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

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

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Best, Bekar and Bewildering…

One good thing or rather the best thing about IPL lies in the fact that quality and thrilling cricket is being played all the time. So much excitement that even housewives take the front seats for the live telecasts, which really ends up in calling the Pizza guy for a home delivery. In short Good Business for all… (40-50 minutes lagega boss... IPL chaaloo hein na sir, zyadaa orders aa rahe hein... - Excerpts from the home delivery call for a chicken biriyani with the owner of Hotel Banana Leaf, the nearby hotel to my building – call timing 9.50pm)

For the Brands and Ad Agencies, the cardinal rule here is, “to make quality ads and get the audience well connected to your brand”. To divert the audience from the match, you really need to buy out those 5-10 seconds from them. To a greater extend Airtel; Max New York Life Insurance and Vodafone were successful in the first leg of the tourney. And this clarity of thought made the new born species “ZOOZOOs” were a tremendous hit last year. It touched everyone from a 6 year old to 60 year old.

Let me start digging into the ambiguity of consumer durables. To everyone’s surprise it’s a clutter amongst the big clutter. Samsung, LG, Godrej, Voltas, Whirlpool. My vote goes to Whilpool and Voltas in this category, wherein they sticked to one creative at a time with Ajay, Kajol and Yuvi. Whirlpool is the only product that has succeeded in the clutter to remind you by its sub product name ie, WHIRLPOOL MASTERMIND. Even though Yuvi is bit out of place in the ad, it has managed to create a good recall. Yuvi’s involvement here is because, you get free Reebok shoes and watches autographed by Yuvi and their partnership with Kings XI Punjab.

Do you remember any of the LG or Samsung ads in category?

3D TVs, Washing Machines, Refrigerator, ACs, in short all products from their bouquet. They made confusion by infusing all of them amongst their corporate ads as well. So badly planned and even worse implementation. 3D TV’s in India? What bizarre idea. In India, only a few satellite channels offer us so called High Definition Mode, and this 3D is just “Dhoor Ki Baat Hein”… TURN ON TOMORROW tag from Samsung is completely lost in the queue. Like always LG has no clarity in their ads. Not even the Akshay’s ad- of wooing the girl at his place which is a complete nonsense. Voltas was an exception with a good jingle backing it up. The “SENSIBLE HAIN SENSIBLE HAIN” jingle with Grandpa and some kids made some difference. The message of the ad is also well conveyed. Talking about the various product features, which will in turn save your energy, is indeed a well tried attempt…… Better ad films with limited product exposure would have reaped better results for LG and Samsung. They should have zeroed down on AC’s and Fridges, which is the immediate necessity for the summer.

Another major Product Category is Mobile Phones. Good try by the newcomers. One category which is really benefited from spending good bucks in IPL. Nokia and Sony Ericson paved way for Maxx, Videocon, MicroMax, Karbonnn Mobile, Aircel INQ and so on. Samsung for their lower end versions with ads of Aamir Khan, did exceedingly well for the brand. The ad is beautifully directed with an emotional touch, stood out from the crowd. Good work done by famous director Anurag Kashyap. I believe there are 2 or 3 more episodes of the same ad and to be rolled this IPL season. And we can proudly call this as well planned strategy. This sensible continuity will help the brands to get better connectivity with the consumers. All players have one thing in common - “Economy Business Phones”. Suddenly we could see everyone busy selling their business phones, which made even the Giant Blackberry to advertise. And to our surprise, they were showing us the FUN side of Blackberry. Direct association with Mumbai Indians can give Videocon a booster among the lot. Too much shouting will not really help here as it can lead to much more fluster.

In between those star studded Mobile Service ads [Sharman Joshi for Airtel, Dhoni for Aircel, Abhishek for Idea and none other than ZooZoos for Vodafone], the new Videocon Mobile Services ads (without any stars) were indeed well crafted and superbly narrated ones. It really touches the heart for its Life’s Most Valuable yet so simple SIGNALS that we all would have faced or would be facing in our daily lives and by attaching it to the so called Better Network, is simply delighting …

One classier example of superior connectivity with the audience is Max New York Life Insurance. It is simply charming... Max New York Life Insurance being the biggest spot buyer in the first week of IPL definitely did the trick through the series of their SMART KIDDO ad. Like Samsung Mobile Phones, they also bridged the gap between their TG. Such ads are fun to watch and easy to recall.

Hyundai another biggest spot buyer, trying hard with the same films, did nothing great. Hope the product quality helps them in retaining their loyal customers. Nothing fresh to get the X factor to convert a Maruti owner to Hyundai. “Can we change the name to i10”, Oh God, Change the ad itself…

Videocon D2H ad makers had no idea about what are they up to… Bizarre!!!

Tata Photon, Kent purifiers, MTS Broadband, Park Avenue, Vaseline (New Fairness Cream), Spinz Deo’s, TVS Jive, Axe Deo’s, Club Mahindra. The list of advertiser goes on and on… Latest entry being Videocon Mobile Services and Sprite…

The resurrection of Mumbai Indians, Rajasthan Royals Vengeance, Punjab’s Problems, Chennai Super Kings’ fight back, all opened up the table for this season’s IPL. One thing is unequivocal; all can expect more cracker burst in the second leg of IPL 3.

To be continued...>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Tail piece : -

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