Monday, June 18, 2012

LG Optimus - Optimize your life...









'So what if it's advertising? Big deal. At least it's different, entertaining, leans toward the magical -- and doesn't need a naked girl to do it! I'd watch that ad any day, many days! It certainly beats being hammered with stupid jingles, inane signs on every surface possible, and infomercials from hell. If viewing this ad a hundred times meant I'd never have to see another snuggy commercial, I'd make popcorn, grab a sleeping bag and settle my happy butt on the sidewalk' - quote unquote 

Reaching to the eyeballs and staying there has been a challenge (always) for Marketing communicators... Now this one will do that with an ease... !

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Amul - now milking Olympics !



India's largest food product marketing organisation, which achieved a turnover $ 2.2 billion in 2010-11, has become the Official Sponsor of the Indian team in the category of Dairy products... 

....and the logic - "Nutritious dairy diet comprising of milk, cheese, yogurt, butter etc. is an important part in the diets of athletes around the world. India is the largest producer of milk in the world and Amul is not only India's but Asia's largest milk brand. The association and activities around it will help in engaging the youth so that they can enjoy a healthy life and strive to become swifter, higher and stronger in their endeavours..." 

........fair enough isn't it?

Members of the IOA confirmed that Amul would be investing Rs 10 million which will be partly utilised by IOA and a section of the amount will be used to award selected candidates... Now going by what generally happens in India, one has to wait and watch to see the end result !

According to Draft FCB - the creative agency who is behind the campagn- the brief for the campaign revolves around milk projected as the energy drink, and that would be the bedrock of their communication which is going to rock us during April - May .......

Three cheers Amul and FCB !

Saturday, March 31, 2012

The Fun Gun !!!





If ants, penguins and fireflies can prove it's smarter to travel in groups, crabs can do that too! This commercial was the last one in a sequel for public bus company De Lijn conceived and executed by Creative conspiracy !!!


have fun guys..........!

Thursday, March 22, 2012

BlackBerry Boys- here , there and everywhere !

                            Heard as a caller tone when I called a friend... 

Hello. I'm home right now but cannot find the phone. Please leave a message and I will call you back as soon as I find it......

Games people play and the gadgets that help them to- is of endless amusement.. I have grown up seeing the advent of mobile phones and this new gadget displacing pagers ( mercilessly that is ! ) and then slowly taking shape as a market.. I had an Alcatel phone ( as heavy as it can be but then BIG was BEAUTIFUL then)  .. the only issue that an average mobile phone user had at that point of time was the INCOMING CALLS - which was charged ..... I had a BOSS ( who was an ASS No: 1 ) who would give MY number to the toms and dicks he met here and there and thus making me wriggle in discomfort and counting seconds ...... 

After all these years, I still do not have a Blackberry and yet the instrument has never stopped amusing me.. 

its differentiation and the cut above the rest.. the simple points of parity that defines the category membership and yet the amazing points of difference that keeps it above the rest of the category always left an awe in the Marketing guy in me... 

...the idea of a BB messenger , the PIN and all the stuff that made a BB a BB .... I remember a focus group we did for a Mobile phone client and the group as we talked became big and big and the pride with which a BB owner talks about the technology and the devise was immense. ----the prized possession that the owners have had it as - the suits and the big guys of business wore it over their other habiliments and displayed it with impunity is something that had very few parallels in the history of Marketing. . . . . 


 To be frank I had not seen a BB in an unfit hand before that, or may be I have not noticed the 'catch them young' fever that had caught RIM just like all other players in the  YOUNG Indian market place. 

 It was not easy & natural - the transition from old, bald, business and corporate to the colourful and funky young- of course the rich urban young of India .. BB had to do a lot of POP and POD readjustments.. it had to make the products looks young and cheeky, it had to have a lot of apps and platforms that the new TG wanted and (HELL) it had to advertise - to ensure that the new TG knows about it and is convinced why the BB is also a mobile phone plus whatever they wanted and also to ensure that the OLD TG was not annoyed and hence made an exit. I am never tired of seeing this we are the BB boys ad.. the shock on the faces of the old TG seeing the new TG is quite  a winsome one.. hats off to O&M guys for the same..  

and the results...?

