World Environment Day Poster contest .....

So creatives, ad agencies and friends.. what are you waiting for? Rush in with your entries and win exciting prizes,,,

Part 2 of Scene I , take I....

Continued from Part I .......

Tril was supposedly a path breaker with Endura007 which cleaned the clothes, killed germs and gave sparkle like no one else did… It still wasn’t sinking into the jug head Indian buyers mind set that India and its dirty clothes needed German help to sparkle… The Indian detergent market was not the same like Europe from where Tril came from if it was P&G ‘s Ariel which ruled the charts , in US it was Tide and no Ariel would be available… definitions of premium varied and so did the varieties of Tide or Ariel that one got in their respective markets

The Rs.5,700 crore detergent market in India which is segmented into two product categories - powder and cake was one tough nut for Tril to crack….. Sub categories like concentrates/compact (variants of Surf, Henko, Ariel), premium (variants of Surf, Henko, Ariel), mass premium/mid price (Rin, Mr.White, Tide and regional brands) and popular (Nirma, Wheel, Chek) made it difficult for the brand managers and the advertising agency to decide where to enter and where exactly to position. Tril after careful analysis decided to take the mass premium category and that is why this actor from the south was chosen to come all the way and dip dirty clothes, take them out and show ho it sparkles…research said she had the appeal… she was loved by the mass and yet had a premium appeal… she looked premium and yet was mass like material…

The first Tril advertising (launch ad) which Ram and co had made with no famous star in it had shown the offer of this unnamed product for maximum whiteness effect…. The sparkle and the clean which no one else did gave,….. The house wife tries the product and lo and behold, she gets the promised whiteness. After which the product's brand name appears from heaven as Tril….

The competitor was not to be left behind…. He had to prove that this unnamed detergent powder that is offered for trial does not provide that super whiteness and even if they do the unnamed new fellows cannot be trusted…. And they showed a lead female actor who wore cotton saree to look like an ordinary bharathiya nari waxing about the super whiteness of the time tested age old brand while unnamed detergent gets pushed to the background by a group of women talking about the excellent performance of the old brand…

What could Tril do but get another star to counter propaganda..? And the research luckily agreed to the very obvious… get the competing star to kill the other one….

The phone rang again….

Hello … said Ram….

Hey Ram…. We are on the way… said Guru….is everything ready?

Ram didn’t say YES… it was understood that when the unit was there since early morning they would be ready and tired of waiting….

Ram let out a huge sigh of relief … he had his plans for the ad shoot and release… had to rush back to Chennai after the post shoot works… had other brands in his kitty competing for his attention… The life of a client service director was in soup… the more clients in his kitty the more was the confusion… the bigger ones got the better attention and the smaller ones were never happy with that fact of life… the bigger ones weren’t happy either with the divided attention that they got… after all they paid through their noses for listening to them at least ,full time…

The phone rang again….

Hey Ram ..said some one… this time it was not Guru…

Khurana here… I have sad news for you and Tril…..

What is that? Asked Ram

The other guy is reducing its price by half… said Khurana who was head of the research team back in the Chennai agency office…

That means?… asked Ram visibly annoyed

That means now Kite detergent powder will be available at 23 Rs and not 43… said Khurana…. They call it as the biggest ever consumer advantage transfer…
My foot …..said Ram…..

He knew what it meant to his brand… Tril…. It was a price war that was launched… and quite unexpectedly,,, the whole shoot now became futile an effort.. after all the strategy was to talk about value for the mass premium segment…

A car came and the whole unit stood up….

Like a dream which came true, the star descended from it…

The Fun Gun !!!

A woman gets on a bus with her baby. The bus driver says: “That's the ugliest baby that I've ever seen. Ugh!” The woman goes to the rear of the bus and sits down, fuming. She says to a man next to her: “The driver just insulted me!”

The man says: “You go right up there and tell him off...give him what he deserves.. How dare he insults women..... – go ahead, I'll hold your monkey for you.” 

Happy weekend folks... !

Acme fitness - fun & fitness !

I have been an ardent animation& cartoon enthusiast ever since I got some sense of my own… While in advertising too animation could seize my imagination and keep me there. But then my school of thought remained mine and not many joined it.... but then that was THEN...

