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.