Vodafone increased its share of BlackBerry users by 96%, nearly double its 50% target and within the first four months of the campaign it signed up nearly 154,000 additional subscribers (of which 35,000 were pre-paid). Its post-paid customer base grew 74% from 160,000 pre-campaign to 279,000 post-campaign.....

Well  ! that was some time back...Now that the " sleep with me and hey you sleep with me too" mess is kind of settled, BB is more bold and is all about telling its TG that we are what we are to you, and be with us..With the Curves, Bolds, Torches, Styles, Pearls, Tours, Storms and Playbooks and much more, RIM in India is in a boom, much above the I phone and even the Nokia .(Nokia and Research In Motion (RIM), the maker of BlackBerry phones , sell more devices in India, where smartphone shipments are forecast to grow almost 70% a year until 2015, helping mitigate their market-share losses in the US and Europe)..... 

and now this new Ad reincarnate.......




The reincarnation of the same 5 BB boys who are expressing their grief and frustration because of the transformation that has taken place since their previous campaign. While the previous film focused on how special they were because of their unique BlackBerry facilities, the current campaign depicts the dominance of youth over the BB Boys in terms of the youth usage patterns of the device. For instance, the Gen-Next not only chats through BlackBerry Messenger but also shares pictures, music, gossip and even takes the BB to pubs, malls, college – and not just the workplace...smart way to sell the new BB and its POP and POD to the new and old TG...


..This is quite amusing, considering the fact that across the world it is loosing its share and its stocks are falling...

.... the game is yet to begin and till then we can keep singing.. ": hey hey we are the black berry boys" . 

Adformula sincerely hope that soon people will not start singing ........

" we WERE the black berry boys ! hoo hoo hoo .....
 they took it every where and we threw it out..
 hoo hoo hoo, we were the black berry boys" !
Baby, how could you do this

I thought it was going to be just us,

But they took BBM everywhere

To the campus, to the nightclub and too the mall.
we WERE the black berry boys ! hoo hoo hoo .....
 they took it every where and we threw it out..
 hoo hoo hoo, we were the black berry boys..."

Amen ! 


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

The lyrics:
Baby, how could you do this
I thought it was going to be just us,
But they took BBM everywhere
To the campus, to the nightclub and too the mall.
My suit is still cool
Got shine on my shoes
But they are the BlackBerry Boys
They Exchange pins
From Morning to Evening
Oh yeah they are the BlackBerry Boys
We used to Chat
But they do much more
Setting their status
Sending pictures all on the move
They are the BlackBerry Boys
Oh yeah they are the BlackBerry Boys
They use it for dating
It’s a work thing not a play thing
They are the Blackberry boys
They share music and videos and gossip
Oh yeah they are the BlackBerry Boys
We used to chat
But they do much more
Setting their status
Setting pictures all on the move
They are BlackBerry Boys
Oh yeah they are the BlackBerry Boys......

Credits:
Client: Vodafone India
Agency: Ogilvy & Mather (Mumbai)
National Creative Director: Rajiv Rao
Country Head – Team Vodafone: Kapil Arora
Sr. Creative Directors: Srreram Athray and Elizabeth Dias
Account Management: Sarang Wahal, Chatak Vakharia, Rohan Manglani
Production house: Nirvana Films
Director: Prakash Varma



Saturday, January 28, 2012

TOI - as you sow, so you.....




thus said the TOI and started it.....The campaign has been conceptualised by Taproot India.
The brief given to the agency was to increase eyeballs for the TOI in Chennai. "It was a very clear and uncomplicated brief; it wanted to make TOI the No. 1 in Chennai and highlight that it's a new-age newspaper," said Santosh Padhi (Paddy), chief creative officer and co-founder, Taproot India. ( as per the internet )....





Having tried to beleive that the TOI dig was not against them , for a while, finally when Hindu and their agency Ogilvy decided to respond, it came like this....and such a befitting reply... The war is just on ! fierce and straight on the face but keeping themselves within the legal boundaries of what is allowed. The advertisement indirectly ( well on an after thought I would so, not so indirectly,) takes a jab at low quality of news covered by Times of India and how their readers severely lack important knowledge.....DIG DIG DIG !


