Think small..smaller...and now smallest !!!!

No prices for guessing.... Nano is the name, car is the product, and high is the dreams.. from the taxi guys in Mumbai( with their ramshackle Premier padmini's dreaming of some retirement after long long long tiresome service) to the ordinary vendor and starry eyed commuter on the ever bubbling Indian streets, from the Biking youngster to the cycling retired old man, from the ' forever Planning to upgrade' bank clerk to the young executive, every one is dreaming it small, thinking small ,smaller and alas, thanks to Ratan Nasserwanji Tata and his promise that he seem to be all set to deliver, in the form of Nano..the wonder small car !!!

They said promises are like making babies, easy to make, but difficult to deliver... But for Tata it does not seem to be the case .Lesser traffic jams still seem to be a distant dream, with the three wheelers and two wheelers dreaming to replace themselves with the stylish new small cars,but our roads are gonna look better for sure... Politicians may add a car along with TV and other soaps that they offer, to woo the unsuspecting populace and a car would cease to be a status symbol.....

The Gap Of Thoughts would be filled in where the Marketer, till date used to play, fitting in and sqeezing his bloody ass into your GOT ,where the NEED was forever in collision with the WANTS and trying to confuse you between both... making you buy things you never wanted ,using money that you never had.....

Now people will think small.. (well the leader class is doing it already..show me one leader who thinks big and dreams....) and small will look beautiful.... Well at least ,the Tata dreams are in similiar lines.... When Nano gets labelled (if it gets labelled) as a taxi car, the middle class and their upwardly egos, which are heavily inflated baloons full of inert gases mass produced from false prestige, may stop, wait and may be not proceed.. better to drive in a scooter than have a car which every ' ram, rahim and russel has.... Remember how Reliance mobile owners had a tough time hiding their mobiles ever since the giant, decided to dole it out literally to every unsuspecting stranger on the street... The fisher man came with one and called the customer who was inside his home ,from his mobile, and the next day the man decided to go immobile.....huh ! the fisher man......even he has got a mobile... !

The think small business started long back... with the the brand Volkswagen ( "Volks-Wagen" ("People's Car"), a basic vehicle that should be capable of transporting two adults and three children at a speed of 100 km/h (62 mph) which got the blessings of none other than Adolf hitler ( and a Tata
in India as usual had the guts....) recognising the need for small cars for small and not so well off families.... and the communication which made heads stay up in admiration, eyes pop out as the simple tone hit the eye balls, like an apple did the ever suspicious Sir Issac Newton, is part of the golden history of advertising......well ...It is unique in the history of automobile advertising, if not all advertising.....

Its tone, style, wit, irreverence which have been imitated, mimicked, swiped, copied, misunderstood, and admired more than any campaign before or since.....
It was created by colorful people at Doyle Dane Bernbach and at Volkswagen of America and in fact, it created colorful people by virtue of their association with it.

It was the DDB shot that is still heard around the world.......
It is the classic story of a client with limited funds and unlimited vision, with faith in a wonderful product, who came to Bernbach's agency.......
Bill Bernbach saw the Volkswagen car for what it was: honest, simple, reliable, sensible, different. And he wanted the advertising to be that way too.......
The temptations and pressures to do "mainstream" car advertising were considerable. Bill's resistance was greater. "The product. The product. Stay with the product." Simple.
When the VW campaign became established, there were other temptations at DDB ....Simple.
All the copiers and all the misunderstanders were doomed because they weren't selling Volkswagens and he was.....

Simple....

In the end, the manufacturing philosophy and the advertising philosophy became one and the same. Volkswagen spoke with one voice throughout the world, and people everywhere recognized that voice.... and think small for ever remained one of the best advertising campaigns. No matter how big and pretentious others are.....

Nano of course comes with a huge array of posibilities...its going to hurt many...the two wheleers to an extent but more importantly the three wheelers...the Tata Ace hurt the three wheeler heavy (load carrier) market for sure and now the Rs 1 lakh car may hurt the three wheeler light (passenger) market.....Maruthi and its 800 and the Hyundai Santros.. beware,,,,!!!! but its gonna leave a lots of smiles too...... especially the hype that it seems to have generated, the expectations that it has spun over the Indian mass and class alike and all the talk ,the discussion, the love, the attention and the adoration... its a dream to any marketer and Tata has got it.. and seems to have devised plans to keep it alive and kicking till November when the actual car rolls down and the actual price would be known( the Govt of India had its taxes still high !!)......

From the Markcom angle..its a job well begun and well begun is half done ...... the tempo has to keep going and the agency ( well rumours are galore as to who gets the account...) going to handle it, is gonna have a enviable and not so enviable job at the same time... above all the hopes ,dreams ,prayers and aspirations, when a whole nation is waiting to receive, it may seem easy to communicate, but it may not be the case..... it may be the other way round too...

While we wait for the grand affaire... best wishes Nano.... the cute new car ..the one even before birth they predicted as the change of the future.....