Tata sky Active English - quite active !!!

DTH brands haven’t featured much here- for two reasons- one) they are relatively new and two) I don’t understand most of them in the sense- most are the same- the unchanged features and benefits and adding more to the same clutter.. no great differentiation and frankly I don’t find the need gap (I am happy with the good old citi cable network connection that I have)…… and since they are new, they still are in a demand creation and category development mode, and since there is tough fight among the players ( Reliance Big TV, Airtel TV,Sun direct, Tata Sky, Dish TV and God knows who all) the share of voice and noise is yet to be decided… just today news papers say how the ASCI has upheld Tata sky petition questioning the ‘Dil Titli’ television campaign featuring Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor which claimed that the campaign “misleading” for suggesting that the picture quality of Airtel Digital TV was superior as it used the MPEG4 and DVB-S2 technology.. Airtel will soon have to withdraw….a lot of dust and din for simple minds, for sure…

The new Tata Sky active English ad, but even in the din, pleased me a lot… no great reason should be explained I know, as to why it is discussed here because as an ad it serves its purpose- Have it made the feel in you? And then does it prompt you to do the action part…..



I am not in the TG ( as I speak ok English) but I know many who will like to speak, particularly house wives who have a regular timing and schedule that this guys seems to have wonderfully understood and made a product accordingly… (Tata Sky has tied up with British Council in devising the programme ,keeping in mind the busy schedule of an average housewife, Monday to Friday, keeping the content new and the whole week's content being reviewed on the weekends… and the training remaining on air 24 hours and people allowed to access it according to their convenience. Active English would also teach people the correct pronunciations of words apart from training for normal daily situations and plus no grammar and hence no complication… and that too free for a year and then I am told Rs 30 per month… )

As any other Marketing guy would put it, great products combined with great marketing sell for itself… Advertising is not just about being able to write catchy lines and tit for tat’s.. Its not about drawing great pictures either.. It is about being able to reach to the TG in their language and fashion, when they want and when they are free…It’s not about being able to rope in a Khan or the other just to add to the fuddle…

I guess this ad where the protagonist woman speaks and speaks about how she heard of Tata Sky active English and how she used it to make over herself, demonstrating the transformation in her speech which moves from Hindi to English and then to a clear , blemish less and active English…I loved the way the protagonist talk about pronunciation ..it is simple, subtle and straight …. And this fact that it is not boring or looking made up as the normal testimonial ads ( with or without celebrities most of them are boring, especially the doctors types that Dettol, Lizol, and the others use so very sterile a fashion) is a feather in their gorgeous cap…After Aamir khan, Aamir Khan/Gul panag ads, it could have been really arduous for the marketer to come up with something better.. This guys but seems to have done a cake walk… it proves again, if your box is working well, you will get some real out of the box stuff!!!

See this ad and read this review along with the fact that DTH is a service which is not so easy to convince people to buy… it requires some money and some serious process, that the buyer has to invest to get a connection( all the buyer behaviour process steps that one learned from a Kotler) … To feel gratified about the decision that he has taken after he has taken it, he needs to get better pictures, better sound etc ( as promised in the ads) , more channels for less (as promised in the ads) value added services ( as promised in the ads) and quite more..

The fact (however) is that many DTH subscribers after the purchase lands up in huge dissonance stage and just wanted to rip off their connection just to return to their good old cable network with no hidden charges, and no long list of channels that are “scrambled” and/or you have to pay separately to see it and still get to see the ads shouting Jinga la la ,pooh poohing their decision….

As of now ,three cheers to Tata Sky Active English and its active advertising…

Footnote:- “The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits”.

Tata Do Co Mo - doing the new...!

Tata DoCoMo the GSM service from the Tata stable is here…. Another one HUH? I sighed when I thought of the prospect of a weak ME TOO player in the Kerala market which already has a war between an Airtel vs Idea vs Vodafone vs Reliance vs BSNL vs Aircel vs MTS vs Virgin .. UAE based Etisalat is on ground already with its basic works…With Tata Indicom ,Tata is already in the CDMA market but as it is well known the CDMA market is a smaller cake and the GSM one is a bigger cake and therefore the Tata DoCoMo.