While I am not much in favour of comparative advertising, this one has a flavour.. whether the TOI and Hindu readers like their news papers on not, the ad viewers are liking it... 






and the print war is here...................






Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Wimpy's - perfect communication !

In South Africa, restaurant chain Wimpy is welcoming blind customers -- by serving them burgers with words in Braille spelled out on their buns with sesame seeds…. So what you must be saying only if you do not know how tough is it to make buns with Braille letters made out of sesame seeds.




Fast-food advertising has always been heavy on the gimmicks and envelope-pushing… But then this one (even though it can be called a gimmick) is really touching and path breaking particularly keeping in mind the fact that this tactic isn’t always successful.

After viewers took its as a blatant case of transgression, in Johannesburg, a fast food chain Nando’s had to pull a cheeky ad campaign last year that featured dead dictators sharing a meal.


For clear reasons but this Wimpy’s work for the visually impaired is getting a far better reception. The ad itself claims that the 15 people who ate the burgers spread news of their experience to 800,000 others through Braille publications and organizations.

In the U.S., some fast food eateries offer Braille menus. Those who don’t must offer to read the entire menu to blind customers in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Not many places are that disabled friendly as the US is and such an ad makes a lot of difference to promote the whole and noble idea of disabled friendliness to people who are able.

Kudos to the ad agency – Metropolitan republic and the entire team … such ads give a hope that the era of good creative married to be the best of media of a given time is still
on..

Wednesday, January 04, 2012

Google Chrome - Real which is REAL !




Keeping its global communication philosophy, ‘The web is what you make of it’, intact, Google Chrome has made a new TVC with a unique concept. ( may be for the first time for a clutter infested Indian TG )…  The TVC brings out the physical manifestation of the whole process of making a website, getting more traction on it and ultimately making it a commercial success.

The plot of the TVC takes cue from the real life story of G Rajendran, an artist who turned into a businessman, in the process of resuscitating the dying art form seen in Tanjore miniatures. The first sequence shows G Rajendran sitting all by himself, disheartened that the miniatures around him are not getting the importance they deserve. In the next sequence you see him browsing over the net for instructions on how to make a website. The unique bit is that you get to see the web as if it were in a metaphysical state. 

While he remains involved in making the Tanjore paintings, the next task for his website is to get more traction, hence a search for the right ways to do that which brings out the concept of adding the right keywords to enhance search options for your website. The TVC rightly captures his smile in the next sequence where he makes his first online sale and evolves from being an artist to a businessman. The TVC closes with the last frame that says, ‘The web is what you make of it’. 


That is what I got from the net while I searched for what the ad makers had to say about the ad. Thanks to my dear ex-student and Passionate Ad man Priyank vaghela who shared this story with me for the first time. Now this ad is amusing for me also because the hero of the ad – Mr Rajendran- the artist who made use of the web for his business- also happens to be father of my another ex-student- Mr Sunil R . I am told that Sunil is behind this web-experience of his father and the brain behind his transformation from being JUST and artist to an artist and a business man. 


This ad amuses me also because it is a brilliant work – be it the uniqueness in its conception, be it the search and identification of a real life success story or be it the execution of the idea with great music and construction. To convey factual stories from the real life of people who have used internet fantastically well and used the seamless opportunity it has to offer is simply a great advertising platform. Testimonials work when they are REAL and REAL is real only when it is REAL. People can see through the real and the fake which pretends to be real.  



Kudos to BBH and the whole team… and to Sunil and his dad – three cheers !

CREDITS 

Client: Google Chrome
Agency: BBH India
Managing partners: Paul Ward, Partha Sinha, Raj Kamble, Subhash Kamath
Creative director: Russell Barrett
Creative team: Nikhil Panjwani, R Venkatraman, Kunal Sawant, Malhaar Rao
Planning: Sanjay Sharma
Account management: Arvind Krishnan, Rajeev Roy
Agency producer: Sushma Joseph
Production house: Eeksaurus
Director: E Suresh
Music: Shri Sriram

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