How saturated are we with flow of information?....
Or is saturation a light description of the "how' things are as of now...?
A study ,which I read in some news a month back ( may be it has become outdated by now...), says an average Indian who lives in a metro and who has access to all the communication tools of the day..the "infosexual" ...( eureka,,, eureka.... I have got the term...) gets around 7ooo + information criscrossing his brain on any given day ( Dr Paul MacLean as quoted by Micheal Heppel- says "the brain is a triune brain ie :- with three parts... The Reptilian brain, the limbic system and the neo cortex....")OOOf was it too complicated.?.
Any way it doesnt matter....So the point is... all those information making the receiver go MAD--- Message A Day Index as the communications industry has "aptly" named the phenomenon......Information deluged human beings,attend selectively, distort lavishly and retain sparingly....Voila.... poor Marketing comunicator ( read advertiser....)..how do you make sure that your communication stands above the deluge..like the great arch by Noah...Be creative...In creative content as well as choice of media....
See one example here..it is brilliant..eh? ..the friskies outdoor actually carries food for the birds...now can any one simply ignore that...MAD or bad ..such creative stuff hits the TGBe bold and different.... saw the &*%$ sucker ad..? the idea is simple..Dowry is the dirtiest word..any other word,,,even the dirtiest of swearing, would become a day to day lingo in comparison...
bold and beautiful ..aint it?
Now whats the lesson....for an academic couchpotato it is easy to advise..right you ad guys out there..?
It is easy to play from the gallery ...but right in the field the heat will burn your ass right...?
But I belong to the TG... and I will see u only if u want me to see u.. talk to me in my language...Got it... or are you caught in the deluge... deluge of vanity...?
(This article is published again under the best of adformula series and was originally published on June 19, 2006)
They're doing a new show: Celebrity Corpse, where you dig up someone after five years and try to guess who they were. -- Paul Merton [on the epidemic of tv celebrity shows]
The channel office looked like a disco on a Sunday morning….
Quite a mayhem which was the left over of the brain storming that was going on… the program team, the marketing team, the strategy people and who not… they stormed and stormed and what was left was misery and miserable looking faces….
Now what do we do? …. said the program head…. All the internal concepts seem to be non starters….
Rakhi is married off and now they are parading Rahul Mahajan as the groom… said some one.. Disgusting….
Jealousy was the raison d'être behind the whole discussion at the main meeting room of Channel U that day… all other entertainment channels were scoring well with the Such Ka Samna’s, Dus ka Dum’s and the Swayamvar’s…
I thought the Rakhi drama will bomb.. Who in the world would have thought that people will sit and watch and even adapt to this bizarre concept..? HUH… Rakhi and Marriage.. What a contradiction…?
3.5 TVR to 6.3 TVR the final day.. said some one with anguish and derision …. Our viewers also… sab ke sab budhu hai….
I had thought that the Star guys have gone bonkers …said the programme head as if in revelation… Rakhi would be the last one any sensible guy would want to marry… But see what happened?
People laughed …… the Marketing guy quoted from Einstein… “As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality”
We should think in that angle.. Something so vague and shocking…? Far from reality?
May be we should take a list of all controversy kids… and…said the Marketing head..
And… disrupted some one … marry them off???????…
What are we ..? …..A TV channel or a matrimony agency… ?
Choot bole Kawwa kate… said some one.. Why not we do the other side of sach ka samna…
Ridiculous… thundered a director… cant we have something original? I cannot believe that we have only copy paste ideas …
By the way sir.. came a rejoinder … none of this programmes are original… they all have parentage in the west…
Then scan the west… said some one.. What is left..?
Ohhh that is like plenty… but what do we want? Controversy? Or TVR with controversy? .. or just to redefine the reality TV genre and create a grand daddy of Reality TV like Allen Funt's Candid Camera..?
Now that was like the real issue… FINALLY !!!
A long minute of silence…
Think about this……. finally said the programme head… I don’t claim this to be true but this is what I think of it.. the success of reality television is due to its ability to provide humiliation……
Question marks bloomed in faces across the room…..
I know….. I know ….said the guy .... what I said was that the general viewer have a desire to see others humiliated and we will provide it in plenty…..
A Shame show…? Humiliation TV? …………Said some one quite unconvincedly
Ahem… the task is tough but we want something or else we shall be dumped into oblivion…
And we don’t want Bakra , we don’t want KBC or Indian Idol, no no to Sa Re Ga Ma, and never a laughter challenge or a boogie woogie…
Idea… shouted some one….
Why don’t we have a “Dump your Husbands” show… said the guy standing up…. We will call it Al vida pati dev!!! It will be a shock for the viewer… a shame for the abandoned and a lot of money for the channel and the sponser…
Silence rained ….
For sure it will create controversy…chat shows will feature it… MP’s will discuss it, moral police will attack it, but people will see it…..
