Daag and the be-daag commercial in the last one month

First of all, i would like to say sorry for writing in after a long hiatus. I was, as the Englishmen would say, ‘under the weather’. I hope to write more regularly going forward.

This post is going to be a short, sweet and a bitter one.

Two commercials during the last one month caught my attention every time they played on the TV. Both have kids as the central character. But that’s where the similarity ends.

The surf excel commercial should rank as one of the darkest ‘daag’ in the annals of HUL advertising. Forget grown ups, my five year old daughter was miffed by it. The TVC shows a boy trying to make her teacher happy whose dog had died. Nothing wrong with the intention but what was shocking was the boy actually tying the collar belt and imitating the dog. And the shocker comes when the teacher encourages the act and therefore becomes happy by throwing the ball at the ‘dog’. Disgusting!

Surf excel will take a long time to get this ‘daag out of it.

The bitter after taste of the Surf Excel was more than made up by the sweet and its-about- time-somebody-did-it commercial of Nestle Milky bar.

One of the overlooked insights of the new age society has been the fact that kids today do not have open spaces to play. And on the other hand the Idiot box and the gaming consoles have made sure the kids remain indoors. Its funny that no brand associated with Kids have actually encouraged Kids to play and enjoy the outdoor. Mind you, the outdoor will always be in the script for most of the scripts but not used as a motive to drive home the point.

And that’s where Nestle Milky Bar scores. It dares, it challenges today’s kids to shun the TV and computer and play in the outdoor. Executed skillyfully (i loved the frame where the kid on cycle shows off his band aid proudly), the commercial strikes the right chord.

My only wish was this was for a malted food drink (healthy) than a chocolate (perceived unhealthy)

This commercial reminded me of a popular cartoon network (forget the name) which went off air for one full day in US. The screen showed a message which said go out and play! That’s a classic example of truly caring for your audience!

What a borrowed idea sirjee!

I had recently chanced upon an rendition of the Idea's 'walk the talk' campaign. The agency in question had done a 'successful' out of home execution of the likable walk the talk campaign.



It showed a couple actually walking the talk in execution in neon. Smart work but unfortunately borrowed work for me personally.

Hutch had done something similar years back when it was the title sponsor for the Delhi Marathon. It actually went a step further on executing the idea of 'delhi is getting ready for the marathon'. it actually installed a physical treadmill on a hoarding and got people jogging on the same between a time period every day!

terrific way of driving the point home. I am also remined of a brilliant direct marketing initiative that hit the bulls eye for the same campaign. In order to drive hot shots register for the event, Hutch sent across a Reebok shoe (minus the other pair) with a invite saying - if you like to complete the pair, register for the event!

What an idea sirjee!

Happy to Help: The Aircel way

Ask any marketing manager his biggest challenge in a service industry. The answer nine times of ten would be delivering Customer satisfaction. For a telecom brand, it’s a matter of life and death. With churn (customer switching) highest in this segment, it becomes very important for a brand to be seen not only delivering on the promise but also come up innovative ways of ‘helping’ the customers at large. Vodafone is currently all over the channels with its ‘HAPPY TO HELP’ series of commercials. (And yes, finally my fear has been laid to rest. The pug has not been zoozooed. Yet). A total of four TVC are doing the circles. Sugar coated advertising. Nothing else.

So does advertising esp. when it comes to talking of customer service delivers on the promise when it comes to on ground execution of solving customer’s problems. Not sure. The Jury is still out on this.

On the other hand, Aircel which is a new entrant (till now a south specific brand) in Mumbai struck a chord with the Mumbaikars. Anybody familiar with the Mumbai rains will know how the city gets clogged and the harrowing time which the commuters have to go through. Milan subway is one such place which is notorious for get inundated with every shower.

Aircel got an inflatable rubber dingy on a hoarding near Milan subway in the first week of July with a message saying cut the rope in case of an emergency.

And on 15th July, it rained heavily and the dingy came down. Trained Aircel staff braved the rains and helped commuters throughout the day.

This effort of Aircel might or might not have increased sales.

But, what stands out for me from this case are three important lessons for advertisers.

1. There are enough avenues where a brand can contribute to the society meaningfully, which at the same time aids in tremendous brand recall. These avenues as in the case of Milan subway might not look appealing from a branding perspective but adds tremendous value if one looks at them with an open mind.

