A starless sky

The ongoing doldrums that the major brands are in due to India's, well, unfortunate and apalling performance in the Cricket World Cup has made me analyse the advertising industry in a different light.

The advertising in India is heavily dependent on Cricket and cricket stars. I am not saying that it was foolish of them to invest such huge sums in the ongoing World Cup. But that there are very few as lucrtaive alternatives (apart from the saas-bahus of course).The brands which had put their money in KBC-3 would be sporting a coy smile and would also be having a sense of relief that they did not buy the space on WC.

There are always good decisions, bad decisions and a few unlucky ones to; but what is most discerning is, now that India is out of the WC, the brands are doing disaster mangement. Dhoni ads off air, ditto with Rahul Dravid and others. There are a few brands who have revoked their contracts with the cricket stars. All kinds of possibilities are being looked into, even Sachin retiring!!!!! I will use the word which both Bangladesh Captain Habibul Bashar and Muralitharan used for the Indian team, "rattled".

Yes, we were rattled then and it seems that the ad industry is also "rattled". Taking ads related to cricket off air does make sense, no doubt, but the point is, there are no back up plans...no one to fall back upon(similar to team India, they had no back up plans once the bangladesh batsmen decided to charge the bowlers). Now, they'll rush to find an SRK, an AB to be the makeshift brand ambassadors. And it's a very evident fact that a Dhoni or a Yuvraj are bigger stars than say a John Abraham. They carry a higher brand equity, so it would be difficult for these brands to find suitable replacement for them and that too at a similar price.

One might argue that the TRPs of the soaps are fetching good returns. But that is not the point I am trying to make, I am saying that the ads themselves fall back upon the same names over and over again to carry their brands. For the record, both SRK and AB endorse 32 brands each.

Another point is, that it is quite possible that the brands might not get so much leverage while the star is performing and the team is doing well, as much as the bad name they earn while the team is not doing too well. As an example, just recently I went to watch a movie and during the interval this ad of Rbk played with our major cricketing stars in it.There was loud murmuring throughout the theater followed by a spontaneous sarcastic applause by the audience.

It is quite obvious that India lacks stars and so whoever are there, are given demi-god status. Hence there is too much dependency on Cricketing stars and movie icons. There is one Sania Mirza and it seems that the whole world revolves around her. We have no rock stars, no formula1 stars.....it's a starless sky with a number of moons. Ad people have to gear up and make a few of their own. learn something from Mark Mascarenhas.

It is a coincidence or what but I came across this article in the Economic Times, while I was writing this article and thought that I better include this comment before I am accused of plagiarism--The diversified portfolio, according to Blah, should be a boutique of young talent, not necessarily from cricket: “Now is the time for marketers to look for other sports which can give them the same brand leverage instead of betting completely on cricket.”

Relativity-

War against terrorism. The price of life is also relative. It depends on your family, your earnings, your importance to the society and above all your country. As a rule, the life of a US citizens is the most expensive. As US is the richest country and more importantly, most powerful country.

Referring to TOI, 10th Jan '07, news on page 16, US strikes Al-Qaeda hideouts in Somalia. The President, the interior minister are all defending us's right to attack. Dare they say anything else; that too a country whose sole existence depends on the aids it can procure.

There were no figures mentioned as to how many died. Who cares anyways. It is the price everyone else has to pay for the security of US citizens.

This is what the govt. spokesman Abdi Rehman had to say, "Absolutely, a lot of people were killed. So many dead people were lying in the area, we do not know who is who, but the raid was a success".So, we don't know how many died , we don't know who died but we know that the raid was a success. Now, that the terrorists have been eliminated we have a more secure world ;-) .

So what if there were unidentified dead bodies strewn all over the place; as it is what brand equity does such a life have. Nobody even cares. But i can clearly visualise a documentary, hordes of condolence messages, statues and places marked, had even one such operation carried out in the US. No brand value, no sorrow......relativity u see.

Creatives-repetetives

Coke and Pepsi, two of the giants in the market, had recently been in controversy regarding the issue of quality of their soft drinks, as one research showed that they did not adhere to certain standards. Rightly, they decided to address the issue in a direct manner.

AD 1-Pepsi
It showed one of the pepsi's top brass management drinking Pepsi (of course with a smile on his face) coming right out of their factory. Throughout the ad he reassured the customers about the quality of Pepsi and that the standards are strictly adhered to. Hmmm........

AD 2-Coke
Amir Khan visits the Coke Factory. Narrates the various stages of testing of Coke and at the end of it all asking the customers to, "..peeyo sar utha ke".

These two ads remind me of a similar ad and a similar giant. Cadburys Dairy Milk; deja vu?

With the Big B at the helm, O & M came up with the idea to show the Big B visiting the Cadburys factory and verifying the manufacturing, processing and packaging of the chocolate himself. It went well with his image when he said I myself visited the factory.

What is disappointing is that JWT for Pepsi and McCann Erickson for Coke; both equally competitive agencies could not think out of the box for their individual ventures. Agreed, that the message had to be loud, clear and direct but it need not necessarily be bland.

