Author: manu prasad

  • Brand or Ambassador?

    India’s success story and the rapid rise of consumerism has resulted in a feast for anybody who comes close to being a popular person. No, I didn’t mean your favourite office peon, what i had in mind was actors, cricketers etc, and the has-beens in those categories too. I even saw Shatrughan Sinha endorsing some TV the other day. Complete with Khamosh and Big B baiting!! So what’s more important – brand or ambassador?

    I’ve always wondered about endorsements and the value they add to the brand. I think there are some categories where rival brands have been used as some sort of proxy battleground for rival stars. Look at the cola battles – SRK and the B family are in the Pepsi camp, while Coke has Hrithik and Aamir. Wonder where Ash is though. She’s been on both sides. There’s also car manufacturers – Aamir for Toyota, SRK for Santro, and the Big and small B for Maruti Versa. The other interesting arena is handset manufacturers. I don’t know if you’ve noticed,  but there’s a neat battle brewing there now that Aamir has been roped in by Samsung, because with SRK pitching for Nokia, and Hrithik dancing to Sony Ericsson tunes, we’re over company phase and into crowd phase.

    Like I said, I’ve always wondered about endorsements. I can understand the endorsements for sports brands by sports people and even John Abraham (reebok did a decent job in Goal too).  I can understand clothing brands and accessories being endorsed by filmstars. I can even understand the cola wars because everything is about an edge over competition. Besides its a commodity. Similar for Abhi B for Idea and SRK for Airtel. Hey, Hutch ne to kutte ko use kiya, phir bhi bik raha tha. What does that say about those two? 😀 I’m on the borderline for Dhoni and Saif for Kurkure and Lays respectively. I thought ‘Whats the prograaam’ did the trick for me and Juhi did a decent job with ‘Kya family hain’.

    But what i really can’t understand is how Hrithik, Saif or SRK can do the trick for Acer, Lenovo and HP respectively. Isn’t that a product which is bought after much research and analysis on features? Will it sell just because it features a movie star? Don’t logic and rationale play a lot of role in the purchase decision? Is that a quality that the filmstars are famous for? Most importantly, these are also increasingly customised purchases, would you really consider a laptop just because Saif features in it (maybe because it recognizes faces, yes, but that could’ve been anybody’s face in the ad).  And honestly, i dont believe in that ‘getting the attention of the consumer’ jazz. If the product is good, its reviews will say so, and will also say so if its not. Similarly for mobile handsets and even cars, though Toyota did a reasonably good job by matching Aamir’s traits with the car. Whatcha think?

    until next time, mera wala paint or saif’s wall color?

    Update: Todays’s (28/03) Times Business carries an article vindicating the post, at least more or less :)… the timing is not by design 😀

  • Youngistunned

    Remember the fun we used to have with the Sprite vs Mountain Dew which used to be so entertaining –  the ‘I want to do’ version that Sprite did in response to ‘do the dew’, in addition to the various fwds it had spawned from ‘Mount and Do’ to ‘Brokeback Mountain – Do the Dude’? We also had the Cola wars with SRK taking shots at Hrithik. Guess what, we have more fun coming our way.

    This blog has already written about Youngistan. Allow me to introduce to you the latest entrant in the Cola-Uncola TVC wars, the all clear Sprite. (thanks to the tip from Balu)

    [youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=0_N-FVryV1I]

    I think Sprite has gauged the public response to the Pepsi ad before taking such a step. I’ve not heard too many good comments about them, online or offline, and this must be a big factor in reviving the ad wars. I guess some agencies are in for sleepless nights trying to outwit each other. In fact these cola wars actually remind me of those UCB-Spring collection type stuff, this summer like the last couple of summers, we have the Pepsi/Coke – Summer 08 ad collection.

    Long before i was made aware of dental problems and pesticides, i used to be a Pepsi guy more than a Coke guy. During the first round of cola wars, I always wondered why Pepsico chooses Mountain Dew to do battle with the Coke products. Pepsi has a perfect weapon in its hand, if only they knew how to use it. What am i talking about? Remember this cool pencil thin character we used to love, he lived ‘cool’ long before cool became cool. These days he’s wasted sitting on elephants or jamming with Mallika Sherawat or relegated to taglines. He’s called Fido Dido. Research apparently says his ads don’t make sense anymore (thats because of the ads silly, not him), and when he does battle against ‘Clear Hain’, I’d want front row seats.

    until next time, youngistan main jashn mana le, clear hain?

  • Ideal

    ..for everyone concerned, is what the new ‘Idea Rocks India’ campaign looked like to me. Idea is taking Shaan to some 20 towns across India, and the contest is giving you the chance to be part of the tour – there is a Voice of Idea contest that allows the winner to sing with Shaan, there’s also a regular IRI contest that alllows winners to get passes for the event.

