Category: Advertising

  • Coke and Bull

    At the risk of being questioned about what i had for breakfast or about my recent smoking habits, i have decided to post this absurdity.

    Saw the new Coke ad yesterday featuring HR (no, not the unfriendly department kind or the topi kind, but the Roshan kind). According to agencyfaqs, research stated that a lot of youngsters, after their regular nightlife go to street food joints, thats true for most cities, and since coke goes with most food, that right there, was the thought behind the ad. Fair enough. The line now is ‘Jashn mana le’ as opposed to ‘Piyo Sir, Uthake’ (er, something like that).

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    Meanwhile thats not the absurdity i was talking about. Since HR and Ash are both citizens of Cokistan, how much fun would it be to do an MTV style spoof on the song ‘Jashn -e-bahaar’ from Joe Tha Akbar (copy error, ignore), with a video to match, and use it as a brand ad for Coke?

    For those who have concluded that I’ve lost it, wonder what you’d have thought if i shared the other idea that also involved Celina Jaitley, the brand ambassador for Jashn, an ethnic Indian wear brand.

    until next time, I’ve not been on coke!!

  • Connecting Ads

    A couple of posts back, I’d written about the possibility of brands getting together to make a TVC. And Hallelujah, they’re listening :). Airtel and Nokia (and SRK and Madhavan) have teamed to bring us a combo ad, which though begins as if a lot of people are suddenly having heart attacks, has been done quite well. See, SRK really meant it when he said thoda wish karo. Oh Okay, i was just being mean 😀

    While these were two completely related products (mobile handset and service provider), what I’d like to see is an ad featuring products whose only relation to each other is the target audience they’re aiming at, and the way the brands fit into their lives, either by say, time (Gillette + Kelloggs) or geography (Woodland + Vodafone). Strange, but fun.

    Meanwhile, i read on agencyfaqs that Simply Marry has tried a viral approach to marketing. I had a look at the site, and while the animation and music is pretty decent, i felt the entire concept is too frivolous to become a viral. In fact, I’d like to pitch another thing to them. Why couldn’t they just buy over a property like this, and then start making episodes of these with more and different characters. Meanwhile, also make it multi platform and offer downloads of mobisodes, if the idea is also for 58888 to make money. They can even do an entire reality series based on this and air it on Zoom and Times Now. Even if not a TV reality show, this can be an MMS based mobile reality show. Connect to a Reliance/Vodafone/Airtel or even that insufferable Tata Indicom (free couple available with brand)  and they’d be happy to partner, i guess. Promotion shouldn’t be a problem with the group’s immense newsprint strength. Considering this is a ‘metromonial’ site, I’m sure all these media are toppers in their respective genres. Yes, all except ‘Isko Dekho’, though statistics and niches can be found, i bet.

    until next time, howzzat for connections? 😉

  • Stan is young

    Does that make sense? At least as much sense as Youngistan? Unless you’ve been living in outer space, you couldn’t have missed Pepsi’s latest TVC featuring *hold your breath* *Bhansali meets Farah* a combo package of Bollywood’s latest finds – D Pad and R Kap. Hey, ain’t i allowed to use youth lingo? :D. In fact, if you’ve been in outer space, there are better chances of catching the resident of Youngistan.

    This blog has been a fan of Pepsi, and the blogger had a huge attack of guilt followed by remorse when he equated the earlier work of Pepsi (My can, featuring John and SRK) to some customisable toilet devised by Pepsi. He couldn’t even blog about it till now. But we digress.

    That Pepsi has managed a casting coup of sorts is a no-brainer. But have they been used well? I think not. While Youngistan has a catchy twang to it, the ad per se has a very ‘leave your brains at home’ feel to it. That too would have worked fine, if Pepsi had decided to do a combo spoof on both the movies starring the trio. A sort of ‘Spy Hard/ Hot Shots’ approach to Bollywood. IMHO, its exactly the kind of ad that’ll make the ‘youth’ go ‘Phooey’. I know I am not exactly youth anymore, but hey, remember the Pepsi ’18 till i Die’ commercial, with Amrish Puri? The ad, me thinks, falls in that huge space between the stools.