There could have been something creative about the ad; for e.g. they could have shown Amir Khan having Coke and some kid telling him about the news and controversy, the harmful effects of Coke being circulated. Amir could have just smiled and taken the kid to visit the factory where he could have done the same what he did in the ad mentioned. I am not saying that this is what should have been done but that something could have been done make the ad look different if not absolutely original. After all they are creatives those who have given us the most wonderful of ads.

Cadburys ad ( as far as I know) was the first of its kind. And it seemed that the Coke-Pepsi ads were a straight lift off from th is ad. Creative, please don't be repetetives.

The Best Ad

Can an ad make your mood fresh...make you sit up...make you philosophical....make u reconsider your choices......

" I always wanted to go on a one year trip...around the world....
I always wanted to quit on Monday morning ....
I always wanted to chase the rain........
I always wanted to..................."

Reclaim your life, inspires such awe, such an ethereal feeling,; something more than an ad. Slowly it unfurls and so do the philosophies of our lives and our latent ambitions.

The first shot where the pregnant lady says, "I always wanted to go on a one year trip.....(the shot of pigeons taking off and just then the frame freezes)......around the world (the frame is released and the pigeons fly again)"; fantastic. The burning desire being caught in the web called life.

The music slowly builds up.

The shot of the shadow of the rain drops visible on the man's specs and the pathos in his eyes when he feels "I always wanted to chase the rain...."; the shot of the last person running in the background as the man completes his sentence, " I always wanted to quit on Monday morning..." not to miss the sound of the heel.

The music still building....

Then comes the man sitting on the bench with folded knees sticking his head into his knees and not able to complete his sentence against the running hand of the clock, "i always wanted to.............."

Music mellows down almost to nothingness. Suddenly the music blasts and catches you off guard, it reaches it's pinnacle and........

In comes the car, breaking all the chains, from behind the rock. Dancing, flinging mud all around, enjoying it's new found freedom---------Reclaim your Life.The right fonts, the right camera angles, the right expressions. Perfect.
Life, and the people living it personified with such panache.

Standing ovation, round of applause, bows all around....

The best part being that they knew exactly what their target audience was and they did not intend to cater to everyone in general.

celebs......just a few

Ads and celebs...they can't do without each other. Both would look incomplete without the other's company.But I just hope that this relationship has a bit more quality and style to it.

SRK endorses 33 brands(whoops) but not even a single ad would come to our minds which might even come close to being called a good ad. For e.g. Compaq, ' ...ban jaye baat'; a poor concept and a poorly executed ad. It's tough to understand what the brief would have been like and how the hell could creatives embark on such an idea and more so make the client accept it?? I could go on and on about (bad) SRK ads but that is not what I am talking about.

The point I want to make here is that there is something wrong with the way celebs are handled in most ads. And that too one of the most popular ones. There is a similar story about the ads of Ms. Aishwarya Rai, Sachin Tendulkar, Amitabh Bachchan and there could be many more added to the list. It seems that the whole concept of the ad gets overwhelmed by the presence of a celeb having such a strong star power and brand image.

On the other hand there are exceptions. Just have a look at the new John Players ad, Hrithik looks smashing and the basic idea is conveyed with such style. The Launch ad of Toyota Innova, I believe, was the epitome of how a celeb can be used. Showing all the characters that Amir has played and streamlining it with the basic idea of '..moving ahead'. All Rahul Dravid's ads also seem to make sense and go with his personality.

And so we arrive at the inference that there should always be some kind of justification as to which celeb is being used for which product. I agree that the brand is identified with the star endorsing it which in turn gives them a wider audience but then if everything would have been so easy then why would the creatives be there at all.

Then there are the brave ones and the better ones like those of Tata Indigo, Chlormint,Greenply which are doing good enough without having the face of a celeberity. The star which excites you like the one of those old pepsi ads of SRK-Kajol-Rani is what we expect .

National Animal

Tell me, who.......... i apologise, which is the national animal of India? TIGER; haa.. that was easy.


Now, what is a national animal? well, it depicts our nation, our culture, its people i.e. us. It is the personification of what we as a nation are.

Think again, are we in any way related or similar to this animal.

This menacing king of the jungle. This carnivore. I believe that it couldn't have been more contradictory in nature. The only animal other than tiger that comes to my mind is none other than our very own Elephant.

Observe the similarities and u'll be searching for a trunk of your own.The gentle giant can well be equated with the Common Man of R.K. Lakshman.

Lives in close knit families which are very huge at times; is a simple vegetarian, its kids are of utmost importance to it, can endure long work schedules and is very lovable, though gigantic in size. Seldom would you have seen an elephant brawl, on any of the Nat Geo or discovery channels. It takes life as it comes. The easy going creature.

It's in typical accordance with how we lead our lives.

But, the picture is not so rosy as it seems. Everybody knows how harmful and destructive elephants can be once they lose it.Hordes of villages, fields are all destroyed. Anything that comes in its path is reduced to gravel.

Such is the power of a common Indian too, we tolerate and tolerate, but when the fuse goes out, then the wild elephant takes over and it's apocalypse for anything that comes in our way.

Time to rethink folks....