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...
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..
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