2. There is no point in doing frivolous stuff appealing to a niche audience on ground. A lot of brands are guilty of this and the culprits are the agency in most case that is after metals. Hutch and Ogilvy are a case in point with the rangashankara festival in Bangalore.

3. Meaningful CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) should be a must on every brand manager list.

Oh My GOD!!

Perhaps the best campaign ever made for a brand everyone wants to believe in but few do.

The Church association in Singapore had a problem on hand. People coming into church for the sunday mass was dwindling. Its seemed as if God had become passe therefore couldn't be seen as somebody who could 'solve' your everyday problems. The stress and toil of everyday life seems to have taken man away from God.

The brief therefore was to reach out to the masses in a witty and approachable manner. The result was an incredible campaign done by Ogilvy & Mather (who else) Singapore office. Since there are strict laws on religion advt in singapore, the campaign was banned within a week by the govt resulting in people wanting to know more about GOD!

The creative was kept very simple. No Visuals. Just typo on a black background. These were upon billboards, stations, buses, etc., in its original form.

I am listing down a few on which i could lay my hands on. Enjoy this once in a life time work.

And this is my favorite. And its true if you are a believer.
1. According to Hindusim, Kal yug will end and God will come down
2. Islam talks of 'qayamat' ka din
3. Christanity talks of Judgement day

Purrrfect match!

Sach ka Saamna expectedly has become the talk of the nation. I was catching the late night news and it has also caught the imagination of the Lok Sabha for expected reasons. Not wanting to get on the wrong foot, MPs crossing party lines have asked for a ban on the show!

But what caught my attention were the brands which are sponsoring the show. out of 4 brands, two have a 'sachai' element in their brand story. Medimix and Sprite.

But its sprite which comes close as a brand fit for the show. Their propostion of 'Seedhi baat. No bakwaas' gels perfectly with the format of the show where in the participant cannot bull shit his way to glory.

my gut is if the show gains popularity (which it will), you will find a lot of brands having 'in house' placements in the format. for e.g, sprite might be offered to a participant before he answers a tricky question.

for e.g, for every relationship question answered in the affirmative, you may see a fevicol slug saying yeh fevicol ka jod hai tutega nahi!

Match fixed in shows!

Breaking the Media clutter. Do the new.

One of the greatest challenges which every advertiser faces today is to be stand out from the clutter. With over hundreds of TV channels, FM stations, out of home options, the challenge increases many fold. If your product benefit is great, the execution is super; the brand still loses out if it’s not presented smartly.

In this context, i am reminded of two instances in the past and one that I saw last week.

The first instance is of a dish washer brand (don’t remember the name) which was launched in 80’s. In those days, the only national platform to reach out to the masses apart from All India Radio was the good old Doordarshan. There was a lot of high quality programming in the form of Hum Log, Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi, Nukkad among others. Chitrahaar on Wednesdays and Fridays use to be hit with advertisers. And the top billing use to be for the Sunday evening movie.

So, on this particular Sunday, Shakti starring Amitabh and Dilip Kumar was to be aired. It was a top grosser and naturally it was to attract top billing. This brand of dish washer did the first known ‘black out’ that happened on TV. Theirs was the only ad that was advertised during the break that comes every 15-20 minutes. It was unheard or unseen on Indian Television. People remembered the product and it did attract a lot of enquires. Unfortunately, the product failed.

The second instance of a ‘black out’ was when Hutch changed to Vodafone. The entire Star network including its regional bouquets played only the Vodafone ads for one full day. Not sure what was the value of the deal, but the message was conveyed effectively.

The last instance that I heard (not saw) was the launch of Tata Docomo GSM service in Hyd. Their tag line is ‘do the new’ and as a product benefit, they are offering 1 paise per second billing across all calls in India.

So instead of doing the regular launch, they did the new. In perhaps the most effective and unheard of style, they pulled of a coup of sorts. They bought out the entire air time on all the four private FM channels in Hyd – Radio city, Big FM, Radio Mirchi and S FM.

All the channels played only their commercial. And here is the killer, they got all the four Top Radio Jockeys to come together and host the morning show from 8 to 10! So, whichever, channel one tuned into one could hear the same broadcast? And the knockout punch was in the fact that all the RJ’s talked on ‘how to do the new in life’ story.

Very interesting and absolutely engaging!