No one clapped for they knew it was not what they want probably…
No one said a NO for they knew that MAY BE this is an IDEA that can redefine the reality TV genre,,,,,
Tailpiece:There used to be a time when you would come home, and reality was so crappy, you would turn on TV to watch stuff that people had made up, so that you could escape from the crappy reality. Now, you go out and deal with d**kheads and morons all day, and you come home and go, 'I just want to go home so I can watch d**kheads and morons on TV.'…
One brother is in advertising, the other was put to death in the electric chair for murder.
My mother died from insanity when I was three years old.
My two sisters are prostitutes, and my father sells narcotics to high-school students.
Recently I met a girl who was just released from a reformatory, where she served time for smothering her illegitimate child to death, and I want to marry her.
My problem is, if I marry this girl, should I tell her about my brother who is in advertising?
(Plaque presented to Arnold Barban by the staff of Leo Burnett on his retirement from the agency.)
Media is commercialized. Profit is the very idea and competition is very much around, threatening. Recession and the resultant media expenditure cuts are eating into the revenue streams of media houses. (IPL may be an exception though.)
Just like Coca-Cola having Pepsi, Colgate having Pepsodent and Hero Honda having Bajaj, Star Plus has Sony, Sun has Vijay and x has y…... The more the competition, the more you have to commercialize and then, it is the sponsor or the ad agency that decides on what program should be on air and when….. if you think this is MISERABLE, so be it… watch a channel like Asianet and you will know how media violates all the norms to show ads than the actual programmes and make money ,I guess I should say mint money….Here I guess one should also admit the fact that some programmes, or many of them of the serial and reality show genre are disgusting watch than the commercials that interrupt them... care fully observe when you get home today, this phenomenon is there happening even at your home...
Practically all the shows and soaps, which we see are controlled by the advertisers…. ( I know that it is not news for you ..many of you..!!) Many people wonder why there are so many ads around. The simple fact is that without ads all these media will be costlier- more price for newspapers and magazines and more money for the cable operator. And as the corporate preferences about media change,( new media forms come up every day) media has to stoop many times for existence.
Reports show that local media which has largely ignored by the corporate before, now has started gathering more attention. Local cable channels mop up any where between 15% - 30% of audience share in prime time as per a recent Business World report. The fact that Grocery store chains like Food World, with many outlets across , spends pittance on mass media budget, but in abundance on local media is proof enough…
Print ads are generally considered less effective and hence less offensive, because they can be easily ignored but T.V and internet ads are more intrusive and often distasteful T.V ads appeal to all senses, they encircle, capture us in a carefully woven web.
The question of ethics ?
Giants like Hindustan Lever with its gigantic product mix and multitudes of brands and varieties of each brand in each product line, hence adopt a strategy of continuous communication with the customer in a well planned “pull strategy” and they are what they are today. Seemingly harmless ads, which appeal to our emotions like love and fear, are also not so harmless on a second thought. Hue and cry was raised against media for having shown some ads. Kamasutra and Moods resorted to enact a bedroom with all the sensuality associated with it in their ads only to be opposed far and wide.
Indian hypocrisy has now to a large extent died down, compared to the olden days when even the Liril girl in her bikini was considered a blasphemy and moral police troops worked overnight to send her into a bath room… When Marc Robinson and the girl in the KS ads were seen like devils, when Milind and Madhu were accused of being the reason for all the ill’s of thei otherwise heavenly nation…
Having said that, I must also say that Ad makers also go over board some times….How can any one substantiate the use of half – naked women in coffee and tea ads, talcum powders “for men” which drives women behind and lipstick stains on a man’s body? There was some coffee ad which showed a bed room, with its full glory and action, and 20 seconds of a 30 sec commercial went for the jerking of the bed leaving a mere 10 second for the brand name and the product to be shown and sold. No one wonder I don’t remember the brand name ( read it again !! I said SOME coffee ad )…Most of the people who saw the ad didn’t see the coffee thing… those few who saw it kept wondering whether to have coffee before bed or after bed !!!!
Even liquor is advertised, mostly in disguise as a soda or a plan water of the same brand name…. this is when it is clear to the thinking common man ( that is a new tribe in India) that a Vijay Mallya does not need a Kingfisher Mineral water to survive…..
The media, it is clear should play a more reasonable role but then the big question comes – on what cost and at whose expense?
Tail piece :Advertising tells us what unnecessary luxuries we can't do without....
Here is a text from the latest online money making stuff named mGinger......while some points that they claim to be making are true, will it replace conventional advertising?? sounds impossible as of now.....
With mGinger we, mGinger employees and you who have joined, have started nothing short of a revolution. A revolution in the advertising space. It is a new concept, a new paradigm. Aren’t advertisements a pain?
You switch your TV on wanting to watch your favourite show and what do you get? A horde of Ads.
