Adformula

ADVERTISERS’ BIGGEST GAMBLE – WORLD CUP CRICKET !!!

2015-02-19T11:14:00.000+05:30

Vipin Nambiar,
The Times of India
Mumbai

Season of cricket begins… All focus is to the land of Kiwis and Kangaroos… Expecting some thunder down under !!!

Again for sports in India, nothing gets bigger than the Cricket World Cup and so for the mightier brands out here. Star India is all set to count it big this time with a diversified telecasting strategy. None ever dared to try it before, 2015 edition ICC WC will be available in 4 language channels and that too with the commentary in the respective regional languages. Kudos to the idea and execution team. States with strongest regional flavours like Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal and Karnataka will get to enjoy the local flavor and style this season. This is apart from the Hindi and English telecasting by Star Sports. The idea behind this whole regional proliferation may be; is to target the varied audience down south and in West Bengal who are not so good good with Hindi... Star Network's acquisition of Asianet group of channels in Kerala & Karnataka markets and their own channels Star Vijay and Star Jalsha paved way to endeavor this experimentation.

Commentaries in local slangs and localist approach will do wonders for the advertisers to reach the same audience in a different feel & experience altogether. And for Star Sports, more and more undiluted share of the advertising pie. A leading jeweler/textile brand in Kerala who don’t have presence outside Kerala can try his luck with cricket fanatics here without creating a big hole in his pocket, which otherwise will be difficult to get a cricket atmosphere to promote their brands… Similarly Airtel or Vodafone who have an exclusive campaign/offer for Bengalis can reach the same cricket fans without any spillage. Also options of a Malayalam/Tamil/Kannada or Bengali dubbed ad of same Hindi ads of YepMe Fashion, Maruti Cars or of Axis Bank would be a great strategy to target regionally. In short, this whole trend can have a better aggregation of TV audience. So these permutations and combinations lead to umpteen opportunities for Star Sports this season through this well thought regionalizing of World Cricket. This trend would be the first in World Broadcasting History.

All said and done, the biggest question remain as it is, would all this effort last the whole tournament or is it just about Team India’s journey in the WC Campaign ?!!! We have seen the debacle in 2007 Windies WC where brands pulling out their campaigns. This is why World Cup Cricket has always been the biggest gamble in brand investments, even bigger than the stock market speculations. So its just not the hopes of billion cricket fans in India, hopes of numerous Indian brands as well… 2011 Cricket World Cup had generated 90% share of Indian TV viewership, hope the trend continues this year as well.

So all set to a wonderful season of cricket. Announcement of 4K transmission, Gillete’s best ever TVC, the most hyped India vs Pak match and the funniest ad by Star sports, Ranbir’s ad for Lays Potato Wafers’ etc would definitely add more spice to the World’s biggest cricket scenario.

Wishing best to all brand tie-ups and long live Indian Advertising Industry!!!

You can also reach me at kvipin.nambiar@gmail.com,
in.linkedin.com/in/vipinnambiark/

The Coca Cola Hilltop Ad - Wonder ensemble

2014-11-11T20:25:00.000+05:30

"I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony)" is a popular song which originated as the jingle "Buy the World a Coke" in the amazing 1971 "Hilltop" television commercial for Coca Cola... This one commercial is considered as one of those path breaking ads that paved the way for Coke ascend to brand stardom .

"Buy the World a Coke" portrayed a positive message of hope and love sung by a multicultural ensemble of teenagers on the top of a hill. "Buy the World a Coke" repeated "It's the real thing" as Coca-Cola's marketing theme at the time and that made the trick... but wait- the story is full of twists, the TV ad was not the one that came first , the song was first made and then released as a radio commercial in 1971.

Bill Backer, of McCann-Erickson — the agency for Coca-Cola endured this idea during a delayed flight and then the rest is history , it is said that the radio commercial was not a hit and yet Bill Baker convinced his agency to make a TVC out of the song and then the rest is history .

The TVC directed by Roberto Malenotti had its share of issues which sounds quite strange when one sees it from today. The first shooting was spoiled by rain and many many location issues. Made for $250,000 - a huge price then was first aired in July 1971, this had a multicultural group of young people singing the song on a hill . The global unity of the singers is emphasized by showing that the bottles of Coke they are holding are labelled in a variety of languages. Another version shows the same group in the night with candles in hand and that in a long shot resembles the Xmas tree and hence used for many years as an ad that would appear during Xmas !

Many years down the line and many re incarnations later , the original Hill Top ad is still the best and a must see and ponder wonder for ad students and practitioners alike ....

