Once upon a time we played Cricket !!! - Part II

Part II of Guest article by Vipin Nambiar - Manager (Space selling) at Indian Express, Mumbai who also happens to be one of my beloved students.

************************************************

Match between Break or Break between Match?

Boundaries, 4’s, 6’s, OUT, CATCHES etc... It rather became a cliché. All these are supposed to be terms used in the game called Cricket. These terms have almost gone into oblivion and been rephrased into some statements.

All Harsha’s, Jackman’s and Shastri’s are busy shouting these…

Oh my goodness, It’s a “DLF Maximum” Indeed a “Citi Moment of Success” What a good “Karbonnn Kamal Catch” Billy Bowden’ funny signals for a “Maxx Mobile Timeout”

Brands are ubiquitous…….. Licking the cream out of every moment of IPL…...

Amongst all the heavy duty campaigns of Save the Tiger, an animal called Mongoose is getting all the attention. Even those left out 1411 Tigers would have badly wished, why the inventor not named the bat after them. IPL is all about that…... Fun and Frolic with much awaited climax and anti climaxes.

In this IPL season we could not see any transformations like CEAT & Godrej (Logo change ads) and Vodafone Zoo Zoos in IPL 1 and IPL2 seasons respectively, thereby helping us to reach a conclusion that this platform is a better place to build Brand Value. It’s a 45 days realty show with a mega final. So the media planning and account planning for a brand also should be in sync with the continuity of the show.

Mobile phones to Consumer Durables to FMCG’s to Soft Drinks, every one trying so hard to get a fair pie of the FCT. Consumer Durables making the platform count to enhance the sales of summer season through ads of AC’s. Mobile operators claiming better network coverage’s and pushing their various VAS (Value Added Services). Soft Drinks finding better ways to quench thirst this summer. The sudden spurt of new Mobile Phone players in the market made Nokia to keep silent this time and paving way for Rookies Maxx, MicroMax, Karbonnn and Videocon…… LG and Samsung are also in the race. Insurance companies are making the most by emotionally blackmailing the audience. So every product category is here to make an impact to get the desired attention. Hope to have a win-win situation for all...

All have one simple strategy – VOCIFERATE. When others are shouting, let’s also do it…

About IPL 3 Breaks, I could sum it up like this – Chaos, Confusion and Obscure.

Best, Bekar and Bewildering …

If there is something called Best IPL ad this time, the whole credit goes to Airtel and Sharman Joshi. Flow of ads being spectacular and recall being the highest, Airtel takes the centre stage this time surpassing Vodafone Zoo Zoo’s. Somewhere the repetitive quotient did not help much for Vodafone. Still it is a crowd puller. Though not 3-4 times (like IPL 1), we wait for the new episode of Zoo Zoo every match and watch it fully at least once.

Oongli Cricket, a new cricketing concept by IDEA is a good IDEA, just to optimize their SMS push. Decent one by Abhishek, his peon and seductress secretary.

Battle between Pepsi and Coke, the clear winner is Coke by all means (cute and smart faces of Imran Khan and Kalki Koechlin and the nice background score), because for many reasons the Ranbir and later on Sanjay Dutt’s teaser not even funda is bewildering all the way. Hope at least the ‘ reveal ad ‘will do some justice. Opinion by some college going DUDES about this ad somewhat stated like this - “Youngistan ka Wow Sucks”.

One more reason to get irritated in this hot summer is the Akshay Kumar’s Micromax Mobile ad. The all hehehehe’s and hahahaha’s was indeed BEKAR. Stupid Chef and nettlesome laughs made me just turned on my channel from SET MAX, the only one time in IPL…….

Now the tale of the best , bekar and the bewildering continues... come back for part III...

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Tail piece :- During a Test match between the West Indies and England, Michael Holding was to bowl to Peter Willey........ The commentator at the time, Brian Johnston, described the action, quite accurately, as "The bowler's Holding, the batsman's Willey".... need less to say that the whole stadium burst into an uproar of laughter... !