Kitna Deti hai???

Now that the World Cup's over, and the fact that we are seeing less of Waka Waka, it has given me the time to take a closer look at ads once again. This time around I was almost beginning to feel disappointed because, the TVCs being aired at the present, have not really caught my fancy. However, Maruti Suzuki, came to my rescue here, like many places where I have got stranded, and have taken a lift in a Maruti Suzuki car. The ad that I am referring to is the latest TVC by Maruti, which says, 'kitna deti hai?'

Capital Advertisement has made a winner here. I have shouted myself hoarse, in almost all my previous posts saying that a good TVC is not only about mesmerising visuals. It is a concoction of a good storyboard, logical thought flow and good visuals. This Maruti TVC seems to have achieved that perfect mix here. The Maruti was Sanjay Gandhi's gift to India, and since 1984 it has been the quintessential Indian car.

The campaign has three TVCs. One of the TVC shows a scientist of some kind explaining the nuances of a space vehicle to a motley crowd. He gets into jargon and the technical nuances of how technologically advanced the rocket is. He is about to sign off and asks "any questions" more as a formal gesture, than anything else, to which a person (an India) replies, "yes...kitna deti hai?" The question pertains to the mileage that the rocket is expected to give. To me this summarises the thought process of a hud=ge middle class country, called India. In the wake of rising crude oil prices, this question's validity simply cannot be doubted.

For a marketeer, it is very important to tap the pulse of its consumers, and accordingly communicate with them. Maruti has been able to do just that. The average Indian consumer wants it all. He/She wants the looks, the style, the fuel efficiency and also the best price. It is a tricky proposition to decide on the communication platform in such a scenario. Also, if we take a careful look at all the four wheeler ads in the recent past, we will realise that this was a platform that nobody used. While the Hyundais and the Volkswagens of the world have been busy promoting the looks of their cars, the 'fuel efficiency' platform was never really spoken about much. This was a flank that was left unguarded by competition, has Maruti has used it with great elan and gutso. I just have a feeling that from here on, it is going to be a catching up game that the i10s, i20s, Jettas are going to play...

For me, the question always was and always will be, 'kitna deti hai?'!!!

Mobile Services- Truth or Dare??

Folks move over Colas, Beauty Soaps, Chocolates...Mobile is the latest fad (plagarised from the ad of a mobile service provider..that says V is the new ME..ridiculous!!!)

Any channel that I TRY to watch these days are airing a slew of mobile commercials. I, was trying to watch Indian Idol yesterday, bravely braving the idiotic histrionics of a very moronic Anu Malek. It is supposed to be 1 hour programme, with 30 minutes dedicated to Ads, and of those 30 minutes, almost 15 mins were dedicated to Mobile commercials!!

Do not get me wrong here, I am not commenting on the aesthetics or the 'fun' quotient of the ads here..They are extremely aesthetic and damn right funny and sexy!!!Sadly, that is all that ads these days vie for...It is more like a Truth or Dare game...where the odds are very heavily stacked in favour of Dare....

The Docomo Ads show a girl from a conservative South Indian Family showing off her tattoo to her pious mother, who in her typical tamil twang says..'Varry Nice'...One other ad that comes to mind is that of a young disinterested guy getting a job after he has managed with considerable ease to give all the wrong answers..The message in these ads...Hear what you want to hear..Well, I will tell you what I want to hear and I am speaking on behalf of most of the mobile users of this country...I want better connectivity...Do you hear me??I can manage without a caller tune...But I want better network.

To this you will react by saying that this what the ads are trying to convey...Yes that is exactly what my problem is..They are only conveying that...not delivering it...I have lost count of the number of stairs I descend and ascend upon a day whenever my phone rings...I have to go outside into an 'open' area just to be able to hear properly what the other person is trying to say..We have ads showing a grandson playing chess in a moving train with his grandfather who stays in a distant village..All I can say in response is 'HOW THOUGHTFUL'!!. The reality is that in a fairly populated city like Kolkata, the network drops significantly...

We, as consumers, have long been fascinated by the concept of MORE. We want more discounts, more season sales, more channels, more Ads..I think the paradigm is now shifting..That is because now we are already getting more..The focus, I feel, somehow has shifted towards the basic functionalities of a product...So, the fetish for fancy caller tunes is now somewhat getting replaced by the need for better connectivity, which is the most basic requirement fron a mobile service provider...In most mobile commercials this is the message that is being conveyed!!

We as consumers, I believe, prefer to watch fantasy on television..In our everyday existence, we prefer the mundaneness and the predictability...

We want the ads to be funny, sexy, aesthetic and everything that it is now...but we also want the brand to deliver on the very mundane and no frill requirement that it, initially, had set out to deliver..

According to me a brand always delivers on its basic/expected performance first and then on add-ons and not the other way round..and most certainly not on the quality of ads it makes....

Do not play Truth or Dare with us...We do not want the Dare..Give us the Truth, and nothing but the whole TRUTH!!!!