Salutes to the master brains that worked to make this wonder possible...

Natural is GOOD ! ;)

2014-11-04T13:32:00.004+05:30

Merriboy Icecreams , some time back refined and redefined the whole ice cream market in Kerala by their positioning which was "100% natural and the only natural ice cream that it was" etc etc thereby distancing away from the other players that lead from the front till then !

Suddenly there was an awareness about the frozen desserts that was mistakenly bought by uninformed customers as 'ice creams' and thus Merriboy made the big leap . a whole new redefined category was all theirs .

Now when we see we see ICECREAMS everywhere , made even by the traditional frozen dessert makers, thanks should be given to the strong NATURAL is good position that Meriiboy put up.

Not to be left alone- they were soon joined by NATURALS , a big name in the ice cream market with multi city presence and an even more NATURAL menu to boast about . This, but did not give the Kerala based 'Natural is good Merriboy' any reason to be worried . They hired Manju Warrier - the timeless Malayalam actor to endorse their tag line and make the brand even more yo yo and well known !

All is well but then .....

The picture above is taken from Lulu Mall in Kochi where the Merriboy store ( which proclaims that NATURAL IS GOOD ) has a NATURALS store very next to it ..

If the confused buyer takes this one as one honest and candid confession from Merriboy , well then the boy may have some reasons not to be so much MERRY about !

Till then , YES , Natural is Good !

Volvo Trucks - The Epic Split feat. Van Damme (Live Test 6)

2013-12-03T14:51:00.001+05:30

Volvo Trucks - Rajnikanth style - The Epic Split feat. (Live Test 6)

2013-12-03T14:50:00.001+05:30

LG Optimus - Optimize your life...

2012-06-18T08:52:00.002+05:30

'So what if it's advertising? Big deal. At least it's different, entertaining, leans toward the magical -- and doesn't need a naked girl to do it! I'd watch that ad any day, many days! It certainly beats being hammered with stupid jingles, inane signs on every surface possible, and infomercials from hell. If viewing this ad a hundred times meant I'd never have to see another snuggy commercial, I'd make popcorn, grab a sleeping bag and settle my happy butt on the sidewalk' - quote unquote

Reaching to the eyeballs and staying there has been a challenge (always) for Marketing communicators... Now this one will do that with an ease... !

Amul - now milking Olympics !

2012-04-17T12:04:00.000+05:30

India's largest food product marketing organisation, which achieved a turnover $ 2.2 billion in 2010-11, has become the Official Sponsor of the Indian team in the category of Dairy products...

....and the logic - "Nutritious dairy diet comprising of milk, cheese, yogurt, butter etc. is an important part in the diets of athletes around the world. India is the largest producer of milk in the world and Amul is not only India's but Asia's largest milk brand. The association and activities around it will help in engaging the youth so that they can enjoy a healthy life and strive to become swifter, higher and stronger in their endeavours..."

........fair enough isn't it?

Members of the IOA confirmed that Amul would be investing Rs 10 million which will be partly utilised by IOA and a section of the amount will be used to award selected candidates... Now going by what generally happens in India, one has to wait and watch to see the end result !

According to Draft FCB - the creative agency who is behind the campagn- the brief for the campaign revolves around milk projected as the energy drink, and that would be the bedrock of their communication which is going to rock us during April - May .......

Three cheers Amul and FCB !

The Fun Gun !!!

2012-03-31T11:24:00.000+05:30

If ants, penguins and fireflies can prove it's smarter to travel in groups, crabs can do that too! This commercial was the last one in a sequel for public bus company De Lijn conceived and executed by Creative conspiracy !!!

have fun guys..........!

BlackBerry Boys- here , there and everywhere !

2012-03-22T14:10:00.002+05:30

Heard as a caller tone when I called a friend...

Hello. I'm home right now but cannot find the phone. Please leave a message and I will call you back as soon as I find it......

Games people play and the gadgets that help them to- is of endless amusement.. I have grown up seeing the advent of mobile phones and this new gadget displacing pagers ( mercilessly that is ! ) and then slowly taking shape as a market.. I had an Alcatel phone ( as heavy as it can be but then BIG was BEAUTIFUL then) .. the only issue that an average mobile phone user had at that point of time was the INCOMING CALLS - which was charged ..... I had a BOSS ( who was an ASS No: 1 ) who would give MY number to the toms and dicks he met here and there and thus making me wriggle in discomfort and counting seconds ......

After all these years, I still do not have a Blackberry and yet the instrument has never stopped amusing me..

its differentiation and the cut above the rest.. the simple points of parity that defines the category membership and yet the amazing points of difference that keeps it above the rest of the category always left an awe in the Marketing guy in me...

