Expect the Unexpected...

The best of Adformula series....

If you can't write your idea on the back of my calling card, you don't have a clear idea. ~David Belasco

The client sold chocolates and candies...and was good in that...We ( My second agency which took me to Europe) handled the creatives and the going was smooth..they weren't a trouble making client ..No IKE 's.. no shocking surprises... no tantrums.. a dream client....

They came up with a new type of candy which would cause a "revolution" as per their brand manager ..It was as normal as any other candy form out side and when one starts eating but as you go in.. voilaaaaaaaaa it rocks..it turns sour...funny...shocking.. and then slowly you start liking it...that unconventional taste of this new candy starts slowly tickling you, and by the time you finish it you fall in love with it......oooppppssss..... you even feel that all those sweet candies which you had been having all these years were bland and insipid.

The agency went celebrating...the product as described by the client ( for every crow and for even a crow, its baby would be the most charming, the most attractive thing in the world).. and before we guys could troop to the nearest bar for the success that was going to be ours ( the ad guys are bad guys---we celebrate the success that may come, will come , most likely come, shall come ,is coming, come, ohhhhh it didn't come...anything is a reason to celebrate..), the client gave the One liner that was what was going to be the brief....

Expect the unexpected...It said simply...

The brains cluttered together, confused, confessed and confined, astray and astute, wild and vivid, varied and voracious, vocal and vociferous....everyone thought thought and thought..but nothing evolved except crap and holy crap......

Finally the one evolved, did so from a junior client service guy who had just joined, who had an Egyptian father and a Danish mother ( he looked like Menses 2 the Pharaoh of Egypt..and we called him MUMMY...) it was some story which some one somewhere had told him which had this climax.....

It was simply stunning....


( to be continued)..................

Aides+TBWA - Just plain talk...

Pls wait if its taking time to buffer,, and have your speakers on.. !!!!

This is one of the most discussed video for the last fortnight.. It has raised many an eye brow, have taken debates about sexuality into a new level… It had some superb factor in it that can kick start a conversation among people who takes it as a topic to be conversed and fuel a controversy among people who see a controversy even in a drop of milk. This commercial was realised and released for Aides- a French association fighting AIDS by TBWA Paris …..

Controversy but then is the other name of TBWA- be it in the Beijing Olympics Chinese pride ads vs the Amnesty international ad showing the Chinese torture of its athletes both at the same time done by TBWA or be it the 'Pincha la Rueda de Hamilto' or the Burst Hamilton's tires or recently in India the Haagen-Dazs India and its “Access restricted only to holders of international passports” ad and the acrimonious client walk out after the beating…

Funniest advertisement it is, but it is an eye opener.. of course I don’t agree to the suggestion that wearing a condom works like magic or even a magnet that draws to it the female sexual organ, which in a way encourages promiscuity but yes the protection factor is well depicted… We have seen much about AIDS awareness and not many are so open and so very piercing…. Needless to say that graphics and animation is just brilliant. It may be notorious, even be enjoyable, for some it may be detachable but for me it is distributable and most importantly something that will be effective on a wide range of targets…..

Now such messages that suits the audience in other places as well needs to come out, and use the new media tools as well to keep hitting the targets and keep the conversation going and even augment it..

For the time being but three cheers to the awesome team work, and taking advertising as an art and for the simple plain talk..... and hey -thanks to good friend and brother- Rajiv Rajan for sending me the links required ....

Credits

Agency: TBWA, Paris
Client: Aides
Executive Creative Director: Eric Holden
Executive Creative Director: Remi Noel
Art Director: Ingrid Varetz
Copywriter: Ingrid Varetz
Agency Producer: Virginie Chalard
Agency Producer: Maxime Boiron
Production Company: Wanda Productions
Director: Yoann Lemoine
Music Company: AOC Productions-Paris & NY

Daz-Out of the Box

This 2003 American ad is finding a place here in Adformula not because it is the best ad in my archive... For that matter, I haven’t yet seen the best ad, as my archive is getting bigger with every passing day.....

