Perfetti... perfect fun !!!

Its not long back that this ad made us laugh and giggle, made many a kids imitate such stuff in the name of "mentos...dimag ki batti jala de"....and even many brands imitatating ( the latest is Moroccan brand TAGGER having a ditto ad ,for instance),the sequels that followed was equal fun and together, this "exaggerated creatives" revolutionised the way candies and chocolates are advertised in India....




The centerfresh one that made us cackle and roll with laughter(right click here).....

And the Chattar pattar ad (right click here) which opened our mouth and senses......

and many more... thanks to Perfetti Van Melle and their roster agencies McCann Erickson
and O&M and the funfilled and naughty ads ( mostly) some of them are still kiddish like the Babool ones ,but then they sell to kids...PVM has a huge portfolio of brands( very confusing for me though) and the work on each brands seem to be going galore(separately)...... PVM though at the outset seem to be choking the pipeline with this parade of brands, the fact as it is revealing now, suggest otherwise. From a hugely undefined and unorganised market, where, candies meant comodities,and a huge huge market place with practically no Good brand name to write home about, PVM crafted a place of its own.... with just two brands when they came in to this confusing country and market place to this abundance that we see today,to choose from, with all the entry barriers as text books would have called it, looking like vistas of oppurtunity, PVM realised that in an impulse segment, promotion is the key and that too consumer promotion as the focus of its strategy is going to pay off.Of course there are exceptions like the one happened with the centerfresh ad and the hype and excitement build around the ad, but a bad tasting candy, did it do well? Atleast did it do well in comparison with the ad?

The category is growing....With international confectionery companies such as Lotte and JoyCo etc inflowing into the Indian market, and many Indian giants like ITC, HLL and Godrej displaying active interest in this segment and other companies such as Cadbury’s growing and going products beyond chocolates and products finaly perfecting into brands in terms of packaging, promotion and positioning, clearly an evolution is happening, or has it happened and over ?

In fact McCann and O&M India, is doing international work for many of PVM brands ,here in India. While that may not be a shock for the new gen ( the KPO/BPO gen) its is indeed a pleasure for the old gen to watch the ad industry in India making ads for brands regardless of whether they sell here or not. For Perfetti’s global brands, Daygum and Hingolia, which are not sold here,McCann India is creating the communication strategy. The Mentos commercial, that you see here (the first one) made waves not onlyhere but in a larger part of south east asia.. The Indian television commercial of Alpenliebe and Big Babol, have also been admired and accepted in Europe.(Hope on a later date ,we dont get to read and see reports of how they hate these'imported' ideas and commercials, like we did the Angrezi ads of candies in its initial years). McCann seems to have a strategy of circulating ideas and ads once it is made here and the country heads of respective agencies can choose the ones that fit their kind of culture and life. Well !!! when the world is a village, anything ,just anything seems to be possible..

After all here is a client who respects its agency/ies as their partners in progress and give due respect and credit, who have a vision about its products and lines ,who recognises what advertising can do and what the product should do, who is aware how far advertising can make people remember the brand ( in this case an array of brands) , and utmost give a reason to buy and the product/brand should takeover,who has taken the category from a mere commoditised one to a brand ised one and who seem to lead all the way....

Enough of Gyaan you say...? well, I retire but not before sharing the latest from them..titled Kabaddi.... the same platform, of fun, hyperbole and lack of logic....So far so good, but havent they all started looking the same? Is it not the right time to draw some thick lines of differentiation????