What next? A brand engaging Arnab Goswami (Times Now), Rajdeep Sardesai (CNN IBN) and Barkha Dutt (NDTV 24X7) together. Given the fact that the line between sensationalism and serious journalism is a thin red line, the day is not far off.

Its pays to keep your eyes open

My last two posts compared similar ads in the same category and same story line in different category respectively.

The one that takes the cake and the bakery along with it is the commercial by Sun Direct TV. In perhaps the first of its kind (outside of the cola wars), here is an irrefutable example of the power of borrowing a story line from ‘entertaining’ ads.

I am yet to come across a brand launching a high involvement product cramped with top players, riding on the success of a plot used by a brand in a completely alien category.
Bajaj Motorcycle had a big bang launch for their new 125 cc bike. The challenge here was to spate the bike from the plethora of 100cc bikes which were ruling the market. So, the plot had two guys discussing the various features of the bike. The punch was in the execution and the two actors.


Sun Direct DTH service was launched nationally in December 2008. The market already had two strong players in Tata Sky and Dish TV. Both were pan India brand and had established certain equity attached to them. On the other hand, Sun was a South Indian brand with national aspirations. Added to this were the intense competition with number of channels offered and the entry price being the deciding factors. Sun TV offered both the advantages.

But instead of doing the run of the mill stuff or hiring a celebrity (SUN network with deep pockets could have easily afforded it), they went with the wacky suggestion of the agency (McCann Erickson). And the result was a highly effective, most recalled ad of that period.
(but i must add that the heavy media spends by bajaj on XCD helped sun here!)

To me the success of the Sun Direct campaign shows three things:
1. Advertisers needs to keep their eyes open outside their category
2. You can piggy ride and actually get away with a borrowed but brilliantly improvised script
3. Guts shown by the advertiser to actually go ahead with the story line (it could have misfired badly)

Point number one deserves a special mention because a lot of client servicng and account planners keep a tab only on their category and their brands. they diligently prepare research reports on competition, keep guard books with competiton ads, etc., In short they are too focussed on their category.

Focus makes you narrow minded. Keep your eyes open. Stay defocussed.

Dealing with a Messy Boss. A tale of 2 ads across a few years.

I recently saw the re-run of Tata Indigo commercial (first released in Jan 2008) which was strikingly similar to the Hari Sadu ad of Naukri but with a twist. But what really set me of thinking was that the Twist clearly mirrors the sign of different times and the changing mindset of the working class.

Boss employee situation have been exploited to the hilt in advertising. One of the all time classics which won numerous awards was the ‘Hari Sadu’ ad for Naukri portal.
The ad worked big time for a variety of reasons.
1. Every employee has/had a Hari Sadu as boss in their life
2. Instead of using fear/anger, it uses humour to drive home the point
3. Every disgruntled worker likes to pay back this boss once. Big time!

Now what’s interesting to know is the time when this ad hit the market. The year was 2006. The economy was on the upward swing. The job market was thriving. People were spoilt for choices when it came to their careers. The whole IT and BPO fever was taking the tier 1 and II cites by storm. Naukri and the incumbent agency (Draft FCB Ulka) caught the pulse bang on and created this award winning creative.



The Tata Indigo CS commercial has a similar story line of a boss who cares a @#$% about you. But instead of quitting the guy gets back at this boss in style without giving up his job!

If I have to trace the story of the protagonist across the two phases – 2006 and 2008, through these commercials, what has really changed? Well, our man just got smarter. He will no longer switch a job at the drop of hat but prefers hitting back where it hurts the most – ego.

Now comes the most interesting part of this blog post.

Both the ads – Naukri and Tata Indigo have been created by the same agency – Draft FCB Ulka.

Same Promise. Different execution

After months of research (and procrastination) I picked up a wireless broadband connection for my laptop. The final trigger was in the hope that it will help me put my insomnia bouts to good use. So last week, I was handed a complimentary piece of Reliance to broadband Netconnect +
It’s small. Fits snugly in your hand And packs in speed not experienced before (equivalent with high speed access you get at office)

But that’s not what got me hooked to write this post. It’s rather a peculiar challenge which advertisers face in a category like this where the product differentiation is not there. In this case, the selling point is the speed of access. And it’s interesting to see how the players have had different renditions of speed for the same audience.

