Category: Advertising

  • Born tough, but advertising ruined me

    Change. Thats exactly what I’d like those Ceat guys to do about their campaign. After their TVC started airing, it took me this post to understand exactly what they meant by the ad, because I was too busy trying to figure out what was happening to notice the logo change. Also happened to see more from the same family like this, this, and this. Just because change is a constant does it mean you have to force it to happen? Couldn’t see anything wrong with a positioning like ‘Born Tough’, unless of course they either hired a new marketing head or a new agency, who, by now would wish they had the original rhino’s thick skin judging by the reviews I’m reading online.

    I wish someone could’ve explained by now what exactly has changed and why, because if i happen to see that guy on the road, I just might dip my hand into the wallet and offer him some….. change. I wonder why they didn’t tie up with TOI for their Chennai launch, after all the campaign said ‘Next Change’. The possibilities just go on – the guy sitting on a beach and the super going ‘Sea Change’, CEAT changing the model, and the old guy walking with a tee saying ‘Ex-change’, and so on.

    For a product like tyres, wouldn’t it be better if they concentrated on the product, retail and distribution, and talked about its benefits rather than talk about change. After all, the category that the brand operates in should be kept in mind before deciding on communication strategies. This kind of stuff begs something similar to that old KF-Jet-Go Air jpeg that made its rounds. In this case, MRF coming out with something on the lines of ‘No Change. Still the best’.

    Oh damn, now i can see the banner ads on rediff too!! Like the author of the post i mentioned earlier suggested, by this token, a tee should end all concerns regarding a brand’s identity change. And continuing with his take on ambient ideas, here’s one, while driving on a mountain road, you see a theatre playing ‘Darr’. A little way ahead, you see another theatre, guess what movie is playing there?

    until next time, tough luck

  • Bubble 2.0

    This could be called a misleading title, since it doesn’t have anything to do with the doomsday messages for web2.0, but working in a tabloid sometimes has its effects.

    I’d written earlier on how a few of yesteryear brands were staging a comeback of sorts. Cinthol was one of them, and I’d written how the website just wasn’t happening. Well, according to this, they’ve just done a revamp.

    I’m not going to get into the review of the site, this captures it well, though a bit harshly šŸ™‚ , since i thought the execution by Interactive Avenues was decent, if not great. To begin with, lets take a look at the rationale – ā€œGodrej wanted us to create a platform where the youth could find out about Cintholā€™s brand values and which they would find entertaining enough to continue their interaction with the brand. In simple words, ā€˜take the real life freshness and energetic Cinthol experience onlineā€™.ā€

    While I agree that the digital medium is definitely worth every praise it gets, and the youth does connect to it in a major way, does it mean that every brand, irrespective of its category, mode of distribution, value proposition to the user etc jump onto it, without a real clue on the tangible gains that can be derived?

    Back to Cithol, this is only Phase 1, according to the article, tie ups with Yahoo, rediff, Zapak etc will generate site traffic. No social media for now. Phew! Assume (for now) that they have content in place, how much of an impact does a communication of brand ethos online and a few games have on really buying the soap/deo offline? I’m really not convinced about ‘Dude, that flash game was cool, let’s buy the soap’. Unless the idea is to start a dhobi ghaat, there is a limit to what community building can be expected to achieve.

    Meanwhile, there’s another bubbly player, according to this article. Even though the article says that the site design is not exactly excellent, at least in the case of Surf Excel there is a possibility of finding a tangible connect between stain removing methods online and buying the product offline. But they seem to have gone to the other extreme by forcing users to give addresses, and thereby standing a good chance of er, staining the relationship.

    I personally think that brands have to take a long look at their objectives before they ride the bandwagon.

    until next time, daily soap

  • Citi Zen

    There are a couple of Citibank ads that started appearing late last year. I haven’t been able to find it anywhere on the net, finally gotĀ one of theĀ storyboards here.

    This one shows a ‘home’ scenario where a woman complains to her husband about how his brother (Amar)Ā has brought his financialĀ planner to meet their father. The husband is very happy that his brother has become responsible, but the wife feels that the brother is eyeing their business. Later, the father says that since Amar has become smart in finance, and should handle their new factory. While the brother is happy with it, his wife is shown fuming.

    There’s another office scenario where a junior is shown to become smarter and is offered a new project, while a colleague warns his senior that he is trying to leap over him. The ads are only meant to convey that after using Citibank’s services, a person becomes smarter in his finance. I’ve seen a few comments on the net which don’t appreciate the execution/storyline of the ads, but i have a different view of it.

