That was the original and now a latest Airtel ad by Rediffusion that is going on the air as of now.. Creativity is no doubt an art of inspiration and this guys here has done it so well.. I am for a change not being sarcastic since I love the way the idea is adapted... Its better than no idea at all.... !
Yeah the parent Idea belongs to some one else but the adaption here is creative... Someone who said the word "Hello" on the phone first time would have never thought he’d be so creative that the whole world to come after him would be copying him... now that is the parent idea that is being so blatantly used over and over again.... We accept it and yet we all to an extent hate copying isnt it?
Do we hate the people who copy ideas? We all do it...... This is in spite of the knowledge that kids learn their language by copying parents, their play by copying what they see in life ad TV, their moves in sports and fun by copying other kids. We learn to write better by copying writing we like..... we all do... Adapt as we call it but we do it... We learn to get along with people by copying people.
'Do your own thing as much posible' is what I think creatives should be doing.....Original stuff has its own value and don’t just copy any thing.....
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
There is a kid in every one .. even in the most moronic of us… and the kid somewhere at some point of time would have done this … this self assuring phone call to his dad and its desired effect is simple and we all have done it, some way or the other and that makes this a good one….
Done by Rediffusion Y&R a new angle … the trust angle, which is a hygiene factor, is bought in to the Airtel communication which the agency believes and claims to be having a far more fascinating than the network angle… Airtel which shocks(often) the poor viewers with out of the world crazy stuff, often infected with an overdose of celebrity virus, comes down to earth some times, gets sensible and talk to us in simple terms and makes us smile.. smile in agreement.. this ad is one of them.. no big hungama,,,, no brouhaha , no quagmires and hardwork to some how fit in a parade of stars who at the end of the day outsmarts and outlives the brand…
Magic realism as someone called such stuff, this realization that with Airtel you are never disconnected is a subtle message that gets into the information cluttered minds in a passive way… Even though in my flat in the heart of the city, Airtel simply fools me by refusing to show signal, this conspicuously uncomplicated ad baffled me the first time I saw it…then the more I saw I fell in love… Virej Dasani the kid, has done a wonderful job by not acting and just living, and the guys who made it ostensibly didn’t try to cultivate any bogus innocence out of the boy… Kudos for that…
Kudos to the entire team…Ramanuj Shastry, national creative director, Rediffusion Y&R, Deepesh Jha, creative head for the script, Vinyl Matthew of Footcandles for the direction…. And others…
Let this ground sense prevail…..
Tailpiece: Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising........ Mark Twain
The Brand Equity Ad agency Reckoner is a much awaited issue every year to know who tops whom and who snatches what from whom....Packed with power lists, rankings and analysis, the Agency Reckoner is a concise guide to India’s most admired creative and media agencies and the 6 th edition is to roll out next week setting the rumour mills on, fulltime. Ogilvy will retain the top slot or not in the creative side...or will a new dark horse emerge? and who among Mindshare, Madison and Starcom will head the media agency scene,,,, these are questions that the Indian ad world is waiting to get answers for.. but as of now this ad, created by rediffussion tells it all....
When you stand for what you believe in you can change the world ......says the new Airtel ad….
It is a cool ad to watch no doubt and bit tickling the INDIANNESS in all of us but a closer analysis gives a feel of jingoism with which a brand, facing competition ( Airtel is still the market leader with a major percent of the share and closely followed by Reliance and Vodafone) launching a tirade ,proclaiming its Indian tag with a clear hint that the others are foreign or videshi and hence un trustable. Jingoism is good to hear and even wonderful to live in but odd to take on in your life. The implication that Vodafone is a videshi and so to keep away from it is simply a deplorable concept, not only because the ad comes in English (a videshi language) and the tie up with Wal-Mart (videshi again) that Bharti is so proud of but also because of the fact that old style, Ambassador car like be Indian, buy Indian nonsense will not make brands, any longer.
“Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it” said George Bernard Shaw, and even that is not evident here where the typical Indianness to feel proud of the golden past because the present is bad, is evident… and in any case what did Airtel and Bharti for that matter give back to India and to its people to be proud of? To stand for and change their world?
It is good that big brands and first movers in a market slowly change their communication from we are also there to totally owning up their category. Heinz when it says have ketch up the world knows what they mean, they don’t have to say Heinz ketch up, same with Maggi… owning up the category is but a risk and you need to have the confidence of the category leader to be doing that, not just the fear and fright of an also player who is afraid of the other players and hence resort to jingoism. Airtel did start that journey but novelty suddenly gets lost to no mans land... ( see them here) with the famous “Deewarein gir jaati hain, faasle mit jaate hain, jahan do baatein ho jaati hain (Barriers break when people talk).” campaign which all said an done made some impact but lost that sheen with its agency change and this new one (Percept…. I am told) is nowhere taking the brand to the category leadership and that too when history is full of blood bath of leaders (read it as first movers who created the category) but lost out battered and badly bruised when others over ran them with innovation and better communication.
To quote Samuel Johnson, “Patriotism is the last resort of a scoundrel” and I seem to with difficulty agreeing with that statement when I see this ad. I agree that it is just my viewpoint and there may be many for whom this ad had engulfed them as a tour de force and evoked the Indian in them, for many this ad is would have been simply marvelous, still some would be completely taken over by patriotic emotions but for me it is plain jingoism born out of celebrated ignorance and a confused brand in the crossroads of its journey to leadership. Alas the agency, who should be the parent who should take the kid to the path, seems to be more confused.....