Do Co Mo is there everywhere…. After the teasers that went on for a while and the revealers that wasn’t that great as expected,after the ads that unveiled the logo’s( they were good ads and you can see some of them here…)…..now it has become omnipresent (A telecommunication client with deep pockets is any agency’s jack pot and its rivals envy) ....In marine drive, in the walkways, in the shopping malls, in my car yard, in twitter where I go once while ( docomo id : tatadocomo which has about 1000 plus followers already ) in the FM radio’s (50 to 60 second ads which can at times make you crazy) and in the TV of course and yet it does not irritate beyond a point……NTT Do Co Mo of Japan which has only 26% stake (and the rest is with TATA thus creating the TATA Do Co Mo) dominate 74% of the logo said some literature and I felt like.. arey wah !!! No one says Tata Do Co Mo now.. It’s just the Do Co Mo and it sounds good.. and it is working without the TATA tag….…… cute, peppy ,rhyming and simple….

Tata DoCoMo’s advertising ( I tried getting them on You tube but in vain… will post them when I am able to locate them..) is banging, true that they are not amazing works of exceptional creativity but they are what ads basically should be…..communicative and creative..!!

First came the footballer who strikes a goal and then rejoices with his jersey pulled up to cover his face and as he runs in joy, bangs on to the goal post and falls flat.. then came the guy in the plane who gets to seat next to a lady and when he is about to strike a conversation, he is asked to move his seat, first to his chagrin, and then to his delight, when he gets to place his ass between a voluptuous blonde and a sexy damsel, one of them instantly falling on to his shoulders in sleep….. And the message? Life can change in a second… why talk of a minute?

It just says “Do the New” with the amusing Do – Co – Mo sounds and each ad has a story, the inviting fun and mischief and great climax…

No big faces, No Dogs, No South African creatures and no big IDEA’s being swept around… Simple Job.. Simple differentiation (second is the new minute) that is striking a cord with people (people are shifting from A B and C to Do Co Mo and I am seeing it...) or is it that simple… ? The pulse is dragged down to 1 second from the existing 1 minute..... Sure the cost might be the same but the rounding off will be to the nearest second and not to the nearest minute.. and that makes a hell lot of difference for people who value money…And I can give you a list….Why pay for two minutes when you have spoken for only one minute and 3 seconds..? “Don’t pay for something which you don’t use” is a proposition that works….

Apart from the simple differentiation, and the simple logo and the simple ads, the tag line Do the new, is simple as well… its similarity with Do the DEW, of Mountain Dew didn’t go unnoticed but I guess it could be taken as part of the game considering that both are players in two different games…In a cluttered market place, the rule to be seen is to stay different and Do Co Mo has done it (began it) well… As they say well begun is half done !!! (I am forced to compare this with Reliance since Tata and Reliance are the only guys in both the GSM and CDMA markets) … The Reliance launch of their GSM with Hrithik Roshan and this one… which is better?

Kudos to Chaks (KS Chakravarthy, National Creative Director, Draft FCB Ulka) and his team……

Think small..smaller...and now smallest !!!!

No prices for guessing.... Nano is the name, car is the product, and high is the dreams.. from the taxi guys in Mumbai( with their ramshackle Premier padmini's dreaming of some retirement after long long long tiresome service) to the ordinary vendor and starry eyed commuter on the ever bubbling Indian streets, from the Biking youngster to the cycling retired old man, from the ' forever Planning to upgrade' bank clerk to the young executive, every one is dreaming it small, thinking small ,smaller and alas, thanks to Ratan Nasserwanji Tata and his promise that he seem to be all set to deliver, in the form of Nano..the wonder small car !!!

They said promises are like making babies, easy to make, but difficult to deliver... But for Tata it does not seem to be the case .Lesser traffic jams still seem to be a distant dream, with the three wheelers and two wheelers dreaming to replace themselves with the stylish new small cars,but our roads are gonna look better for sure... Politicians may add a car along with TV and other soaps that they offer, to woo the unsuspecting populace and a car would cease to be a status symbol.....