The list goes on and on….They tax our brains, squeeze out our energies and turn us into zombies. But take a second and think about this:What if they request for your permission before exposing you to ads? What if you are exposed to only those ads that are relevant to YOU at that point in time? Then, the nature of the exposure changes. Ads turn into “Usable Information”. They empower you both in terms of knowledge and profit. mGinger is a revolution because for the first time in Indian history, the users are asked for permission. The users are asked for their interests. The users are requested for a convenient time and convenient number of ads per day. Then, should you get paid for such useful information? No! Because the information itself pays you (since you will use it).But, the ground reality is, however precise your targeting gets there always remain some out-of-control variables which decide whether the information is useful or not. mGinger pays you for this wastage since it taxes your mind and time. We welcome all of you to this revolution where each one of you gets empowered, gets to lead and gets the power to tell the big advertisers what you would like and what you wouldn’t. Every advertiser would like to become your friend and this gives you a chance to tell them how. Mind you, this will be a ground-up and a tough fight. A fight because we are going against conventionality, against a wildly prevalent attitude of taking us consumers for granted.But, eventually we will win because we believe it is the right ...
Right ..that is what they believe.... just go in...wander in the site and the blog and come back.... will agencies and advertising as we know it will really come to an end???
Shakira’s performance was second most expensive show in India, first being that of Michael Jackson’s. The young college going Indians, who didn’t have swelling pockets, had to shell out 2650 or 3650 for the show and these young things were begging literally to find free passes for the show. Over 20000 passes…oh that means around 100 million rupees from the show. People also crowded around Shakira’s albums for a week at Planet Ms and Music Worlds…
The shows like these often generate huge revenue and fan following. Not only that, it often bring new offers for upcoming artists. When music would also go global, who knows.. We are likely to hear Latin music in hindi albums and movies too.. Choreographer Farah Khan was quite impressed! And even Shakira was so fond of her that, she personally invited Farah to her show. She was also likely to sing in “ Om-Shanthi-Om”, an upcoming bollywood movie.
From her show for the American Idol program, it was believed that it boosted sales of “Oral Fixation vol.2” , from 50000 copies a week to to 81,000 copies a week.. So shows, are one of the best forms of promotion for cassettes and CD companies, for the performers, as it would boost sales, as they come in contact with more people and by the way creating huge fan following. Nokia, Reliance Industries, Kingfisher, Planet M etc were co- sponsors of the event.
Sometimes you may get lucky, bcoz Madonna did, Michael Jackson did, Shakira did, Kylie Minouge did…so why wouldn’t we?
Many companies seems to have fallen in love with the ‘events method’ like Virgin Airlines, Kingfisher and many others. Hey, advertising community, are you listening?
Now what can the lazy creatives say? Every head ache ......even the worst of clients can be given the best of ideas, for their problems...... ad agencies but have to get out of their ivory towers for sure.... This one really stands out and illuminated ....
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 .........
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….
Noble Graphics Creative Studio, the advertising agency behind the advertising and branding of this alchohol brand is located in the capital of Bulgaria, Sofia. Founded in November 2001, NGCS has been behind the sucess of many a brands, in that part of the world. This advertising cannot be considered as world class or class apart, but the usage of the bottle as the visual hero is appreciable, not forgetting the pioneering and pathbreaking ideation and execution of Aboslut and Heineken ads. Tuborg how ever is all out in the net world with games and flashy net resources to reach the target ,everywhere....
New ways of promoting your service... with ensured OTS and with less expense .... such stuff really helps.... hits the bulls eye for sure...Well your ad agency creatives will really have to think to be successful ..but again it is your money Mr Client... anyways..see this...
Sabu: hey nice to meet you sandeep, which train? Colgate or Pepsi?
Sandeep : No Sabu, did not get tickets for Colgate, trip was not planned, so got it in Rexona, which is your train? Lux or Nike?
Sabu: Nike, need to reach early morning, now Nike is super fast you know?
Sandeep: Gr8, ok then time for my Rexona, see you have a nice trip
Sabu: Same to you also...
You think these two characters have gone nuts? ..........
Sorry they are as normal and sane as you. They are just boarding their trains.
Recently India's first branded train was flagged off from Banglore, south India. Kurkure Bangalore-Hubli Summer Special and Kurkure Bangalore-Chennai weekly train. The first branded train of Indian Railways named after a corporate brand — Kurkure, brand owned by Pepsi. Brand name would feature along with the train's name in all announcements, reserved tickets, reservation charts, destination boards etc.
The corporates will provide cleaner coaches and toilets on the special trains, ( ha ......ready for a train journey?) The brand would also pay an advertisement fee to the Railways. Passengers on board the Nagercoil-bound train received free sachets of Kurkure as an inaugural gesture.
The Pepsi-owned Kurkure bagged the brand train tender, floated by the Railways. Though companies like Airtel, Tata Tele and Sony Ericsson had also participated in the bid, Kurkure had the highest bid. The Indian Railways is expected to earn around Rs1 million from the brand trains. No wonder Indian railways is making huge profits.
So coming days We would be traveling in Titan or MRF or even Kellogs who knows?
Kind Attention please,............. Train number 5386 , Chennai- Mumbai Nike express will start from Platform number 8
choice of media....