The wireless broadband market saw three high profile launches in the last few months back to back.
1. Reliance Broadband Netconnect
2. Airtel Broadband
3. Tata Indicom Photon

Reliance and Airtel have TVCs running for their brands. Haven’t seen Tata Indicom’s TVC yet.

Both the ads focus on the same target audience who is
1. upwardly mobile professional
2. Always on the move

Both the campaigns emphasise the same product promise – Speed. But what is remarkably different is the way it is pitched.
Let’s look at Airtel first.

The ad turns a negative virtue (Impatience) found in today’s generation into a positive one. The TVC accepts the fact that the youth of today are in a hurry, can’t wait for their turn to come and wants everything at a click of a button. They want the world to keep pace with them and the other way round. And Airtel promises to deliver that speed with their broadband.

How many times have you been in a situation where you wanted to experience/check out something while on the do the move? You wanted to listen to your favourite Kishore kumar Song while you experience the rains but could not do so while watching the rain on the move?

Reliance promise to deliver the same, right here and right now. It explores situations which we always want to do the right things at the right time in the wrong place. It takes out the time factor out and also promises to deliver it at great speed.

So there you have. Two different brands in the same category. Same product promise with no differentiation. But different executions. Personally for me both worked.

So, which one did you like?

Horlicks. Wants more

Universal Truth No#1: Majority of the kids hate milk.
Universal Truth No#2: Making kids drink is every mother’s nightmare.
Universal Truth No#3: Helping the mothers in this is a billion dollar business

The malted drinks category in India is estimated around 1800 – 2000 crores. The top players include:
1. GSK’s Horlicks, Maltova, Viva and Boost.
2. Cadbury’s Bournvita
3. Nestlé’s Milo
4. Heinz’s Complan

GSK dominates the market not only by the number of the brands but also in terms of the market share (around 70%) with Horlicks leading from the front.
And as market leader, Horlicks has always stayed ahead of the curve with some smart line extensions. For the uninitiated Line extensions happen when the brand launches the new product in the same category targeting a new segment through new flavours, added ingredients, package sizes etc.

Horlicks started out with their basic bread and butter brand targeted at the Kids segment where the action is the hottest.

Released couple of years back, The Taller, Stronger Sharper campaign had a series of TVC running. An interesting facet of this TVC was the focus shifting from the ‘problem-solution’ format advertising that such category follows. The mother is absent is conspicuously absent. And instead the campaign talks to the kid directly. One of the reasons perhaps is the amount of exposure a kid has today that you no longer can take him for granted or not talk to him directly. Horlicks understood this early and spoke to him like a friend. It wanted him to change the world around him by being taller, stronger and sharper.

Horlicks also has a variant for preschool children – Junior Horlicks. Specially formulated to work as a nutritional supplement.

Another variant which was launched was Horlicks Lite. Targeted at the father of the house, its key selling points are that it has no added sugar and helps in cholesterol control. Horlicks slowly, but surely started moving together towards the brand promise – The Great Family Nourisher.

The TVC explores the tried and tested clichéd route of how stress and fatigue ca n take a toll on relationships and how to circumvent (if not avoid) them.
I have a theory on clichéd advertising.
Clichés works in certain categories. For three reasons (I still swear by the rule of three!)
1. They ‘mirror’ the consumer’s life to the T
2. They have an uncanny knack of ‘romancing’ the problem
3. They make you feel ‘this is me’ and I need it.
The caution here is you may get an entry in a category but sooner or later the consumer or the competition will sort you out.
One of the best and smart extensions to come out of Horlicks has been Women’s Horlicks. All through the category over its existence, all brands have spoken to the mother at a subtle level on the fact that it’s good for them. It’s not uncommon in an Indian Household to see parents (especially mothers) drink up left over milk of their children. But I assume this is out of compulsion and not out of choice. Though I must say, I have seen many actually enjoy a glass of it too.
Keeping this insight in mind, Horlicks used another cliché to launch a new variant for women in general. Any guess on the cliché? Yes, the multi tasking angle!. In fact the Horlicks website confirms this: it says something to his effect. “...For centuries, women have been taking care of the family. You realize now that you need to take care of yourself...”