...the idea of a BB messenger , the PIN and all the stuff that made a BB a BB .... I remember a focus group we did for a Mobile phone client and the group as we talked became big and big and the pride with which a BB owner talks about the technology and the devise was immense. ----the prized possession that the owners have had it as - the suits and the big guys of business wore it over their other habiliments and displayed it with impunity is something that had very few parallels in the history of Marketing. . . . .

To be frank I had not seen a BB in an unfit hand before that, or may be I have not noticed the 'catch them young' fever that had caught RIM just like all other players in the YOUNG Indian market place.

It was not easy & natural - the transition from old, bald, business and corporate to the colourful and funky young- of course the rich urban young of India .. BB had to do a lot of POP and POD readjustments.. it had to make the products looks young and cheeky, it had to have a lot of apps and platforms that the new TG wanted and (HELL) it had to advertise - to ensure that the new TG knows about it and is convinced why the BB is also a mobile phone plus whatever they wanted and also to ensure that the OLD TG was not annoyed and hence made an exit. I am never tired of seeing this we are the BB boys ad.. the shock on the faces of the old TG seeing the new TG is quite a winsome one.. hats off to O&M guys for the same..

and the results...?

Vodafone increased its share of BlackBerry users by 96%, nearly double its 50% target and within the first four months of the campaign it signed up nearly 154,000 additional subscribers (of which 35,000 were pre-paid). Its post-paid customer base grew 74% from 160,000 pre-campaign to 279,000 post-campaign.....

Well ! that was some time back...Now that the " sleep with me and hey you sleep with me too" mess is kind of settled, BB is more bold and is all about telling its TG that we are what we are to you, and be with us..With the Curves, Bolds, Torches, Styles, Pearls, Tours, Storms and Playbooks and much more, RIM in India is in a boom, much above the I phone and even the Nokia .(Nokia and Research In Motion (RIM), the maker of BlackBerry phones , sell more devices in India, where smartphone shipments are forecast to grow almost 70% a year until 2015, helping mitigate their market-share losses in the US and Europe).....

and now this new Ad reincarnate.......

The reincarnation of the same 5 BB boys who are expressing their grief and frustration because of the transformation that has taken place since their previous campaign. While the previous film focused on how special they were because of their unique BlackBerry facilities, the current campaign depicts the dominance of youth over the BB Boys in terms of the youth usage patterns of the device. For instance, the Gen-Next not only chats through BlackBerry Messenger but also shares pictures, music, gossip and even takes the BB to pubs, malls, college – and not just the workplace...smart way to sell the new BB and its POP and POD to the new and old TG...

..This is quite amusing, considering the fact that across the world it is loosing its share and its stocks are falling...

.... the game is yet to begin and till then we can keep singing.. ": hey hey we are the black berry boys" .

Adformula sincerely hope that soon people will not start singing ........

" we WERE the black berry boys ! hoo hoo hoo .....

they took it every where and we threw it out..

hoo hoo hoo, we were the black berry boys" !

Baby, how could you do this

I thought it was going to be just us,

But they took BBM everywhere

To the campus, to the nightclub and too the mall.

we WERE the black berry boys ! hoo hoo hoo .....

they took it every where and we threw it out..

hoo hoo hoo, we were the black berry boys..."

Amen !

***************************************************************

The lyrics:

Baby, how could you do this

I thought it was going to be just us,

But they took BBM everywhere

To the campus, to the nightclub and too the mall.

My suit is still cool

Got shine on my shoes

But they are the BlackBerry Boys

They Exchange pins

From Morning to Evening

Oh yeah they are the BlackBerry Boys

We used to Chat

But they do much more

Setting their status

Sending pictures all on the move

They are the BlackBerry Boys

Oh yeah they are the BlackBerry Boys

They use it for dating

It’s a work thing not a play thing

They are the Blackberry boys

They share music and videos and gossip

Oh yeah they are the BlackBerry Boys

We used to chat

But they do much more

Setting their status

Setting pictures all on the move

They are BlackBerry Boys

Oh yeah they are the BlackBerry Boys......

Credits:

Client: Vodafone India

Agency: Ogilvy & Mather (Mumbai)

National Creative Director: Rajiv Rao

Country Head – Team Vodafone: Kapil Arora

Sr. Creative Directors: Srreram Athray and Elizabeth Dias

Account Management: Sarang Wahal, Chatak Vakharia, Rohan Manglani

Production house: Nirvana Films

Director: Prakash Varma

TOI - as you sow, so you.....

