Tag: Tata Safari

  • More to watch

    I’m quite an Aamir hater these days, after his unpalatable sense of humour, and that has prompted me in the past to be a savage critic of most ads that he does. Of course, I really feel that he has not been used correctly, but I have always wondered if I was being objective enough.

    So when I read that Titan has brought out a new TVC as part of its rebranding exercise, I thought it would be an interesting exercise. Do have a look at the TVC here. While the line – Be More is definitely new (though it reminds me of a Nokia commercial) I’d have to differ with the afaqs PR release if it means to say this is a brand new positioning. It is only carrying forward the old ‘Whats your style’ positioning. In fact I dare say that this path starts about here (it might be before, but at least this) and is well on its way towards the latest TVC by this.

    Having said that, the ad has been executed very well. It exhorts you to rise above your daily mundane existence and experiment with life – get down at an unknown station, take tickets to a random town, learn from your own mistakes.. And thankfully even the humour looks good on Aamir- not to resemble your passport photo for more than three months, checking out a girl while meditating and saying ‘Explore’. The ad ends with a reminder of how, during childhood we had so many dreams, and asks you to ‘be born, everyday’

    And so, while the ad theme does remind me of the Tata Safari ad – Reclaim Your Life ad, the usage of Aamir, for once, is great. For a while now Aamir has been reinventing himself regularly, whether it is in terms of the variety of characters he plays, or the style statement of each – Dil Chahta Hai, The Rising, Fanaa, Taare Zameen Par and the latest Ghajini,  each character is unique, and most often, radically different from the earlier avatar. This quality of Aamir fits this ad perfectly, only I feel that some brands have already thought of this before. Remember the Coke series of ads, this Toyota ad featuring Aamir and this one too, which says ‘What role are you playing today?’?

    So what? So nothing, just saying that Titan really hasn’t done anything radical, and if repositioning is the idea, maybe its important to position the brand ambassador differently.

    until next time, tighten

  • Reclamation cost

    If you have been watching the cricket series or i guess, even television in general around this part of the world, you couldn’t have missed a (literally) screaming red Tata Safari asking you to reclaim your life.. I have seen around 3 print advertisements of this, and the copy is amazing, have a look here if you havent seen them yet… in fact i liked the entire concept of’reclaim your life’, i would have even bought the SUV, but it starts at 6.4 lakhs..
    And hence a small issue with the enire concept.. if i do decide to buy that awesome red colored machine, i’d have to take a loan, since old man Ratan doesnt know me from Jack…that leaves me paying off a reasonably big four figure sum as emi.. now assuming that most parts of the machine would be non edible, that necessarily means i have to be working on a salary that allows me to also spend on stuff that i can eat, and wear and all those other things that unfortunately are the hallmarks of civilisation…
    that reminds me of the old joke about the city guy who sees a man sitting by the river, fishing,and asks him whats his daily catch.. then goes on to teach him a thing or two about business, on how he should invest in a bigger fishing rig, get rich, build a processing plant, get richer, start exporting, get even richer and then take a vacation, and maybe go fishing, at which point, the man quietly points out that thats exactly what he is doing now…
    so the point being, if its all about reclaiming life, is buying an SUV worth 6.4 lakhs exactly the best way to start? or maybe i am just not the target audience 🙂

    until next time, wonder if the ad has a disclaimer..