This ad awed me for sure for the fun in it. But more than that, it has overwhelmed me for taking the formula out and doing something new... Procter & Gamble and many other makers of detergents has used the "doorstep challenge" method (formula) in which a B or C rate celebrity encounters and persuade a "surprised housewife" that the powder really does work better than other washing powders.. a dirty bucket and some unbelievably dirty clothes which when dipped on the said bucket will prove the point…..Some places and in some situations the formula slightly varies where the celebrity is replaced by a jealous neighbor or even a mother- in- law or daughter -in -law who teaches and the other one gets taught…

As an advertising device, however, it has been living on borrowed time. While it may have proved to be a tried-and-tested way of demonstrating the powders qualities, a whole new generation of housewives (and husbands too) found the idea a bit too out dated and cheesy to be accepted just like that…

Out of the box stuff when the ad introduces to us to Mummy Maureen and son Sean. Maureen finds an off-white bra in Sean's bedroom.Sean's girlfriend is not using Daz, she concedes, but the bra is not her’s either……. Sean looks bashful and the barmaid looks shifty..... TheAd is made by Leo Burnett and was extended into different forms and ideas of which I have one more to show and it is here...

Hitherto, I use this ads to teach “out of the box” concept… but as the saying goes” to think out of the box, one first have to have the box”………

Follow your star !!!

This German ad with its brilliant copy, visualisation and execution and the song was an all time favourite for me..The"Hello" song was written by Christina Aguilera" , Robert Hoffman and Heather Holley for promoting this new car model of Mercedes-Benz A-Class, back in summer 2004.... This ad for me was ever so dear for it stands so close to the principles of life I follow.... And for the creative simplicty with which the message is conveyed...

Here at IBS ,another batch of students are passing out...... As I finished my 7 th batch of teaching Advertising, this ad was my parting message to them...

Go and fly out and reach places... Follow your own star guys and gals...!!!

Thanks for the wonderful learning experience !!!

Credits of the Ad:

Released:
Aug 2004
Advertiser:
Mercedes Benz A class
Brand name:

Agency:
Springer&Jacoby Werbung( based in Germany but having operations across Europe)

Creative Director: Rob Hoffman/Heather Holley

Creative Director: Stefan Meske/Toygar Bazarkaya/Hans-Jürgen Lewandowski/Erik Heitmann

Copywriter: Markus Sehr/Michael Benzinger

Art Director: Tilmann Trost

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”.

Ad Speak - Big Idea !!!

An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come.- Victor Hugo

Much is being talked about the BIG IDEA.. every ad man says this… every ad lecture touts it… what is it in actual?

The big idea is one which makes the BRAND or product PROPOSITION relevant, clear, distinct and memorable. Agencies strive to merge their strategic analysis, their MEDIA choices and gut feelings into an elusive big idea, combining the place a product occupies in a Consumer’s mind, the appearance of the advertisement and the SLOGAN that encapsulates it............ the crux is that the big idea should be big and stand much above the rest in cluttered markets.. The Vodafone Zoo Zoo is an example in the last year of Indian Advertising ..it was relevant, clear, simple, distinct , memorable and hence BIG…. They didn’t take it to where they should have but that is an entirely different thing ….

One classical example from UK is from a 1980s ad for the Volkswagen Golf. They could have relied on the usual checklist of performance criteria, quoting magazines or touting boring fuel economy statistics. Instead, it featured an charming Paula Hamilton storm out of a house after a lovers’ quarrel, throwing away her fur coat and pearls and then, after a masterfully measured pause, holding on to her keys to sweep off in her beloved Golf. The message was that all other pleasures are transient, momentary, superfluous and dispensable, but a VW is a lasting pleasure; if only every-thing in life was as reliable.