Smartly executed and roping in an ‘intelligent’ actress – Konkana Sen, Horlicks launched Women’s Horlicks.What worked in this campaign were its interesting cuts between the numerous roles a women plays in her life. From running the kitchen, taking care of kids, office pressure, etc the TVC hits the bulls eye by beautifully capturing the cliché no 1 (They mirror the consumer’s life to a T); moves to the cliché point number 2 (They have an uncanny knack of romancing the problem) and logically moves you to cliché no 3 (This makes you fell ‘this is me’ and I need it)

Clichéd hai par bikta hai!

Btw, Horlicks is sold in UK as a brand targeted at adults. The brand tag line says: unwind for a good night’s sleep

Nokia. Going Overboard.

I was in Mumbai over the weekend on official work. The biggest news of the previous day was all over the papers – Michael Jackson’s untimely demise.

As expected, it hogged the headlines everywhere nationally and internationally. Two newspapers though caught my attention for a different reason. Times of India and DNA had a Navi bar (strip ad) running below their masthead and above the headline. (This is one of the new premium positions apart from the Front page solus (FPS) that attracts a lot of eyeballs because of their clutter-less positions.)

The ad in question is of Nokia. I had blogged about them a couple of days ago on the good stuff that they had done with the battery fiasco.

Unfortunately, the ad tries to capitalise on a topical story with poor results for the following three reasons.

1. It tried to cash in on a emotional and tragic story
2. Though they did not advertise a product of theirs, the words in the headline clearly brought in the recall for their N series brands
3. The position of the ad above a editorial was too much to digest.

Unfortunately, you cannot blame Nokia alone for this. The culprits in this case are also the agency who suggested the idea, the media agency who bargained with the publication for space and also finally the two newspapers in question who greedily agreed to place this ad above the editorial thereby trying to link the tragic story with the ad!

Disgusting!

Women. In top gear.

One of my early memories of college was the tuitions that I had to drag myself to every morning. While the majority of boys use to come either on their bikes/scooters, the girls invariably used to have a designated driver in the form of brother or father dropping them and picking them up dutifully on their scooters. A rare case would be a girl on a kinetic Honda, whom everybody saw her as be the ‘fast’ girl! (The term ‘liberated’ wasn’t in vogue then!)
Cut to today, you find girls zipping past on their scooterette like nobody’s business.
Let’s look at the women buyers and their needs. Primarily (applying the rule of three):
1. The Young girls going out to college
2. The working Woman to her office
3. The housewife moving around for errands and picking up children from school types.
I will primarily look at two brands which have been successful at wooing the above segments. TVS Scooty and Hero Honda Pleasure.
TVS Scooty was an early entrant in the market and it quickly established a niche for itself with the women segment. Simple to use, light weight and trendy, it had all that women were looking for. It suddenly ‘rescued’ them from three things:
1. Depending on their father/brother to drop them
2. Harrowing bus rides
3. Scary Auto rickshaws
In short giving them the ‘wings’ to fly!

One of the key decisions that TVS would have had to make was the choice was a brand ambassador. In Preity Zinta, they found the perfect match. She was a fresh face, had made a mark in bollywood and was somebody who spoke her mind. Coming from a Army background and getting into bollywood, thereby doing her own thing/taking her own decisions.
The TVC clearly established the key point of getting ahead of others (read not depending on others) and calling the shots.

After a long hiatus, TVS Scooty launched another campaign, this time taking Minisha Lamba, young face, very new to Bollywood.

Just a film old and having done a fair bit of modelling, she was more of an ‘aspirer’ than a ‘struggler’ in real life. The TVC explores a story of a small time girl somewhere in Banaras who along with her friend look at the ‘what if’ scenario in life if she hadn’t got her independence (read Scooty). It beautifully drives home the point that parents would have been happy either ways but are now proud of their daughter’s achievements.

Hero Honda entered the market much later with a powerful variant (pleasure) and a even powerful proposition.

By roping in Priyanka Chopra, who had established herself with hits to her credit, Hero Honda Pleasure took the discussion one step forward. From independence factor to the equal rights factor. In a society where a girl child is looked as ‘paraya dhan’, boys are the favoured/pampered lot. They get to stay late, have all fun and seldom questioned.
The campaign literally questioned – why should boys have all the fun? The TVC literally showed Priyanka not only having fun but took the boy for a ride!
Now that the girls are firmly in the front seat, when will we see them graduate to the four wheels in ads? Any car maker around, listening?

