are we then to believe that Pakistani advertising agencies suffer from a lack of creativity? Or is it the mindset of the company selling the product that demands towing a tried and tested line? The answer, according to most advertising executives, lies somewhere in the middle.

"The boom in advertising has come in the last ten years, with the proliferation of television channels," says Afzal. "Companies need to realise that what worked before on one or two channels isn’t going to work on a big scale. More eyeballs mean a different marketing strategy but not many clients have woken up to that realisation yet. Secondly, Pakistani companies tend to be conservative by nature; they want to play it safe and not be the ones to break out of stereotypes. The average client response to the more creative ideas usually is: let someone else try it."

Hence, after the song-and-dance routine worked well for one company selling milk, others jumped on the musical extravaganza bandwagon, using dance and Lollywood stars to sell everything from biscuits to mobile phone packages. What they didn’t realise was that the novelty wore off after the first few times and these big-budget ads failed to garner the kind of positive viewership that the parent company had hoped for.

Creative departments within ad agencies have their own constraints. Given the lack of advertising schools in the country, Afzal says, he’s had art students, ex-army men and a variety of other graduates serving as copywriters, a concern that is seconded by Khalid. "Even the art graduates who come to me are not polished and I have to spend a couple of years honing their skills and teaching them to think out of the box and beyond the hackneyed taglines. Moreover, while advertising is the domain of young people globally, in Pakistan most ad agencies are helmed by men in their 50s, which further stifles a fresh approach."

But, he says, the onus is on the advertising executive to take the bull by the horns and make a difference. "It’s my job to convince the client and sell an interesting idea to them. Look at the Indian advertising business. Both industries [Indian and Pakistani advertising] began at exactly the same time, yet they have grown by leaps and bounds, embracing novel ideas and progressive values."

Indian advertisements are often held as a benchmark of creativity by local admen and women. From tackling social taboos, as in the Tanishq Jewellery ad that shows a dark-skinned woman, who also happens to be a single mother, getting married, to playing on emotions in a unique light, as in the Google ad that depicts the reunion between two old friends separated at the time of partition, they have leant to gently touch controversial topics and nudge the audience in the right direction.

While they may be few in number, there certainly are local ad campaigns that are fresh, imaginative and have great recall value. The Ufone campaign is often cited as an example of marketing done right. Using humour to depict everyday situations and turning stereotypes on their heads, the cellular company has created one of the most successful advertising campaigns in recent times and managed to position itself successfully in the market on its basis.

Think about the ads that stand out in your memory. The ones you remember are probably the ones that struck a chord emotionally, made you nostalgic or surprised you with a fresh concept. In short, they broke the routine in order to be effective. Successful advertising, hence, boils down to one basic concept - stand out instead of trying to fit in.