The Gap Of Thoughts would be filled in where the Marketer, till date used to play, fitting in and sqeezing his bloody ass into your GOT ,where the NEED was forever in collision with the WANTS and trying to confuse you between both... making you buy things you never wanted ,using money that you never had.....

Now people will think small.. (well the leader class is doing it already..show me one leader who thinks big and dreams....) and small will look beautiful.... Well at least ,the Tata dreams are in similiar lines.... When Nano gets labelled (if it gets labelled) as a taxi car, the middle class and their upwardly egos, which are heavily inflated baloons full of inert gases mass produced from false prestige, may stop, wait and may be not proceed.. better to drive in a scooter than have a car which every ' ram, rahim and russel has.... Remember how Reliance mobile owners had a tough time hiding their mobiles ever since the giant, decided to dole it out literally to every unsuspecting stranger on the street... The fisher man came with one and called the customer who was inside his home ,from his mobile, and the next day the man decided to go immobile.....huh ! the fisher man......even he has got a mobile... !

The think small business started long back... with the the brand Volkswagen ( "Volks-Wagen" ("People's Car"), a basic vehicle that should be capable of transporting two adults and three children at a speed of 100 km/h (62 mph) which got the blessings of none other than Adolf hitler ( and a Tata
in India as usual had the guts....) recognising the need for small cars for small and not so well off families.... and the communication which made heads stay up in admiration, eyes pop out as the simple tone hit the eye balls, like an apple did the ever suspicious Sir Issac Newton, is part of the golden history of advertising......well ...It is unique in the history of automobile advertising, if not all advertising.....

Its tone, style, wit, irreverence which have been imitated, mimicked, swiped, copied, misunderstood, and admired more than any campaign before or since.....
It was created by colorful people at Doyle Dane Bernbach and at Volkswagen of America and in fact, it created colorful people by virtue of their association with it.

It was the DDB shot that is still heard around the world.......
It is the classic story of a client with limited funds and unlimited vision, with faith in a wonderful product, who came to Bernbach's agency.......
Bill Bernbach saw the Volkswagen car for what it was: honest, simple, reliable, sensible, different. And he wanted the advertising to be that way too.......
The temptations and pressures to do "mainstream" car advertising were considerable. Bill's resistance was greater. "The product. The product. Stay with the product." Simple.
When the VW campaign became established, there were other temptations at DDB ....Simple.
All the copiers and all the misunderstanders were doomed because they weren't selling Volkswagens and he was.....

Simple....

In the end, the manufacturing philosophy and the advertising philosophy became one and the same. Volkswagen spoke with one voice throughout the world, and people everywhere recognized that voice.... and think small for ever remained one of the best advertising campaigns. No matter how big and pretentious others are.....

Nano of course comes with a huge array of posibilities...its going to hurt many...the two wheleers to an extent but more importantly the three wheelers...the Tata Ace hurt the three wheeler heavy (load carrier) market for sure and now the Rs 1 lakh car may hurt the three wheeler light (passenger) market.....Maruthi and its 800 and the Hyundai Santros.. beware,,,,!!!! but its gonna leave a lots of smiles too...... especially the hype that it seems to have generated, the expectations that it has spun over the Indian mass and class alike and all the talk ,the discussion, the love, the attention and the adoration... its a dream to any marketer and Tata has got it.. and seems to have devised plans to keep it alive and kicking till November when the actual car rolls down and the actual price would be known( the Govt of India had its taxes still high !!)......

From the Markcom angle..its a job well begun and well begun is half done ...... the tempo has to keep going and the agency ( well rumours are galore as to who gets the account...) going to handle it, is gonna have a enviable and not so enviable job at the same time... above all the hopes ,dreams ,prayers and aspirations, when a whole nation is waiting to receive, it may seem easy to communicate, but it may not be the case..... it may be the other way round too...

While we wait for the grand affaire... best wishes Nano.... the cute new car ..the one even before birth they predicted as the change of the future.....