An American example of the big idea is Snapple, a non-carbonated soft drink that began life as a niche brand. Its strategy was expressed as “100% natural marketing” which originated from the company appreciating that consumers loved their product. Consumers were encouraged to write in, send photos of them, and tell the company how much they loved Snapple. The agency, Kirshenbaum Bond in New York, answered these letters via TV, magazine and outdoor advertising. One campaign became known as the “love letters” campaign and drew acres of free PR in the national media. It launched Snapple into competition with leading brands such as Coca-Cola. The ads always featured real employees and consumers…..

Now the BIG IDEA need not be an out of the world IDEA… it could be simple and existing.. it could be the daily seen dogs and boys.. it is how the ad man gets to connect them to the brand and its problems in the market place…

There are many examples where such big ideas have been discarded by brand managers and advertising agencies some times without realising that in many ways they are actually tearing out the heart of the advertising communication and some times for availability of better choices and some times due to extraneous factors like fashion and generation changes,,,Some Big ideas start great and get funny later making the viewer feel like why don’t they stop it..? Surf “Daag Ache Hai” and its recent ads are an example…,,

Some Big Idea’s made strong come back after testing other waters, like the Mint with a hole and the Onida Devil.. but gone forever are the Liril Girl, Wah Ustad! Wah Taj !, and the definitely male ……The list is long but I am sure the enlightened reader is aware.. The fact is that our agencies are brilliant in that they come up with wonderful ideas that are big, but they don’t sustain them… the sad fact is that agencies and brand owners fall into boredom with their Big Ideas even before the Target audience does…

Any rejoinders?

Dead End :-
It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night. I doubt if more than one campaign in a hundred contains a big idea.
-DavidOgilvy

Get out-the world is waiting ! The Outdoor advertising story Part I

A peep into the ifs and buts of Outdoor advertising ....

Being different makes all the difference they say and here you are seeing some Out Of Home ads that follow this dictum in letter and spirit.. eye catching they are ...brevity is a theme across and the message and hence strikes the viewer like a thunderbolt... when world over Billboards are making a come back as OOH and other forms of outdoor media, such creative experiments that give wonderful results to the advertiser and the audience is a welcome change.



Long gone are the days when a bill board was a boring job for the executors, a pain in the ass for the advertisers and an eye sore for many a target audience member. This statement is notwithstanding the fact that there were beautiful exceptions that made history but exceptions rarely made the rules....



Outdoor advertising grows at an astonishing pace as one observe and it is ringing alarming bells for the ones who brushed this media down as not good to be seen in their media mix. As more people become mobile, as more cars and vehicles get into the street driving miles, to and from work and business, the number in the TG of the medium is going up dramatically. It is not the same old bill boards any more. It is a multiple choice and it is there everywhere. From billboards to street- furniture, from transit media such as buses, railways and mobile-vans to new alternate media such as mall kiosks, building boards and you name it.. it is there everywhere…The media planner of today has a problem of abundance …It is just his problem of choice depending on the type of TG that he wants to reach out….



A 2000 crore industry (as per the industry estimates) by 2010, Outdoor is not adding up to about 6 percent of total media spent (abysmal you feel? but it is getting better year after year) New players ( Clear Channel, News Outdoor Group, Kinetic, Aconda SA, Out of Home Media SA, Posterscope etc) are coming in giving a tough fight to the existing ones( OOH agencies like Ogilvy, Bates 141 (Wall Street), Jagran Engage, Primesite, Serve & Volley, Percept OOH, Aaren Initiative, Portland etc to name a few ). It is not easy but and even the seasoned players have been thrashing it in black waters…Clear Channel the world leader in Outdoor is in India for almost 8 years now and not making any significant change to be able to write back home.



Why is it so?
Problems galore…. Measurement ,the ROI element, creative limitations, flexibility, use of technology and the cost involved, the fragmentation ,non accepetance by the marketing community as a primary advertising
media ..it seems to be endless…

This story takes you through the saga…

To Be Continued>>>>>