Nokia. Connecting with People helped

Nokia has been ranked No1 in the Brand Equity Most trusted brands of the year 2009. Nothing alarming, given the immense popularity that it enjoys among people. But what’s surprising and heart warming is this has happened in less than one year of its battery recall fiasco in India.

On 13th August 2008, Nokia issued a product advisory (not a recall) on its BL-5C battery. It stated that the battery could potentially experience “overheating initiated by a short circuit while charging, causing the battery to dislodge”.

Fuelled by the media, panic gripped the nation. I remember, the Hindi News Channels – Aaj Tak and Star News were competing with each other to show people ‘affected’ by this. The reporters fanned out across India especially in the hinterland and ‘broke’ the news of people flocking to Nokia Store centre to get their battery checked.

What will the company do in such a situation? How will it react to the media bombardment?

Nokia was geared up and armed to its teeth. The web and toll free number were used effectively to inform and interact with the customers. An interesting point was the use of the toll free number. Among the phones affected by the battery included the low range and immensely popular 1100, 1108, 1110, 1112, etc right up to the N series (N70, N72, etc)

Given the fact that they broke new ground with the low end phones, most of the customers were not the net savvy crowd. It ensured that the call centers were beefed up and could handle any number of calls in all the possible languages.

Nokia Care and Nokia Priority dealers were told to handle customers with utmost care. Most of them were open till late night and were only doing this job.

What’s interesting to note and something that needs to be applauded is the fact that Nokia did not come out with a corporate campaign (with their CEO as brand ambassador) to talk to the customers (nation in our case!). This reminds of the classic case where in after the pesticide controversy, Pepsi and Coke came with their own versions to assure the people that their products are safe. Cadbury’s went one step further and roped in Amitabh Bachchan to do the talking in their corporate ad after the worm controversy!

Nokia believed in connecting with people on ground. It strongly believed in rolling up their sleeves and taking the issue head on and on ground. And the result paid off. And it’s there for everyone to see. Indeed the public memory is short and they do give you a second chance to prove your worth.

One of the very rare and I really mean a very rare case of a brand truly believing and living its brand promise of Connecting People

Retire. Without pain.

Retirement in the pre liberalisation era meant spending time with the grand kids, going on a pilgrimage, spending the afternoon on a rocking chair and followed by an evening walk.

Life insurance advertising in India has come a long way from the days of LIC using the ‘loss of a partner and the life thereafter’ as an emotional trigger to push people to buy into a plan. As I see, the top 3 reasons for fresh wave in the communication are as follows:

1. Entry of private players with the ULIP plans
2. Life expectancy has gone up and so have expectations from life
3. Younger generation looking at pension plans as investments

I am going to share and discuss five brands that are active and aggressive players in the market atleast with their media spend.

Max New York life pension plan
The latest ones to be currently on air, Max New York Life takes the cake and the bakery for their refreshing take on what one can actually do post retirement. The ad actually made me look forward to my retirement!




HDFC Pension plan
HDFC ad actually plays out all the things, which you would have to do, when you don’t save for your retirement which includes depending on your children to support you. It works because the script is fantastic and is so beautifully woven into their brand promise – SAR UTHA KE JIYO



AEGON Religare Pension Plan
Religare ad is a simple play up on inflation and its effects. Would have fallen flat if not for Irfan Khan screen presence. They somehow could not replicate the huge build up that they achieved with the teaser outdoors which said “Kya aapko KILKB hai? (KILKB standing for Kya aapko kam insurance lene ki bimaari hai)
One of the very rare ads which actually had a strong call for action, it invited the viewer to relook and recheck how much he would require post retirement.


ICICI Retirement solution
One of the early movers into this segment. This ad was a watershed in its category. It drove home the point of retiring from work and not from life. Retirement planning till then was something which the younger generation would not relate to instantly. By turning the problem on its head, the ad looks at all the things that one should keep doing no matter what stage of their life they are in.


SBI Plan
Brilliant script. Perfect casting. Great emotions. Need I say more



Do share your opinion and thoughts on this.

Will the pug get Zoo Zooed?

In perhaps one of the most memorable ads of this decade, Hutch (now Vodafone) created the memorable network campaign featuring the dog (pug) and a boy. It was loved by one and all for its simplicity and a melodious track. Without showing any of the run of the mill stuff, it instantly established the network superiority of the brand. (Though personally for me it was a pain in Hyderabad during those days to be on their network).


