King fisher.....Ooh la la la !

Last day, as if the surprises that IPL throws up isn’t enough, I was amazed to see the who is who from all the teams (not literally) but in as many coloured uniforms (Anil Kumble, Rahul Dravid, Adam Gilchrist, Shane Warne, Gautam Gambhir, Andrew Symonds along with 15 others) perform the“Ooh la la la ” act… These stalwarts from the top four teams of IPL( Royal Challengers Bangalore, Delhi Daredevils, Deccan Chargers & Rajasthan Royals) fight with each other to perish the other on the field where sparks fly, but off the pitch they are all together and cannot get away from trying and playing with their vocal chords to get the Kingfisher jingle right and finally with the tag line 'Divided by teams: United by Kingfisher’!

Twenty one seasoned cricketers from four teams of IPL coming together on one platform to sing for a new advertising campaign launched during IPL 2010 is for me fun for sure but more than the entertainment part I felt enamoured by the seemingly endless possibilities that IPL gives to the business of Marketing…



This 30 second TVC is on air of course during the IPL matches on Set Max but also in other channels across the news, movie and music genres……Thanks to some good media planning by Mindshare( and credits to Balu Chaitanya the planner behind and a beloved student of mine,,,) Conceptualized by JWT Bangalore, this karaoke music (popular in bars, pubs and disco’s) based story line commercial is a delight and joy to watch, as an invigorating break in between anxious moments of the match. Bearing in mind the arduous and frenzied schedule of the cricketers in the IPL, the ad has been shot in four different locations (Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai and New Delhi) and cheers for the efforts as well as the results.. For the brand that is fun and serious business at the same time, the ad will do good for sure…Nothing so out of the world if you take the idea but different, entertaining and definitely worth the efforts…

Kingfisher as a brand is very closely associated with IPL 2010.They are the Good Times partner to Royal Challengers Bangalore, Delhi Daredevils, Rajasthan Royals, Deccan Chargers and Mumbai Indians. Kingfisher is also the official Umpire’s partners with the brand sitting and smiling from the uniforms and on the score boards in the stadiums.

Liquor, as some critiques say may not need marketing and sales and the growth in the category is just organic. The category grows in spite of the tough rules and legal hurdles that governments impose, ostensibly to dissuade consumption. The fact but is with or without marketing the growth is happening. According to agency faq’s today “Kingfisher claims a growth rate of 12-13 per cent, as against an industry average of 10-15 per cent. The UB Group also claims a sale of 100 million cases of beer in 2009-10 as compared to 83 million cases sold in 2008-09, while the total market size of beer in the country stands at 200 million cases. The credit is to the Marketing acumen of the brand”

So Marketing rules and the rule continues !!!

As of now three cheers for the team, for the entertainer... !


The team :-

Senthil Kumar, executive creative director, JWT Bengaluru,

Kishore Mohandas, senior copywriter

Senthil Kumar, executive creative director

Dennis Koshy, Rohit Kumar and Rajesh Gangwani- account managers

Directed by Bosco and Roshan

Produced by Bang Bang Films.

Media planning by Balu Chaitanya-Mindshare

Go air !!! We have not changed ....

Now that is heights of competition,literally !!! Refer to the previous article on the same topic and have fun>>> cant imagine what Jet airways and its agency would be thinking now...? is it not the opening of a pandorras box...? a can of filthy worms...?

King fisher vs Jet...the ad war for the skies!!!

A shopkeeper was dismayed when a brand new business much like his own opened up next door and erected a huge sign which read
'BEST DEALS.'...........
He was horrified when another competitor opened up on his right, and announced its arrival with an even larger sign, reading
'LOWEST PRICES..............

'The shopkeeper panicked, until he got an idea. He put the biggest sign of all over his own shop. It read .........

'MAIN ENTRANCE'

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Its heating up …in air and in the ground…. The KF vs Jet fight…. The war of words that the competitors are engaged in, is entering its third phase now… Kingfisher and Jet Airways are fighting each other on the streets, in an advertising battle which has enormous potential and clearly is a fun to watch….

When Jet Airways embarked on a Rs 10 crore campaign to announce its change, ( we have changed …It said..) it least expected to be in the non enviable position of having to see its competition hijacking its campaign right from under its nose tips… Every where in Mumbai streets especially,right above the“we have changed” Jet ad at Cadbury Junction, which is around two kilometres from Jet chairman Naresh Goyal's residence, KF and its war managers put up another hoarding which proudly proclaimed “ we made them change”…!!!!

Kingfisher is into this tongue-in-cheek method,thanks to Swapan Seth & his Equus Advertising, obviuosly to narrow the gap in market share. Jet leads with a 31% share while Kingfisher has 10.5%.( Well I am not sure about the exactness if this numbers, still…). Jet Airways, which spends up to Rs 50 crore a year on marketing, has increased its budget after it bought and rebranded Sahara into JetLite. But its ad agency M&C Saatchi preferred to ignore the issue of competition and embarked on the much touted campaign which we are talking about today…..bitten by the sarcasm bug, Jet was forced to withdraw the campaign, and start a new.."Take Off To New York Daily" campaign…Not to be left behind…taking the war of words forward, Kingfisher Airlines again changed its hoarding which stated, “They’ve flown from here to New York.”

This seems to be the sequel to the war on talents that this two majors ( Indian or the Indian airlines seems to be no where in the picture here…) are already engaged in. The seasoned market player ,Jet Airways witnessed an exodus of its senior executives ,at least five top-level officials of Jet Airways joining Vijay Mallya's Red brigade…..and this all is happening amidst the rebranding hype that jet has launched with M&C Saatchi and US-based Landor Associates…..

Competition is good, at the end of the day, because that helps in the players getting more innovative and the customer stands to be benifited....

Now a defensive Jet should react, in the mean time Mumbaikars are having fun… watching the otherwise monotonous hoarding sites getting spiced up !!!!

After all everything is fair in war ,love and advertising….