It is time to 'March' ahead!!!!

It is that time of the year, when calculators come out of the drawers, excel becomes the hottest thing ever and tax consultants make obscene amount of money. Yes, you have guessed it right, this is March. A month which has IPL 3, but for once that is not the most important reason behind the importance of this month...To remind you, this is also the month that most of us pay our taxes in!!!!

In this context, getting hold of proper tax saving instruments become very important...Investments are made and declared and we 'donate' our hard earned money with a lot of grudge against the government...Insurance, is a widely used instrument in this period.

Over the last couple of weeks, when I myself have been losing sleep over how to save taxes, have often hit upon the idea of buying insurance policies. It is here that I started thinking about all the ads of various products from insurance companies.

Insurance, is a negative reinforcement product. This means that Insurance is bought to avoid the aftermaths of an unwanted situation, like death, accident, and in most cases taxes. The underlying emotion or sentiment belying an insurance buying decision is fear. We fear that we might not be able to support ourselves financially if the earning member/s of the family are no more there, and hence we buy an insurance policy!!!

Now if we have noticed carefully, none of the insurance ads, with a few aberrations, even remotely speak of this. Insurance ads are mostly feel good ads where a daughter is shown gifting her father a bigger and better car. A grandfather who wants to extend a helping hand to his grandson who is about to trip, is stopped by the father, et al.

There is a reason to it.


Research shows that we, as consumers do not prefer to see negative messages on television. We do not empathise with them. What happens is that we form a very clear demarcation of 'them' and 'we'. If an ad shows a death, we analyze that it happenned or can happen to 'them' (the characters potrayed in the ad) and not us. Also, the average Indian consumer, is pretty egoistic when it comes to his/her family. In the case of insurance, the decision maker is mostly, the earning member of the family, that is largely, the male. If we look carefully, there is a good amount of ego massage that is done by these ads. How? Recollect the HDFC Standard Life "Sar Utha Ke Jiyo: ads.

One aberration in recent times, has been, again, HDFC Standard Life. The ad shows two friends. One is going on a tour, and the other friend is seeing him off tha the airport. They discuss what will happen to the family if the friend does not return from the tour at all. To me, this ad is a very blatant and in your face kind of an ad, that drives home the point without mincing or sugarcoating words. I am eagerly looking forward to the kind of reaction that the ad stirrs!!!

Till that time, I shall continue contemplating on which insurance to buy, how much investments to declare, etc. Ads or no ads..Life, you see, has to 'March' ahead!!!!

Daddy Cool!!!

I have been closely following the latest ads by Provogue...I remember, one of the first messages that they came out with was , " India's coolest dad now wears Provogue". Incidentally, Hrithik Roshan has replaced Fardeen Khan as the new brand ambassador of Provogue....We also know that Hrithik is a dad himself now....

After trying to analyse the message , I realised, that all this while Provogue had been trying to tap the Indian youth with its commercials. Provogue has been pretty succesful in establishing itself as a upper class young brand. Also, in the process, I feel, it was missing out on the 'Daddy' segment.., the just turned daddies of India.

Do people become uncool after they become fathers? This is a question that many ask...Well, now Provogue has the answer. You can be a father to a child and still be uber cool ala Hrithik Roshan.

Provogue has got it bang on with the choice of celebrity. Hrithik's hot propoerty now and he is also a father. Easily the kind of personality that everyone wishes to be. This is important because Provogue's positioning is that of an aspirational brand. Someone who we would like to look like even after we have become fathers.

However, I would be really interested in seeing whether Provogue's strategy of tapping into the segment of consumers on the wrong side of 30, with a slight ponch ans somewhat receeding hairline manages to bring about the desired effect.

Till then, let us all celebrate Fatherhood!!!!

While in Rome, do as the Romans!!

The other day I was just thinking about the changes that have taken place in the advertisements we see, with respect to the way the messages are conveyed. I compared two ads that are very clearly etched in my mind. The first one is of Ajanta Watches (which I think was done by Mudra). It had a music piece by Beethoven playing in the background with a lady playing a very lovable grandma. The point here is the use of Beethoven. The second ad that comes to my mind is that of Pepsi that said, “Yehi Hai Right Choice Baby…aha!” The point here is the use of a strange language.

You might be wondering what the point of relevance here is. Well, what I am trying to say here is the difference in the approach. One ad uses a Beethoven piece and the other ad uses a language medium that is neither Hindi nor English, .at best it is Hinglish (even MS Word does not recognize this word. Mr. Bill Gates, you need to gear up and do better than Windows Vista!!).