Over the decades but this amazingly varied and vibrant medium has progressed from an inconsequential tool aimed at engaging children tired after school (and on dull Sunday mornings) into a  source of power that has connected civilizations, enthralled scores and generations of people of all economic levels . ( I still watch a Tom & Jerry show over any other show ,given a choice !)

My beloved Industry still keeps a taboo over using of animation as an execution strategy and it still remains a under utilised tool reserved for cereal commercials and some (very few)other segments of the children’s market. This is not said forgetting the great mascots that advertising has produced (Captain Crunch, Tony the Tiger and The Jolly Green Giant, The Simpsons (Domino Pizza, MasterCard etc), Wallace and Gromit (Renault Kangaroo)…not to forget our own gattu of Asian paints and the omnipresent Zoo Zoo …. the list is endless. But then they were all mascots and very rarely became an execution platform…

Now at this juncture is what I saw this ad from ACME fitness which is direct, funny (just because it uses animation) and hitting the target right there at the weakest touch point…

Animation, with a fine dosage of humour and a compelling theme can give a brand and its agency inestimable creative and communicative powers .....It can bring to life images and ideas that can reach the TG and make waves. It could be used to say stuff which couldn’t be that easily said otherwise- exercise improves ‘performance’ said using any other execution platform would have been sexist, animation saved it…

 

To sum up, ACME is in the right path of advertising and if the platform is maintained and new variants of the same idea brought up, the brand is here to make waves in its category !!!

Kudos to Salt Chennai ( the creators - little is known about the guys though) and Mediaedge:cia for the right piece of work... !!!

Ritz & Beat - selling life !!!

‘How many moments have you lived’ is the question asked here and it makes one ponder.. I liked the ad for the simple fact that after a long time here is a car ad that shows the small and happily family in their car, enjoying their world…since mid December it’s going the rounds and is contributing immensely to the sales of Ritz which is a good car and hence this simple and beautiful ad looks so believable and real.

‘Plan ahead’ is what the Chevy beat has to say in this ad which looks like the mirror image of the Ritz one. Life and its living moments is the theme in both and hence the similarity, may be. That is ,seeing it from the view point of a simple family man, who bought his new car just a month back (not a Ritz or a Beat to make a confession!).

Such communication makes a lot of difference. Buyers when deciding to buy a car – choosing between A brand and B brand, may not take an ad seriously for information. This is because ads are the purest form of commercial sources of information. But a good ad, such as these can help the brand in climbing the ladder of recall and taking to brand into the buyers consideration set. If an ad does at least that, its purpose is done.

The review of Ritz and Beat as Cars is better left to the auto experts but the ads are striking, positive, simple and sweet!!!

Cheers!!!

The Fun Gun !!!

Now what more do I say.. Enjoy the week end friends.. !

The fun Gun !!!

Three men were standing in line to get into heaven one day. Apparently it had been a pretty busy day, though, so Peter had to tell the first one, "Heaven's getting pretty close to full today, and I've been asked to admit only people who have had particularly horrible deaths. So what's your story?"

So the first man replies: "Well, for a while I've suspected my wife has been cheating on me, so today I came home early to try to catch her red-handed. As I came into my 25th floor apartment, I could tell something was wrong, but all my searching around didn't reveal where this other guy could have been hiding. Finally, I went out to the balcony, and sure enough, there was this man hanging off the railing, 25 floors above ground! By now I was really mad, so I started beating on him and kicking him, but wouldn't you know it, he wouldn't fall off. So finally I went back into my apartment and got a hammer and starting hammering on his fingers. Of course, he couldn't stand that for long, so he let go and fell -- but even after 25 stories, he fell into the bushes, stunned but okay. I couldn't stand it anymore, so I ran into the kitchen, grabbed the fridge and threw it over the edge where it landed on him, killing him instantly. But all the stress and anger got to me, and I had a heart attack and died there on the balcony."

"That sounds like a pretty bad day to me," said Peter, and let the man in.

The second man comes up and Peter explains to him about heaven being full, and again asks for his story.