    Idea is trying to evangelise the online media through at least two efforts here. Firstly, VOI is supposedly India’s first online singing contest. Participants have to enter their recordings online in normal formats. Then the normal process of voting. Secondly, guys who recharge online get a chance to win passes. Meanwhile, there’s also an on ground regular IRI contest which is driven through the mobile platform. While Idea builds brand salience through ground concerts and ets revenues out of the SMS based contest, what is interesting is that except for Delhi, all the others are non metros and tier 2 towns, using the net as a primary medium in such places is quite a good experiment.

    Meanwhile, the entire stuff seems to be hosted on msn (while i saw the ad on yahoo :D). For MSN it is building new traffic as well as content. And what’s more, to listen to the songs one has to download Microsoft Silverlight. That, i thought, deserves a ‘Sirji, what an idea sirji’ 🙂

    And lastly, for Mirchi and Zee, there’s the content.  Additionally, for Zee, Shaan is a good draw and ‘Voice of Idea’ in particular is a good property to be part of, considering Star has ‘Voice of India’ which Shaan himself comperes. Whatte fun.

    Interesting connection – Idea owns a property called Idea Star Singer on Asianet, which is now owned by Rajeev Chandrashekhar, who used to own BPL Mobile, whose only competitor in kerala initially used to be Escotel, which was picked up by Idea. 🙂

    until next time, some ideologies do work

  • Miscellaneous 2.0

    Since 2.0 has been liberally used to portray any improvement/new version, i thought it made a good post headline :). On a sidenote, i even saw ‘Family 2.0’ in a Yahoo study.

    This post is about a few brands that were part of my youngistan days. Of course, unlike these days, none of these brand made any efforts to lure us or even consider us their core audience, the youth were just considered well, young then, and not of any significant value. Why these brands? Because they are attempting 2.0.

    Melody – ‘Melody Khao Khud Jaan Jao’ rings a bell? Well, Melody is back with a new set of ads, using extreme situations to create a contrast with the line ‘Melody itni chocolaty kyun hai?’ One is set in an exam hall, with one student trying to get the attention of another, and finally asking this question in the end. The other had the cliched dark alley scene with a girl being followed, only to end up being asked…. With confectionary companies going way out of the product territory for the ads, Melody can’t be blamed for trying this stunt. It remains to be seen whether the old line still works.

    Flying Machine – I used to love the brand until their relaunch. I would’ve continued to love it if they hadn’t chosen kAbhi B (ready for an endorsement)  as the brand ambassador. Its not just a personal dislike, he’s just so wrong from my percpetion of the brand. I personally think they don’t need an ambassador with a name like that, all they need is to communicate the right attitude, but if they had to, it could’ve been any John (oops) or maybe Hrithik, speaking of whom..

    Cinthol – A long time, that green bar was the only option available, unless of course you wanted to try the sissy  Pears (no offence meant to them, but it was just a perception, and i’m guessing the kind they wanted) or washing soaps. So while half hearted attempts were made with C Fresh,Lime, Deo etc, this time they’ve got Hrithik as the brand ambassador, and a whole new look. He’s right when he calls it an apology for a site. The product also looks very ‘Close Up’ with those three colors, but hey there are only so many colors, i guess. I have only one recommendation, and thats in packaging/ditribution – please stop selling only that lousy four pack combo, and let the customer also have a ‘1/2/3 only option’. Even if you have to sell 4 packs, please have different ones so that i dont have to hate you for making me finish all 4 before i can buy another soap!!

    until next time, me too or me 2.0

  • Knowing the Pulse

    Saw the new Bajaj Pulsar ad? I did too, and exept for the music, it didn’t do too much to me. So i asked a few guys who like bikes how they felt about the ad. And they all seemed to love it, and hence the post.

    Pulsar will never get my attention, only because i am not interested in bikes, but for its target audience, I think it has done a remarkable job. I did a quick google for their website, and found it quite easily, the video is available for download. Good. But what’s great is that they have loaded the video on YouTube and has (the last time i checked) got almost a lakh views.

    Why is it great? Because these are not people who are forced to see it on television because they couldn’t find the remote in time (or are too lazy to flip the channel), these are people who have actively searched for it and then, maybe even forwarded it to their friends. There will also be people like me who went to see where that neat soundtrack came from.

    So, the cynic asks, will it actually sell more bikes, especially if the crowd is made up of people like me you who go there to get a soundtrack. Yeah, i still wouldn’t buy it, but I’d rave about the ad to a dozen friends, I will post about it here (even though this is hardly read 🙂 ), and the bikers who don’t know about this will know about it, and when they consider a bike change (maybe this will make them), they will remember the ad. The price, the mileage, the chips inside, all can be shared through the brochure, but not the soul and passion, and thats where I think, the ad scores. Because the rest have become a commodity, that creates a differentiation. Its a good lesson on how social media/web 2.0 can work for ‘even’ bike companies.

    And they are right, this is how virals get made, sorry happen.

    until next time, pulsating