2012-01-28T09:36:00.001+05:30

thus said the TOI and started it.....The campaign has been conceptualised by Taproot India.

The brief given to the agency was to increase eyeballs for the TOI in Chennai. "It was a very clear and uncomplicated brief; it wanted to make TOI the No. 1 in Chennai and highlight that it's a new-age newspaper," said Santosh Padhi (Paddy), chief creative officer and co-founder, Taproot India. ( as per the internet )....

Having tried to beleive that the TOI dig was not against them , for a while, finally when Hindu and their agency Ogilvy decided to respond, it came like this....and such a befitting reply... The war is just on ! fierce and straight on the face but keeping themselves within the legal boundaries of what is allowed. The advertisement indirectly ( well on an after thought I would so, not so indirectly,) takes a jab at low quality of news covered by Times of India and how their readers severely lack important knowledge.....DIG DIG DIG !

While I am not much in favour of comparative advertising, this one has a flavour.. whether the TOI and Hindu readers like their news papers on not, the ad viewers are liking it...

and the print war is here...................

Wimpy's - perfect communication !

2012-01-17T12:54:00.000+05:30

In South Africa, restaurant chain Wimpy is welcoming blind customers -- by serving them burgers with words in Braille spelled out on their buns with sesame seeds…. So what you must be saying only if you do not know how tough is it to make buns with Braille letters made out of sesame seeds.

Fast-food advertising has always been heavy on the gimmicks and envelope-pushing… But then this one (even though it can be called a gimmick) is really touching and path breaking particularly keeping in mind the fact that this tactic isn’t always successful.

After viewers took its as a blatant case of transgression, in Johannesburg, a fast food chain Nando’s had to pull a cheeky ad campaign last year that featured dead dictators sharing a meal.

For clear reasons but this Wimpy’s work for the visually impaired is getting a far better reception. The ad itself claims that the 15 people who ate the burgers spread news of their experience to 800,000 others through Braille publications and organizations.

In the U.S., some fast food eateries offer Braille menus. Those who don’t must offer to read the entire menu to blind customers in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Not many places are that disabled friendly as the US is and such an ad makes a lot of difference to promote the whole and noble idea of disabled friendliness to people who are able.

Kudos to the ad agency – Metropolitan republic and the entire team … such ads give a hope that the era of good creative married to be the best of media of a given time is still on..

Google Chrome - Real which is REAL !

2012-01-04T10:33:00.004+05:30

Keeping its global communication philosophy, ‘The web is what you make of it’, intact, Google Chrome has made a new TVC with a unique concept. ( may be for the first time for a clutter infested Indian TG )… The TVC brings out the physical manifestation of the whole process of making a website, getting more traction on it and ultimately making it a commercial success.

The plot of the TVC takes cue from the real life story of G Rajendran, an artist who turned into a businessman, in the process of resuscitating the dying art form seen in Tanjore miniatures. The first sequence shows G Rajendran sitting all by himself, disheartened that the miniatures around him are not getting the importance they deserve. In the next sequence you see him browsing over the net for instructions on how to make a website. The unique bit is that you get to see the web as if it were in a metaphysical state.

While he remains involved in making the Tanjore paintings, the next task for his website is to get more traction, hence a search for the right ways to do that which brings out the concept of adding the right keywords to enhance search options for your website. The TVC rightly captures his smile in the next sequence where he makes his first online sale and evolves from being an artist to a businessman. The TVC closes with the last frame that says, ‘The web is what you make of it’.

That is what I got from the net while I searched for what the ad makers had to say about the ad. Thanks to my dear ex-student and Passionate Ad man Priyank vaghela who shared this story with me for the first time. Now this ad is amusing for me also because the hero of the ad – Mr Rajendran- the artist who made use of the web for his business- also happens to be father of my another ex-student- Mr Sunil R . I am told that Sunil is behind this web-experience of his father and the brain behind his transformation from being JUST and artist to an artist and a business man.

This ad amuses me also because it is a brilliant work – be it the uniqueness in its conception, be it the search and identification of a real life success story or be it the execution of the idea with great music and construction. To convey factual stories from the real life of people who have used internet fantastically well and used the seamless opportunity it has to offer is simply a great advertising platform. Testimonials work when they are REAL and REAL is real only when it is REAL. People can see through the real and the fake which pretends to be real.

Kudos to BBH and the whole team… and to Sunil and his dad – three cheers !