"It's been a very strange day. You see, I live on the 26th floor of my apartment building, and every morning I do my exercises out on my balcony. Well, this morning I must have slipped or something, because I fell over the edge. But I got lucky, and caught the railing of the balcony on the floor below me. I knew I couldn't hang on for very long, when suddenly this man burst out onto the balcony. I thought for sure I was saved, when he started beating on me and kicking me. I held on the best I could until he ran into the apartment and grabbed a hammer and started pounding on my hands. Finally I just let go, but again I got lucky and fell into the bushes below, stunned but all right. Just when I was thinking I was going to be okay, this refrigerator comes falling out of the sky and crushes me instantly, and now I'm here."

Once again, Peter had to concede that that sounded like a pretty horrible death.

The third man came to the front of the line, and again Peter explained that heaven was full and asked for his story.

"Picture this," says the third man, "I'm hiding inside a refrigerator..." 

Now for all the sinners who read this...Have a happy week end !!!!!!!!!

When u are wrong accept, when right--shut up !!!

O

One day, while a woodcutter was cutting a branch of a tree above a river,his axe fell into the river.

When he cried out, the Lord appeared and asked, "Why are you crying?"

The woodcutter replied that his axe has fallen into water, and he needed the axe to make his living.

The Lord went down into the water and reappeared with a golden axe. "Is this your axe?" the Lord asked.

The woodcutter replied, "No."

The Lord again went down and came up with a silver Axe. "Is this your axe?" the Lord asked.

Again, the woodcutter replied, "No."

The Lord went down again and came up with an iron Axe. "Is this your axe?"the Lord asked.

The woodcutter replied, "Yes."

The Lord was pleased with the man's honesty and gave him all three axes to keep, and the woodcutter went home happy.

Some time later the woodcutter was walking with his wife along the river bank, and his wife fell into the river. When he cried out, the Lord again appeared and asked him, "Why are you crying?"

"Oh Lord, my wife has fallen into the water!"

The Lord went down into the water and came up with ANGELINA JOLIE "Is this your wife?" the Lord asked.

"Yes," cried the woodcutter.

The Lord was furious. "You lied! That is an untruth!"

The woodcutter replied, "Oh, forgive me, my Lord. It is a misunderstanding. You see,if I had said 'no' to ANGELINA JOLIE , You would have come up with CAMERON DIAZ .Then if I said 'no' to her, you would have come up with my wife. And I would have to go home with all the three...!!!!

The moral of this story : Whenever a man lies, it is for a good and honourable reason, and for the benefit of others.......

A gentle man named Rajiv Sabharwal of a frontline advertising agency (then and even now) told me this story some years back. (Now don’t ask me.... if he was a gentleman, what the hell was he doing in advertising...)

Rajiv was an excellent story teller and I’m not, still I have to tell you this...

The client was an egoist (I bet you knew this..) and an IKE type ....... Rajiv and his team in the Account management/CS , wasn’t too happy with the type of client they had had but had to cling on for want of a better choice...Their Agency in that city had only one major client worth to be called as a client, and so it went on. The agency did a study(almost a life threatening exercise) on the feasibility of the clients produce, which was a ready to eat stuff, mostly vegetarian and traditional. The packaging was archaic, the logo was close to primitive, the mascot belonged to the stone age......

Study ..you ask.......? With so much of clear reason what is there to study?

Advertising is where clear reason has no place according to Rajiv.....and hence the study went on to find out the obvious...to unravel secrets which even the tea boy at the agency knew...to discover insights with which street kids across the agency played....

And the finding... nothing great and everything as expected...the city had grown ,it said and people have all become modern..the garb of tradition and filter coffee mania has disappeared...The young lot has taken over and old things are out.....old images......old culture......old habits... including (sigh!!!)the clients primeval produce...

The client refused to accept it..the agency was vociferous..was argumentative ( for a change..!!) Spat and squabble followed and the client won. As in marriages it is always the other party who has the last laugh finally....

The findings were replaced by something new-fangled......since the client and his primordial products couldn’t be touched, and since the agency couldn’t also blame itself for the quandary that they were in, what left was to be blamed was the consumer..it was the paradigm shift in the consumer attitudes that they got to blame...

Every one was happy.....
The client -for his football size..oops..stadium sized ego remaining untouched, even glorified...
The agency- for the extended lease of life, until the next campaign also flops and people still refusing to buy ....