    So Pepsi, Youngistan sounds cool, can we have a better storyboard please? Apparently, some 30 scripts were rejected before this one, and the idea was to show the ideas that the youth come up with when they improvise on the spot. If this idea is a representative, i fear for the country. Meanwhile, wrt my last post, maybe, just maybe Tata Sky could’ve been co-branded in this ad? 😉

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    pic courtesy : agencyfaqs

    until next time, yeh dil maange more

  • Added Advantage

    I happened to see the new ad of Pizza Hut. Now, I am not very sure if the following is a figment of my imagination, so bear with me. Bappi Lahiri is a brand ambassador now (no, thats not where the imagination comes in). He is the only one visible in the edited version of the TVC, but in a larger version, i thought i saw Hari Sadu and the guy who spells out H A R I. Dont tell me you’ve already forgotten the naukri ad. In fact, the theme of the campaign is on the lines of ‘a happy ending’, and keeping with that Hari Sadu offers the guy his job back and apologises.

    Like i said, I’m not sure if i’m factually right (in case anyone from Pizza Hut is reading this, yes, then i will know this blog is getting somewhere, please clarify), but it does throw up a lot of interesting opportunities for brands to work together on a commercial, if they have a similar audience to reach. I think this commercial has used the equity of Hari Sadu brilliantly. Its a bit like K Jo bringing back characters from his earlier movies (remember the star counting sardar kid of KKHH in K3G. hey, why isnt KJo getting sued?) except in this case, these are different unrelated brands.

    Think of the possibilities. In a slice of life scenario, the number of brands that could appear contextually is enormous, imagine a scenario of the morning rush to office, from the shaving blade to the cereal breakfast to the soap to the apparel and accessories, to the vehicle to the radio station listened to on the way and everything in between, everything is a brand. And so, brands share the cost and come up with interesting, funny etc storylines that fits the ethos of all brands concerned. What do you think?

    and until next time, have you seen the times jobs version of Hari Sadu?

  • Impositioning

    No, thats not an opposite, more a reminder of the days in school when we were made to write a spelling or a multiplication table multiple times in a bid to make us memorise it. Can’t remember if it worked, though the Bart Simpson version of imposition during the Simpsons titles works for me 🙂

    But we aren’t a sitcom blog, so the blog title refers to the stance taken by a lot of brands as far as positioning goes. While i do not even contest the importance of positioning during the launch of a product, i definitely argue on hanging on to a positioning, especially if it is in the form of a tagline. This is an era in which brands are being forced to re-consider their existence strategy on the face of a changing media and user landscape, and to carry on a love affair with a tagline might be absolute harakiri.

    My favourite examples of  brands which have reinvented itself consistenctly, and been succesful at it would be Pepsi and MTV. Pepsi was cool when they made iconic lines like ‘Yehi hain right choice baby’, ‘Yeh Dil Maange More’ , ‘Nothing Official about it’, and they’re still cool when they make Shah Rukh an ‘uncle’, even though some people refer to it unfairly as an ad for SRK’s and John’s toilets. MTV was hot when Nonie (sigh) used to be around, and still is er, with Cyrus ;). The difference between the two youth brands is that while pepsi could not change the product, and has to resort to positioning and packaging and other innocations like say, gaming to keep being cool, MTV had the liberty to change content to suit a changing young generation, but both have done a commendable job without hanging on to lines for too long.

    Look around, and you’ll see taglines which are redundant, and ones which cause more harm than good. This is a case in point. I wish the energy and time spent on evolving catchy taglines would also be spent on making better products and delivering better service. Rather than trying to impose a certain point of view on the audience’s mind by repeating catch phrases for years, wouldn’t it be much better to deliver a good product/service and communicate it effectively in the right context?

    And yes, the reason Bart’s imposition works for me is because he changes it in every episode and still keeps it funny. He evolves.