CREDITS

Client: Google Chrome

Agency: BBH India
Managing partners: Paul Ward, Partha Sinha, Raj Kamble, Subhash Kamath
Creative director: Russell Barrett
Creative team: Nikhil Panjwani, R Venkatraman, Kunal Sawant, Malhaar Rao
Planning: Sanjay Sharma
Account management: Arvind Krishnan, Rajeev Roy
Agency producer: Sushma Joseph
Production house: Eeksaurus
Director: E Suresh
Music: Shri Sriram

Herezie - Balls they care !

2011-12-22T15:09:00.001+05:30

Herezie. Voted best young agency of the year.......says this ad and hence the picture needs no explanation. And if in case it needs -then this Ad is not for you and just move on ! I had been in a self imposed exile for long now and Adformula hence was off air. I know that not many people missed it , not many did not even notice it and hence I could relax.

Thanks to my friend and Ad persona Ivan Raszl currently the GM @WebMediaBrand for having bought this ad to my attention.when I saw it bingo ! that was the spark to re start Adformula.. Now I have Balls enough to rejuvenate my blog.

It is rare to see agencies advertising about and for themselves and even when they do it would be subtle and sombre. Some of them really crack the whip and make many an eye balls go topsy-turvy like this one Old timers may remember the Mccann Ad where Jesus HIMSELF sits and chooses from among all the logos offered to him..... Herezie is different not only for the balls they showed ( .....oops... I mean literally and metaphorically ) but also for the strikingly simple and yet path breaking creativity on display. Kudos for that part.

Yes the nudity and the BALLS factor do hurt me ( well it kinda pricks me ) as a father and as some one who likes clean advertising but then I wouldn't be outraged . Rarely does Adformula talks diplomatically but then this case , for me the ideation and execution looks brilliant and yet it pricks...

An Ad is made to talk to its TG and this case it should be the clients- existing ones and the prospective ones and one must say that they really do a simple job and a clear job . As long as the ad didn't Prick the TG nothing matters !

Cheers !

Credits

Advertising Agency: Herezie, Paris, France

Executive Creative Director: Andrea Stillacci

Copywriter: Jean-Laurent Py

Art Director: Sebastien Boutebel

Agency Producer: Evelyne Luce

Head of planning: Luc Wise

Art Buyer: Laurianne Dula

Retoucher: Antoine Mairot

Airtel - rocks !!!

2011-08-22T16:08:00.000+05:30

.......truly a new gen ad.. I am loving it...

World Environment Day Poster contest .....

2011-05-28T20:14:00.001+05:30

So creatives, ad agencies and friends.. what are you waiting for? Rush in with your entries and win exciting prizes,,,

Idea and Abhishek - 3 is a crowd !

2011-05-03T10:39:00.000+05:30

From the mass leader and sarpanch to the Xian father and tree saver, from the mass to the class and from the 'no idea then get idea man' to this one, the Junior B has made a long journey by now selling an Idea to change lives.. His life would have changed for sure considering the fact that he is taking home a fortune for being the endorser.. No doubt that the small B easily fits in with Idea positioning as a hip and popular with the crowds guy... but I guess this new work by Lowe - Mumbai is a bit too much of a question mark on the tolerance level of the average viewer.....

As some one remarked in facebook, now the 3 of them as if one was not enough !

Adfunda - Positioning condundrum - Part 1

2011-04-25T15:37:00.000+05:30

Brand positioning is like Romance....You can influence someone's thoughts and feelings, but you cant make that some one fall in love with you...In brand positioning and in romance your job is to be consistent, dependable and persuasive.... If you do right things long enough, if you have targeted the right audience and if competition hasn't punched on your nose, you should achieve your goal...

A dove is a dove and whatever noise others make it has all the necessary points of parity to be a soap and hence a category membership and such strong points of difference to make all the difference...

Another example I have always got amused is the one of Sunkist which said "An orange is an orange … unless it says Sunkist." The real genius of Sunkist is how they positioned their brand by depositioning all other oranges that don’t have a Sunkist label on them as being something less than a Sunkist orange... Not that Oranges do care in a normal case but such a positioning would have given the OTHER Oranges a feeling of inferiority for sure....

So..... finding out ways by which you can be different from competitors (maintaining the POP elements for category membership BUT ALSO focusing on the POD at the same time) — in ways that your customers want, can connect to and can really appreciate – is positioning. When you position your brand you (supposedly) are demonstrating a significant why-buy-from-me advantage over the other brand options that your customers have…..You can fill a specific need of the buyer which others can fill as well, but then only you can do the way the buyer wants…

But when you produce oranges- how different can yours really be from those being grown behind your home…? How different can be your gold from the vendor’s opposite the road? Do you mean it when you claim that you have added minerals in your canned water ? How different are your branded tyres from others…(that use the same rubber)? Do you really have the bio-cool in your Air conditioners which you so blatantly advertise?.. and even if you have , does the buyer care? What meaningful differentiation can banks and such services (that all look and behave the same) have and then position on it…?