It went on...

Rajiv says ...There was a hanging in the walls of the agency which after this incident he thought was the synonym for the ultimate irony in the business of advertising...

It read so...

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by Thee to ever-widening thought and action......

Rajiv says that the best lesson that the agency learnt (in a hard way of course) was that the client is always right..and when you are wrong admit it..when you are not wrong also admit that you are wrong, and if at all you are right, shut up...

Tail piece:-

 
Patient: Doctor! You've got to help me! Nobody ever listens to me. No one ever pays any attention to what I have to say.
 

Doctor: Next please!

The Fun Gun !!!

Five Important Qualities that men should look for in Woman !

1. It's important to have a woman, who helps at home, who cooks from time to time, cleans up and has a job.
2. It's important to have a woman, who can make you laugh.
3. It's important to have a woman, who you can trust and who doesn't lie to you.
4. It's important to have a woman, who is good in bed and who likes to be with you.
5. It's very, very important that these four women do not know each other.

Have fun poeple... God bless !!!

Kerala Tourism - Mexico flavoured !

Its now ages since Kerala Tourism has come out with its new international campaign ( this is the digital world every day is a month,and every month is year ,) so I am like a year late with my take on the  ‘Your moment is waiting’ video that has demonstrated  intense reactions like a swaying coconut tree caught in thunder storm….. .

I belong to Kerala and have always felt proud of the fact… It was always a blissful feeling to hear and see praises heaped on your home by people, especially when one lived abroad and I have felt it more often than I could afford...

It pays to Advertise !!!

The fish, it never cackles

'bout it's million eggs or so,

The hen is quite a different bird,

one egg-and hear her crow.

The fish we spurn,

but crown the hen,

which leads me to surmise:

Don't hide your light, but blow your horn.

it pays to advertise

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Why should I advertise?

Can you do business without advertising?

It looks familiar, often asked questions ,considering the fact that advertising money is spend on a virtually immeasurable platform.

See this story....

"A man lived by the side of the road and sold roasted chicken.

He was hard of hearing so he had no radio. He had trouble with his eyes so he watched no television and read no newspaper, but he sold good roasted chicken. He did however, advertise in the local newspaper telling people how good they were. He stood by the side of the road and cried, 'Buy roasted chicken sirrrrr 'and people bought. He increased his orders and bought a bigger stove to take care of his trade.

Teachers day !!!!

They say " A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary.... " .. a humble dedication from my side to all teachers who have made our lives beautiful !!!

The Talent Centric Industry !

Scene setting – A local Ad club’s annual meet

Participants- a host of them.. the ad guys, big names, media barons etc

The star- the big name of the Ad Industry who’s name seemed to have driven the entire crowd…

Posh conference hall of the best Hotel in town, AC, soft music, the camaraderie, fellowship waiting, hugs and taps in cheeks, brand talk and so on…

I am just an Ex Ad man, now an academic and hence kind of lesser mortal and was attended less to.

The programme as usual got delayed ( the ad man is perpetually busy and hence never arrives on time..) and no one seemed to regret, they have in course of time learned to take it in a stride.

I sat there thinking of the pitches that agencies would have lost and accounts that would have walked out of their lethargic offices that pretended to be full of activity even when a paper refused to move from here to there. Perhaps for the one classical exemption of Peter Marsh and his team at ABM (Allen Brady Marsh) winning an account (of the British Railways) for being appallingly bad behaved with the client, all the rest have been losses and yet very few lessons learnt…

At last the programme began.. The ad speak, mutual admiration societies, you scratch mine and I will do yours- gleefully… !

The star rose to speak, he dealt with the fact that Advertising is a talent centric Industry or rather IT IS THE TALENT CENTRIC INDUSTY and why and how it should encourage ART and NOT mere CRAFT! He spoke and I sat to attend (for a change) on the profusion of trash, pretending to be talent and why talent is needed in abundance to take the Indian Ad industry to where it belongs. He left in me a ray of hope that very few speakers who were practicing ad professionals could leave. The tiny burst of brilliance that fresh blood throws in- he said is needed and I applauded for the very simple reason that I know how hard it’s for a fresher (with passion and devotion) to get in and survive in the ad industry. As an academic teaching advertising, I have seen the entry barriers that the talent centric industry keeps with impunity on approaching talent ….