    Set in the context of a corporate/domestic life that has an abundance of back biting and ‘success at any cost’ mantras, and product and brand communication that has no qualms about accepting it that way and portraying it too, it shows a person who’s confident enough about his own skills to not feel threatened and is magnanimous enough to be happy about another person’s growth. To me, that’s a value statement in itself, and a refreshing one at that. I really don’ t know if it is by design, even if it is not, I (also) read it that way.

    until next time, efficacity

    Meanwhile, the cola wars are back, its Youngistan vs Thums up. Catch the videoĀ here (courtesy this)

  • On the right track

    Saw the new Fastrack TVC on air –Ā  Shut up and Move On, but I didn’t see it there first. Fastrack is a brand whose communication i try to follow, simply because i feel that somewhere they’ve got the pulse right.Ā  Of course by doing that, they also end up making customers who don’t fall in their TG demographics (me, for example :D), but thats fine so long as they keep their TG is happy.

    So when i read here that a new campaign was on, i googled for the new TVC. Couldn’t find it, and then suddenly remembered that Fastrack is also on Twitter, and knowing the way they’ve been updating, I was sure I’d find a link, and i did. And that’s what’s cool about Fastrack. Not only do they get their communication right, they also experiment extremely well on platforms like Orkut, Facebook and Twitter, which means, unlike the usual lip service that’s done regularly by brands, this one’s actually interested in social media. Even their website seems to be on a wordpress platform.

    A search for fastrack on Orkut would throw up quite a few pages with dozens of fan clubs, the largest one having more than 23000 members. Facebook has a few pages and at least 2 fairly large groups. Around 70 followers on Twitter. Just goes to show how well it can work when a good product is also a brand that is willing to have a conversation with its customers.

    Even their regular communication smacks of attitude. I remeber a print ad that had a ‘No conditions apply’ with the image of a bull sitting on a closet between ‘no’ and ‘conditions’. Liked it so much that i checked the sale out, and thats how i bought my first Fastrack watch. So Fastrack’s brand manager, take a bow šŸ™‚

    Coming back to this ad, it is apparently targeted at singles between 15-25, and has an underlying theme of the generation’s penchant for instant gratification and variety seeking. While they have weaved in Fastrack quite well into a good storyline, i really didn’t like this one as well as say, this, but i think that’s more a problem with the basic premise rather than execution. The basic premise being the promotion of superficiality, especially in relationships. Yup, it perhaps is just another sign that I’m really not the TG šŸ˜‰

    until next, don’t SUMO , have your say

    PS. Meanwhile, the other blog celebrated 5 years of existence yesterday šŸ™‚

  • Who let the dog out?

    When Vodafone took over Hutch,Ā many were concerned about the pug. But this put everyone’s concerns to rest. However, a lot of communication after that was dogged aboutĀ its non – pugness. But suddenly, in the middle of perhaps the biggest media event in oh, okay a couple of months – IPL, the pug decided to make its return with what possibly might be regarded as a CSR initiative – to tackle Alzheimer’s? Of course, it could also be a CCR inititaive. Don’t worry, you’re not out of jargon touch, I just made that up – Customer Care Response :D. Now that’s really making the most out of now. No, the hatred is not so much forĀ the ad as it is for theĀ frequency. In fact, the music is extremely good.

    My queries – even though the pug’s popularity reached dizzying heights (so much so that the only thing missingĀ was a Bharat Ratna) how important is it in the Hutch communication plan? More importantly, is it okay to use it on and off?Ā Would that kind of random usage amount to inconsistency in communication?

    On a larger plane, if media in general keeps getting fragmented, how relevant would consistency be across platforms/media. Would it be better to have a core idea with different manifestations across media or would the idea be dictated by the medium? LikeĀ i wrote a while back, going by the current trend (in India) the former seems to be the strong favourite.

    But if the audience differ across media, isn’t it better to communicate something that’s contextually more relevant, even if it means sacrificing consistency? Does the audience really have time to sit and analyse that theĀ communication i saw on the net differs from the one on tv with respect to tone/ objective/ any other parameter. I really don’t think so, especially since the internet will force brands to give up control.

    And that brings me back to Hutch – on the same media, targeting the same audience, with no contextual crutch, perhaps consistency is important.

    until next time, a pugilist for the cause of giving up control šŸ™‚