At the functional level, products and brands can position themselves in lot many a platforms…

• Pricing strategies

• Shipping/delivery services

• Post-sale services

• Product features/benefits

• Pre-sale process

• Promotional tie-ins, sponsorships, community goodwill

• Product quality

• Support services

• Guarantees/warranties

• Packaging

• Cultural symbols etc etc

It is not cake walk .. but then that is the crux of Marketing…. If it was a cake walk, then every student facing campus interview would get through the best of jobs….Every guy would have had a successful romance to tell… Every brand would have remained in the top of the ladder....

Ask the guys at Axe who came up with"Snake Eel Shower scrub with desert minerals+Cactus oil " as ingredient and hence the differentiator in one of their produce, as to how easy was the entire job........

Tail Piece: 'Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad and spoiling it'.

Happy Easter !

2011-04-23T23:13:00.001+05:30

Adformula wishes all its readers a joyous Easter,,, !

A huge thanks to Arabind and team Tamarind events @ Kochi for the pic....

Docomo - the new silly !

2011-04-19T10:52:00.001+05:30

I have been teaching marketing and Advertising for quite some years now.. Even yesterday I was waxing eloquent about the first mover advantage and the like… Does Marketing theory anywhere talk about a last mover advantage? If not I guess its time that some one makes a theory of it and about it… Seeing DOCOMO doing a new every time, I feel like being the last to enter (in spite of all the barriers and scope of falling into a clutter) has its own merits as well…

Much has been written and blogged (already) about how the timing ( IPL and the world cup), about the charm and personality of Ranbir Kapoor, India’s young and fastest-rising Bollywood icon and how he is Refreshingly Different and hence all fit and perfect match for the brand persona… Much has been said (again) about how this ad reminds us of the great stand up comedians like George Carlin and our own Raju Srivastava ..I doubt that part though !

Ranbir for sure has a charm which is unique to him and his style and wit simply gels perfectly with the selling idea ‘keep it simple… silly ’. Among all the brands he now endorses ( and that includes Hero Honda (from February, 2011), John Player, Nissan, Virgin Mobile, Pepsico and Panasonic

India

)- this one seems to be a perfect endorser personality – brand personality fit . It focuses mostly on how Tata DOCOMO make things easier for the average telecom consumer, by providing differentiated products and services (?) …Again I doubt about the so called perfection that this guys offer.. To my knowledge all of them are the same…..

Each individual advertisement starts by illustrating a complexity in the category, and presents the Tata DOCOMO product and/or service as a means of simplifying things… as of now, this series of ads are simple and silly… and hence reaching where it is actually intending to… the viewers minds… !

Three cheers !!!

The Fun Gun !!!

2011-03-19T10:41:00.000+05:30

A guy walks into a shoe store and asks for a pair of shoes, size 8. The obviously well trained salesman says, "But sir, you take an 11 or eleven-and-a-half."

"Just bring me a size eight."

The sales guy brings them and the man stuffs his feet into them and stands up in obvious pain. He turns to the salesman and says, "I've lost my house to the bank for default bank loan.... I live with my mother-in-law, my daughter ran off with my best friend, and my business has filed bankruptcy."

"The only pleasure I have left is to come home at night and take my shoes off."

Have fun people... Its a week end again....

The Fun Gun !!!

2011-03-12T11:39:00.000+05:30

Wishing some fun during the week end with or without Grandma's that is ...!

BigRock.com- absolute stuff for absurd businesses ...!

2011-03-10T14:29:00.000+05:30

Most of us have business ideas and want to start off something or the other. The rare ones who dare to do, want a website as well.. Even toddy and arrack shops have websites and that is what BigRock.com seems to be playing for.

The internet domain registration brand BigRock.com of late commenced a noisy integrated campaign to further its services of personalised web presence solutions… and that too in a category where Noise and being Loud is kind of unheard of.

The television commercials feature people talking about their strange businesses - a recovery agent boasting of ground-breaking ways to recover money from debtors, a lady talking about her maid training institute, a businessman talking of his nut making company, and an acting school called 'Rambo Acting Classes' and so on….