Fellow ship time, when others indulged in the pleasure of wine and froth, I thought of engaging him and getting to hear more.. He seemed to be speaking from his heart, and he meant it.. He told me how hard it is to get the right people for the right job and those people who can do it their way and not waiting for some one to tell them.. the DOERS.. The undying doers who will defy rules and create new ones.. Only to defy them and thus go on from excellence to more excellence..

I had met the right man to send the list of talents I have in mind.. the guys and gals who sat in my classes with Ad ambitions, and (in spite of my teaching ) hang on to the ardor and wanted to be in the Ad mad world.. The list of young men and women who would fit into his list of DOERS would for him look like a treasure cove, I was sure.

Call me…… he said as he left with a deep impact on my mind… I have saved your number…

After a long time I had met an Ad guy who was so pragmatic and addressing the Human issue of Advertising …

I tried calling him many times but no response.. In fact for the last 547 times I had called him I got to hear some 2 different Hindi songs ( Rukh jaa oh dil diwaneeee and Hum tum ek kamare mein bandh ho ) and a dozen times it got busy..

Surely and Ad man of his stature will be busy but when you need talent, you cannot be so busy that you cannot even meet them?

I am now sure, he had saved my number ..

Oops !

Advertising - using satans !

When Burger King advertised for its open late programme with the above ad.. (credits given below) It was looked as one good piece of creative symbolizing the idea to be sold..

Credits :Burger King “Open Late” – 02/2009
Source : Adsoftheworld
Agency : Tonic Communications Dubaï (UAE)

But taking it from the satan, McDonalds came up with the ad given below.. and then the rest is history...

Credits: Mc Donald’s / “Come as you are” – 08/2010
Source : Outdoor campaign seen in Paris
Agency : BETC Euro RSCG Paris (France

The Fun Gun !!!

Little Mary was not the best student in Sunday school.
Usually she slept through the class.

One day the teacher called on her while she was napping, "Tell me, Mary, who created the universe?"

When Mary didn't stir, little Johnny, a boy seated in the chair behind her, took a pin and jabbed her in the rear. "GOD ALMIGHTY!" shouted Mary and the teacher said, "Very good" and Marl fell back asleep.

A while later the teacher asked Mary "Who is our Lord and Saviour," But, Mary didn't even stir from her slumber. Once again, Johnny came to the rescue and stuck her again. 'JESUS CHRIST!" shouted Mary and the teacher said, "very good," and Mary fell back to sleep.

Then the teacher asked Mary a third question. "What did Eve say to Adam after she had her twenty-third child?" And again, Johnny jabbed her with the pin. This time Mary jumped up and shouted, "IF YOU STICK THAT F*****G THING IN ME ONE MORE TIME, I'LL BREAK IT IN HALF AND STICK IT UP YOUR ARSE!"

The teacher fainted !!!

Now the ad guys are like Mary... we always require a Johny to jab from behind if we should work...

Have fun guys... Week end has come again!!!

Microsoft XP - the unexpected experience...

As the tagline suggests, this 2006 ad gave unexpected experience to many people... shock and dismay for many, smiles for some... and need less to say the moral police were out with all the hell and fury ... but that is past... I rate it as a good ad.. especially for the climax...

Bingo masala remix - awesome !!!

Now that is an ad... I would call it tangy and tasty to the core and serves all that an ad is supposed to be... no rocket science here but this guys have made me ( I am sure everyone of the TG) get stunned for a moment, then awed by the gun men, the kidnap ,the gun fight and the police and then shocked by the sudden breaking and then laugh when the whole MASALA drama starts again with the Bachaooooo sound reverberating .... No logic here and thankfully the makers of this ad hasnt analysed the idea and killed it... Ideas like this are funny, or it's not.... As Mark Twain said, "Trying to figure out why something is funny is like dissecting a frog. You'll come up with answers, but the frog always dies."... I loved this ad for the same reason and more...

