The Brand Economist

The Economist has a brand value as one of the best magazines for general information as well as on business. It covers news from all over the world and puts it briefly and succintly with honesty. But they also do a brand building exercise. See these advertisements. I like them because they have clarity in their messages.

The Fun Gun!

Some advertisements speak themselves. Some cartoons too. Enjoy your weekend.

Surrogate ..the art of being fraudulent!!!

A man sitting at a bar nursing his drink ...
A ravishing lady in black walks in and stations herself opposite our man....
He takes a sip and looks up at her. The high neck dress she was wearing gives way to a bateau neck line......
He's surprised at the revelation. Once again taking a sip, he glances at her...
The lady's dress has now become an off shoulder one.....
Sipping his drink once more, he looks through the glass...to find a shorter, more tantalizing dress on her.
Sipping in anticipation, his eyes fall on his chest...
... to find the shirt unbuttoned. He looks at the lady...
... who too was doing the same with her drink.

MVO: AC Black apple juice. Kucch bhi ho sakta hai. Kucch bhi.


You and I have seen it all.... they duplicating the brand image of one product extensively to promote another product of same brand name .They do it when they cannot do one legally and still can get away with it when it is done for the name extention.

Products like Privelege cards, juices( oh yeh!!!), soda water, clothing and what not, to promote liquor and cigarette which law in many lands prevents, controls or even bans from communicating to the market...... Often non existent products ( like our own Vijay Mallya and his KF water) and Limited Editions of CD's and things that you may be dying to buy....No he dont want you to believe that he lives selling that bottles of water that he makes ..Poor guy !!

The tough UK laws gave rise to the whole business and it is in a way or the other present everywhere depending on how tough the law of the respective land is. For instance in Bangladesh ,beverages and alcohol is not allowed while cigarettes can be seen only in outdoor space and cinema screens. Philippines is more liberal where alcohol is allowed but should have the disclosure “Drink Moderately” and Tobacco guys should not display smoking...Now how do they do it is what is to be seen..I havent seen a Philippine ad that follows the rule ..not as yet....In Japan “Drinking is accepted for those over 20 years” and in India ..well you know what !!!!

The Minister at the centre ( Delhi I Mean) wants it off fully .. not even heroes and villains can smoke or drink if his will prevails and each Indian body has its own standards and guidelines ..
ASCI for instance have something different from IBF and in total is complex and lacks uniform standard .

Advertising
non alcoholic products under same brand name like Bagpiper, is a time tested trick while strengthening association with non alcoholic products like what Haywards 5000 did with darting and some premium brands using success in business like the Mc Signature campaign and sports sponsorship/ event sponsorship etc are innovations that the smart advertiser has tried with varying degrees of success.

Wills Lifestyle, Gold Flake expressions ,Red & white bravery awards, Manikchand filmfare awards, Navaratri celebrations are all the loop holes that the ad man has made use of but slowly being plugged by the rule of law. However when the product is free to be made and sold, the communication part only being taken to task and asked to be silent is one injustice done to the Marketer, when the whole issue is seen from the Advertising looking glass ....

But left alone and inspite of all the restrictions ,see what naughty our guys can be....

and how creative, inspite of all the ifs ,buts and controls....

That was two sides of the same coin !!!! Now you decide .........

Seriously Thoda Zyada

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,

And he had a great fall ( or is it a jump?)

Some advertisements use acrobatics to win people and titillate their eye balls. Some of us have learned our nursery rhymes well, but some of us like to adopt them into ad scripts. In order to explain that we produce something extra ordinary, all "me too" products either create several sub categories and find their niches. Advertisements cannot be true to themselves, they can be imaginative as an Axe perfume ad! ( I would say others have tried to copy the oomph factor from them). But some can be ineffective and similar. Let us look at three such advertisements of last year, which do create a usual element of " audience attention" because of its similarities with each other.

Start...Action.... yes its only about action!.. for a Thums Up bottle. Akshay Kumar does an acrobatic stunt, jumping from one building to other and then to a truck carrying Thums Up. See it here. Now its Juhi's turn for a packet of Kurkure. She is funny even though. If a packet can reduce our gravitational acceleration ( as that in the moon)- woh kya karizma hai. It was "seriously thoda zyada', not because of the attractiveness it had, but because, a brand which wanted to tell itself as a product, that we would have with tea, shouldn't have been so..weightless!.

Cut..Cut it please... If you would like to say that, we have a royal stag advertisement too. See it here. Some of the fellows are jumping again. Oh! Indian consumers are going berserk now. They will start jumping from their terraces or falling like Humpty Dumpty, because they don't have milk or onion at home.