Language purists who swear by Webster and Chambers would have gone crazy about the use of such outrageous English!!! Earlier (I still know a couple of people) advertisement professionals used to swear by Bern Bach, and Ogilvy. The use of English was crisp, and very proper. But post 1991, India went through a lot of changes. Earlier, it was unfashionable to say that one went for a Hindi movie!! Arnold, Stallone, Van Damme, Tom Cruise were suddenly in vogue!!! However, Hindi was still the people’s language. The result, the insurgence of a new language, Hinglish (essentially Hindi, with generous dollops of English thrown in). We, in our younger days, took to this language very easily. As a result advertisements also started using them to communicate with us. Hence, today we have an Idea Cellular saying “What an Idea, Sirjee” and Virgin Mobile saying, “Think hatke”.

Here, we (and also, the advertisers and the creative agencies) need to understand what the real purpose of making an ad is. What is more important, to create a brilliant work of art with great visuals and impeccable technique or make an effective ad? The ideal situation is to have both, but then life is hardly ideal! So, we have a Nirma ad which is very in your face, with the word Nirma being mentioned exactly 7 times in a 30second ad and that becomes a huge success and on the other hand, we have a Hero Honda Karizma Ad that has all the ingredients(including Hrithik Roshan) that does not ruffle many feathers. I think the idea here is to help sell the product. In order to do that it is very important to get that connect with the TG, whatever it takes! In today’s world of SMS, we are much more comfortable with brb s (be right back) and dnd s (do not disturb) and btw (by the way). So, to me it makes a lot more sense to speak in the language that people understand.

Someone said and very correctly, “While in Rome, do as the Romans"

A Memory Test!!!

Yesterday, I was going through a very old edition of a magazine (I am a film buff, and I admit I discreetly collected editions of this popular film magazine!). There I saw an old ad. The funny part is that although this ad was almost 15-20 years old, I still remembered it. This was an ad about a detergent soap featuring Deepika Chiklia (for those who cannot relate to the name, she is the lady who played Sita in the TV mega series, Ramayana, along side Arun Govil).

It was here that I decided to recollect and made a conscious effort to remember as many ads that I could, TV or Print or Radio. Very surprisingly, most of the ads that I recollected (I mean I remembered the visuals, the product, the brand and everything else!) were quite old, some of them from the DD days and some from the early phase of the satellite TV revolution in India. I started questioning myself that why is it that I cannot remember much ads of recent times, although they are made in a better way and we have much more access to watching them.

The reasons for this phenomenon are many. I will start with the last line of the last paragraph. We have almost unlimited access these days. This ensures that we see number of ads today. What this also ensures that we watch few of them. The retention has been reduced drastically. We have two different ads running at the same time on two different channels. The result, we flip to the third channel which is airing the favorite K serial. It is this clutter that has possibly reduced the retention capacity of us consumers.

Another reason that I feel is the overuse and in some cases abuse of a brand ambassador. I will ask you a question. Which personality comes to your mind when I say, “Waah Taaj”? Did you say Zakir Hussain, the famous tabla player sitting and sipping tea from a white cup in a flowing white kurta and churidaar against the background of a pristine white Taj Mahal? Yes, you are right. It is the same image that comes to my mind also, when I hear that punch line. Now, another question. When you see, Saif Ali Khan, sitting in the green room of a studio asking his designer to show him the clothes that he is supposed to wear at the fashion show, which brand comes to your mind. Stretch your mind a little more. Can you recollect the tagline? Try harder…No? Giving up? Well, the brand is Taj Mahal Tea from the Brooke Bond Stable of erstwhile HLL. See the difference; we vividly remember the previous ad whereas we try hard to recollect the newer ad of the same brand with the same punch line. I have one reason for this. I will explain this with another question. When, I say, “It’s your life, make it large” which brand comes to your mind. This is easy. Yes you are right. It is Royal Stag. The brand ambassador, hmm, well, Mr. Saif Ali Khan again. The same person, endorsing two kinds of beverages, tea and whiskey. I agree that these two categories do not directly compete with each other. Tea is had in the morning (unless you are a complete teetotallerian like me) while whiskey is normally had in the evenings (unless you are like one of the characters essayed by Mr. Keshto Mukherjee!). However these two segments do compete with each other somewhere else, if not the market. They take each other head on in the consumer’s mind, which in turn percolates down to the market. Similarly, we have an Amitabh Bachhan, Shahrukh Khan, MS Dhoni, et al, endorsing similar, if not the same products and brands.

So, does it mean, that more ads and more channels mean less retention? Not necessarily. It is upto the ad agencies to really decide the mix. Let us study an example. Take Vodafone for example. The pug has become synonymous with the brand and they did not even use the name of a celebrity. Remember, the ad for the LG CDMA phones. It shows a mobile phone on a paper boat, shows how light weight the phone is. It did not have any celebrities or even any models. Or the Fevicol ads or he Chlormint ads. It is the question of effectively getting your message across. Why, even some ads stand out, for example, the Vodafone ads (both the pug as well as the zozoos), and the Sunil Babu ads.

Really, it is upto the agencies to decide what kind of ads they want to show us, the consumers, because, “yeh public hai, sab jaanti hai”!!!