Bingo and O&M team believes in entertaining and here again they have done that .. who does not love to be entertained? And that too, thought provokingly and without being offensive to any one ... This ad respects the imagination of the viewer and the fact that their imagination may be bigger and better than the ad makers... Even when one laughs , the fact that is clear is that- the business of snacking thrives on constant insertion of excitement and thrill on the image value of the brand. . I love this ad for all this, plus still managing to stay in track ( with all the guns, thieves and bachaooo)and sell the product idea.. at the end of all the laughing if the brand and its images are not staying in the mind of the TG , what is the great fun in making ads?

Finally this ad , as many of the previous Bingo ads, breaks the limit... they know for sure that the best of humour comes from the edge,where simply there is no limits...

Kudos BINGO and O&M....

ITC- class mates - big ideas !!!

Class mates as a brand is advertising on TV after 6 long years and it indeed left a smile in me.. Not the fact that they didn't show their ads for 6 years but the fact that when they did , they did it in style...This new ad is fun, creative and different, in spite of two celebrity's whose presence looked artificial for me...

All of us who have been students have gone through a phase where books, especially note books become our essential companions , a kind of soul and place to vent out feelings and yet when it comes to choosing a brand , I guess we didn't care. At the most one looked was the cover page, for his or her favourite actor smiling from the cover was reason enough to choose a brand.

ITC class mates made a difference in this category and has made stationary products also anchored in brand thoughts of the target groups and hence make them ask for a class mate next time they buy a note book... I have ( I am sure all of us have) gone through similar situations/ scenarios that this ad shows in the Library... I have a bundle of such instances to quote and the moment I saw the ad I liked it (and I repeat I liked it) ,in spite of the celebrity presence.... The witty idea to use book titles and pass the message across without harming the decorum of the library is NOT out of the world and never seen before but I guess that is what was required for the brand, to talk to its TG at this juncture...

Classmate has recently expanded its portfolio with the successful launch of a range of complementary stationery products such as pens, pencils and geometry boxes and have made made sure that the famed distribution magic across India through its vast distribution network works in this case as well..... as far as Classmate is concerned , it is the leading player in the Rs 5000 Crore market for stationery products comprising notebooks, pens, pencils & scholastics which is today growing at a rate of 9-10% .... Now that is phenomenal... ads , promotions, customer contacts and all such stuff to follow.. IMC in its best form for otherwise what was a habitual buying product.. Good job guys... But now let me ask the question which is paining me...

Why Yuvraj and Soha? I have nothing against this two amazing people.. per se I have nothing against celebrity endorsements as well.. But see this ad again.. once more.. If there was no Yuvraj and Soha, would it have made any difference? I even feel it would have made that ad even more watchable and all attention would have been in the fun/theme/situation than on the celebrity... Here they don't steal the attention and lead to a vampire effect but they for sure divert attention for the first time viewer and stand between the ad and the viewer every time he sees the ad........

Here is the company logic ... Chand Das, chief executive of ITC’s Education & Stationery Products Business (ESPB) says , “Classmate aspires to be the leading and most trusted student education and stationery brand. It’s a brand that believes in and nurtures the “big ideas” that reside in each one of us and encourages young minds to realise them through exploration & perseverance. Both Yuvraj & Soha are vibrant icons for the youth of today. They have believed in & pursued their own “big ideas”, and today, both stand tall in their professions with multi-faceted personalities."....

Ahem ! Now that is something that we get to hear every time a famous face is signed for endorsing a brand... Even Mysore sandal guys said similar stuff when they signed Mahendra singh Dhoni....

Good ad, no creative brilliance but stands out... Kudos to Rediffusion Y&R Chennai and the ITC Class mates team for the come back.. Hope to see more ... !



Credits

Project: ITC Classmate's TVC
Brief: Encouraging young minds to be original and think BIG.
Client: ITC ESPB
Creative agency: Rediffusion Y&R, Chennai.
National creative Director: Minakshi Achan, Sagar Mahabaleshwarkar
Creative director: Kishore Karumabaiah
Copywriter: Kishore Karumbaiah
Client servicing: Nachiket Sant
Production house: RDP (Ramesh Deo Productions)
Director: Shujaat Saudagar
Post-production studio: Pixion
Date of publication / release: April, 2010

A poster design competition...