The boy and dog were repeated a couple of more times.
1. To communicate the transition from orange hutch to Pink hutch
2. Brand transition from Hutch to Vodafone.
The latter part was a master stroke by the brand to showcase the switch in name. And to back it, the client and the agency came up with a equally good media innovation. They blocked the air time on the entire STAR TV network for a period of 24 hours to announce the name change. In fact the ad break was interesting woven in the story line of the prime time serial (Kasauti Zingadi Ki, if i am not wrong!). From Star Plus to Channel V, from Star News to Star Gold, the pug ran amok for 24 hours.
After a long and a series of uninspiring ads on magic box and the likes, Vodafone broke new ground and spoke a new language with Zoo Zoos.
A campaign of 25 ads promoting VAS, they were specifically designed to cash in the IPL season. Gibberish became the in thing. Majority of the ads were used to promote VAS services. Everyone was hooked on. Most of them loved the commercials. With over 3 lakh fans on face book in no time, Zoo Zoo’s have enjoyed success like nobody’s business.

So what next?
With the number portability launch round the corner, the biggest pull for any telecom brand will be their network. Vodafone for better or worse enjoys a better perception with the boy and dog story. The competition especially Airtel is already up and running with sugary commercials from the last one year. Sooner, Tata Indicom followed with its superior network and Idea with their own take on the same.
Can the pug co-exist with the Zoo Zoos or will the Zoo Zoos shoo away the pug? The biggest advantage of the Zoo Zoos is its adaptability to any service or a product offering. You already have the handset bundling offer (Magic Box) as an ad already. So the exclusivity to promote only VAS services is out.
The million dollar question is: will Vodafone bring the pug back or will they bank on the Zoo Zoos to drive the message home?
Will the pug mark fade away?

Is it time for fast track to move on?

Fast track watches changed its tag line from 'how many you have?' to 'move on' some time back.
The ad campaign for the 'how many you have?' was more on the lines of showcasing the range and affordability in a funny manner.




so were the ads (clichéd though) showcased the girls chasing a boy who sports a new one every time (I suppose) and the song goes on the lines of how many you have. what made the ads enjoyable was the quirky treatment and fresh college faces. the ads worked. sales zoomed. the brand established.

so far so good. Then the itch for a new theme started. Presumably agency initiated. Research team would have got down to business and focus groups initiated. What came out was the 'move on' campaign.

The campaign was a huge hit. Strongly connected with the college going kid. And more importantly gave a positive spin to how kids today look at relationships when you compare it with the older generations. When a relationship fails, you had a Devdas out of a nobody, today you have a Dev D out of him. It tried to say that there is no point in 'hanging on' but to 'move on' in life.

The key to the success was again the treatment.


you had a boy and girl what looks initially like exchanging gifts later turning out to be returning the gifts given by each other. no hard feelings. no sob story. brilliant!

The campaign worked. Brand strengthened. The client and the agency decided its time to push the bar even more. but this time, the standards fell. And how!

The move on campaign moved into the dangerous territory of putting a spin on 'one night stand'.
The ad (unfortunately, I couldn't get a link for this one) showed a girl and a boy getting close or rather too close for comfort. till the girl decides it’s high time and decides to dump him by getting 'too close' to him. before one could comprehend it, there was a boy version on air just to showcase that dumpings are gender insensitive!

What fails me and intrigues me is the thought behind this ad? Did the research gave pointers that one night stand is in or is it the in thing? If so, wouldn't it have been better for the client to exercise his own judgement before allowing the agency to run away with a 'new twist' to the 'move on' route.

Today, when the world is looking up advertising and its gurus to promote the concept of safe sex, the idea of multiple partners which the ad so explicitly promotes leaves a very bad taste. And come to think of this, it is a TATA brand; known for its honesty and integrity among many others.

The jury is still out on this one. but I think, it’s time for fast track to slow down and move on from here.

Wisdom in hindsight

This blog is an amalgamation of my experiences, observations and insights collected over the last eight years in advertising. I have named this blog as 'wisdom in hindsight' something which every client servicing person experiences after every campaign that goes wrong and a few which hits the bulls eye!

I had my own share of the both. Hopefully, i will be able to share as we go along.

Happy reading.