Eying an early mover advantage or the prime player plus (as I call it) , this guys seems to be reassuring business men (small business men & entrepreneurs mainly ) that structuring a website is not rocket science and hence does not require large sums of money or time…. Moreover the strategy to unleash some disruptive communication so that at the end of it all, people will equate website creation to Bigrock.com , seems to be quite laudable at least for the time being…

BigRock.com is part of the $300+ million Directi group,( an info for those who care) did appoint Mediacom as its media buying partner and assigned the creative duties for its ongoing multimedia campaign to Ideas@Work -a creative shop. That was two months back and with an outlay of 10 crores INR (I still don’t know how to type an INR symbol) this fiscal towards advertising spends, this hungama was bound to happen. Now ideas @work ( true to its name) is successfully entertaining us with this four films with humour as its DNA .It for sure has helped in sales of the service in the short term but will help in achieving category leadership and brand leadership for BigRock.com as well.

These ads seems to recognize the basic insights like :-

MOST people are not aware of the price at which a website is available. ( No…….. I do not mean the hi flying , hi society living Ad brains type) &

The ads have a straightforward proposition and combined with humour the proposition is more memorable.

One negative stuff I found in some reviews is that the ads could have been funnier with slightly more absurd, slightly more illusory jobs and businesses… That is one feel I have as well ,given my love for deadpan humour ..

It is certainly the GoDaddy.com strategy that the GoDaddy guys used in the US, and successfully well. Godaddy of course had more humour, (and more dirty stuff that was not that good for family viewing) more stupid jobs and businesses and most importantly it gave real products with real value and less of hidden costs..

The last part I doubt in this case ( BigRock.com) going by the reviews that I read in the net… In spite of all good ads and clutter breaking, if you are in the business of making some quick bucks at the expense of long term band building, then God save your business…

Three cheers !

Credits:-

Direction :- Sanju Ayappa

Production :- Footcandles ..

The team -Roy Abraham, Joshua Newnes, Mahesh Gorde

and ideas@work co-founders Prashant Godbole and Zarvan Patel.

Part 2 of Scene I , take I....

2011-03-08T12:52:00.001+05:30

Continued from Part I .......

Tril was supposedly a path breaker with Endura007 which cleaned the clothes, killed germs and gave sparkle like no one else did… It still wasn’t sinking into the jug head Indian buyers mind set that India and its dirty clothes needed German help to sparkle… The Indian detergent market was not the same like Europe from where Tril came from if it was P&G ‘s Ariel which ruled the charts , in US it was Tide and no Ariel would be available… definitions of premium varied and so did the varieties of Tide or Ariel that one got in their respective markets

The Rs.5,700 crore detergent market in India which is segmented into two product categories - powder and cake was one tough nut for Tril to crack….. Sub categories like concentrates/compact (variants of Surf, Henko, Ariel), premium (variants of Surf, Henko, Ariel), mass premium/mid price (Rin, Mr.White, Tide and regional brands) and popular (Nirma, Wheel, Chek) made it difficult for the brand managers and the advertising agency to decide where to enter and where exactly to position. Tril after careful analysis decided to take the mass premium category and that is why this actor from the south was chosen to come all the way and dip dirty clothes, take them out and show ho it sparkles…research said she had the appeal… she was loved by the mass and yet had a premium appeal… she looked premium and yet was mass like material…

The first Tril advertising (launch ad) which Ram and co had made with no famous star in it had shown the offer of this unnamed product for maximum whiteness effect…. The sparkle and the clean which no one else did gave,….. The house wife tries the product and lo and behold, she gets the promised whiteness. After which the product's brand name appears from heaven as Tril….

The competitor was not to be left behind…. He had to prove that this unnamed detergent powder that is offered for trial does not provide that super whiteness and even if they do the unnamed new fellows cannot be trusted…. And they showed a lead female actor who wore cotton saree to look like an ordinary bharathiya nari waxing about the super whiteness of the time tested age old brand while unnamed detergent gets pushed to the background by a group of women talking about the excellent performance of the old brand…

What could Tril do but get another star to counter propaganda..? And the research luckily agreed to the very obvious… get the competing star to kill the other one….

The phone rang again….

Hello … said Ram….

Hey Ram…. We are on the way… said Guru….is everything ready?

Ram didn’t say YES… it was understood that when the unit was there since early morning they would be ready and tired of waiting….

Ram let out a huge sigh of relief … he had his plans for the ad shoot and release… had to rush back to Chennai after the post shoot works… had other brands in his kitty competing for his attention… The life of a client service director was in soup… the more clients in his kitty the more was the confusion… the bigger ones got the better attention and the smaller ones were never happy with that fact of life… the bigger ones weren’t happy either with the divided attention that they got… after all they paid through their noses for listening to them at least ,full time…

The phone rang again….