We at Organic BPS ( I am part of the team) is organizing a poster design competition on account of world environment day on June 5th. The dead line is 4 th June 12 noon....... The theme and the expectation is attached here....click on them and kindly rush in your entries...

Please send the link to the creative minds you know !!!!

Indigo - on time !!!

Passengers on a Lufthansa flight heard this announcement from the captain, "Ladies and Gentlemen, I am sorry to inform you that we have lost power to all of our engines and will shortly crash into the ocean."

The passengers were obviously very worried about this situation, but were somewhat comforted by the captain's next announcement. "Ladies and Gentlemen, we at Lufthansa have prepared for such an emergency, and we would now like you to rearrange your seating so that all the non-swimmers are on the left side of the plane, and all the swimmers are on the right side."

After this announcement, all the passengers rearranged their seating to comply with the captain's request.

Two minutes later, the captain made a belly landing in the ocean.

The captain once again made an announcement, "Ladies and Gentlemen we have crashed into the ocean. All of the swimmers on the right side of the plane open your emergency exits and quickly swim away from the plane. For all of the non-swimmers on the left side of plane... "Thank You For Flying Lufthansa."

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

I should begin with a confession…

I always thought that low price means low quality (when taking flights) and this thought came and later got deep rooted from my experiences with low fare carriers that always have messed up my travel (whenever I thought of saving a penny .. as they say penny wise, pound foolish ) .. Until once I missed a Jet flight to Hyderabad and was FORCED to travel in an Indigo, I didn’t know the beauty of it…the fact that low cost and low fares doesn't mean low quality dawned on me that day…( step-less stairs , Q-busters, boarding ramps and so on….).…..The biggest selling point for a flight is to be on time and if its taken care of, half the job is done..! My two experiences with Indigo so far had been proving this ‘on time factor’ and hence when I saw this new ad from Indigo which harps on the ON-TIME factor as a performance policy of the company and the efforts that lie behind such performance I couldn’t agree more…

On May 17 when the ad was released, I was amused for three reasons…

1. It came from Indigo, a small, low cost and unpretentious airline which (at least for me) flies on time.

2. It was from Wieden + Kennedy and having seen their marvels of work in the west I was wondering how and how far they will(can) bring the same here in India

3. It was different and refreshingly international if I may say so ( I am not meaning here that all international stuff are adorable)….

The fresh and cool idea that supports the basic selling proposition of the airline is so very clearly articulated and hence reaching the customer… If you have seen the TVC space in this category, every one ( almost ) brags about being number one or number two, forgetting the fact that, to the end user whether you are number one in this or that is not important, the only thing that matters is whether you take them for a number two ride (the pun intended). For some one who wants to position as a real leader in terms of customer experience, value and operational efficiency this ad does the work…. I even have a feel that the airline has a real and authentic adoration and admiration for its customers.

IndiGo is very aptly saying that they of course take you from here to there without tossing with your time and money, and without being made to feel low-priced in the process.( I have seen the disputes of the range of street fight in Air Deccan counters at a point of time when airports looked like railways stations)…All this in a cool, chic and friendly manner and that is a real price winner !!!

And let me add as a parting note.. I loved the VO ( in spite of the so called phoren accent which some critics believe that middleclass Indians may not understand) and the WE and US tone… kudos to the makers for the idea, the script and the execution!!!

The only doubt is whether this is on Time, I mean this ad… I really don’t know, may be Time will have an answer !!! Right now but next time I fly I will take an Indigo, for sure ..

Credits.

Title: On Time
Client: IndiGo Airlines
Agency: Wieden + Kennedy (Delhi)
Executive creative director: V. Sunil
Senior copywriter: Keshavan Naidu
Agency producer: Anil Sharma
Client servicing: Neha Puri
Production company: Bang Bang Films
Director: Harvey B Brown
Director of photography: Vikash Nowlakha
Produced by: Roopak Saluja, Kirk Dias & Amarjeet Kaur
Editor: Harshal Thakur
Post production: Pixion (Mumbai), Prime Focus (Mumbai)
Music: M Mat of Bhavishyavani Future Soundz in partnership with Tarun & Vinayak

Anti dote: - an agency friend of mine after seeing this ad, texts me.. “hey did you see the Indigo ad ? For me it sounds like a great work, had it been for an alarm clock…”