Hey Ram ..said some one… this time it was not Guru…

Khurana here… I have sad news for you and Tril…..

What is that? Asked Ram

The other guy is reducing its price by half… said Khurana who was head of the research team back in the Chennai agency office…

That means?… asked Ram visibly annoyed

That means now Kite detergent powder will be available at 23 Rs and not 43… said Khurana…. They call it as the biggest ever consumer advantage transfer…
My foot …..said Ram…..

He knew what it meant to his brand… Tril…. It was a price war that was launched… and quite unexpectedly,,, the whole shoot now became futile an effort.. after all the strategy was to talk about value for the mass premium segment…

A car came and the whole unit stood up….

Like a dream which came true, the star descended from it…

Scene 1 , take 1....

2011-02-28T13:33:00.000+05:30

While John Ford was directing a film for Sam Goldwyn, he fell one day behind the shooting schedule. Goldwyn came to the set and wondered what Ford was going to do to get back on schedule....

Ford asked, "Sam, how many pages a day do you expect me to shoot?"

"About five, I suppose," answered Goldwyn.

John Ford picked up the script, ripped five pages out and said, "Okay. .....Now we're back on schedule.....
***************************************************************

The heroine came late as usual for the shoot and the crew sat there waiting, with no complaints, and even if they had, with no one to hear, it was pointless.... The shoot was for the German Detergent powder TRIL which has Endura 007 ( Now don’t ask me what is that... no questions in stories...) and the heroine, half clad ( again no questions please... she is half clad, regardless of the fact that she is not going to bathe with the detergent but to wash, still have to be half clad and wet, as she is the heroine and was bought to Mumbai all the way from Chennai, (with the client paying through the nose..) will dip dip and dip a dirty cloth into a bucket of water made black and the cloth when lifted will shine – white and sparkling…

Ram was in his humorous best and hence was ok with the fact that the heroine was getting late .Even otherwise it wouldn’t have made much of a difference since Guru was away at the airport to pick up the heroine who was flying from Chennai . She would come, then check into her hotel room and then later come for the shoot. The location was in one corner of the city, the hotel in another area and the airport in some other place.. Mumbai traffic will derail all the plans and the heroine missed the first flight and was taking another flight that could accommodate her, her big mother and her personal make up women who also doubled up as her secretary and chief motivator.

Ram had his mobile singing loud…

Yes Guru tell me… he said

Ram ….. The flight is late… Guru shouted from the other end…. Air traffic congestion….

Not again… said Ram … and when man..? hello hello….

Guru went off air as suddenly as he came and Ram sat there thinking of the expenses that are going to mount up.

Green pepper productions were in charge of the shoot and production works.Ram had chosen them after various faux pas that he had done in the past with various production houses some his choice or the agencies, some the client’s persistence.

Tril had no such insistence except for the director who was of their choice and was a good choice one had to admit...

The phone rang again

Ram Ram…. She has come… shouted Guru..,,, what a beauty ram…. Drop dead gorgeous my gawd….

Shut up you asshole… blurted Ram ….and stop drooling.. come fast…

Come where?... asked Guru… she will go to her hotel now and then come.. You know what she asked me my name… I even told her that before she goes I need to take a pic with her…. and you know what ..she agreed… she even said MY Pleasure…. Ha ha ha … can you believe it?

LORD….. cried Ram…. I can’t believe this … you are true… I can't believe this.. why the hell am I tolerating you….

Ok ok… I know you are jealous…now wait ok…..don’t keep calling… we are going to the hotel and will be busy in chatting … TATA… said Guru as he disconnected the phone…

But… hey… Ram desperately hoped that the guy other side still was there…

All humour had evaporated… Ram stood there burning in the hot sun !!!

To be continued..............>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The Fun Gun !!!

2011-02-19T12:04:00.000+05:30

A woman gets on a bus with her baby. The bus driver says: “That's the ugliest baby that I've ever seen. Ugh!” The woman goes to the rear of the bus and sits down, fuming. She says to a man next to her: “The driver just insulted me!”

The man says: “You go right up there and tell him off...give him what he deserves.. How dare he insults women..... – go ahead, I'll hold your monkey for you.”

Happy weekend folks... !

Adformula

ADVERTISERS’ BIGGEST GAMBLE – WORLD CUP CRICKET !!!

Vipin Nambiar, The Times of India Mumbai

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Part 2 of Scene I , take I....

Scene 1 , take 1....

The Fun Gun !!!

Vipin Nambiar,
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Mumbai