Advertising Opinions

Online shopping in India is growing steadily after a slow start however there are many who are suspicious about buying anything online, some are not comfortable with concept.  The current three-ad campaign of Flipkart.com deals with three fears people have which makes them resistant to online shopping,  these being: (1)  What if I receive faulty products? (2) Will I get the original product with original warranty? (3) I am not comfortable using credit card for online shopping because of frauds? Flipkart.com tries to allay these fears through their current ad campaign on television. Online shopping is a fairly new concept however ordering things by mail has been around for decades long before the age of the internet; even then the same three fears existed in the minds of consumers which prevented them from ordering by mail. The fears are not baseless, after all people do get cheated when ordering online and same was the case in the past wh...

Wow! they really think up new ideas to get noticed. The latest Volkswagen ad which was a four-page special silvery insert or should I say a pull-out with The Times of India dated August 29, 2011 was to my mind an interesting and innovative advertisement. Some say it was gimmicky but nevertheless the ad got noticed, so it served its purpose. What do you do when there is no significant difference in brands, in this case cars? In such a case the ad agency thinks of some great creative idea which can get the ad noticed and remembered, or a celebrity is used, or expenditure on advertising is increased if the client can afford it. In the case this press ad innovation was made in the medium of advertising itself. The ad was for Volkswagen Jetta and the cover looked like a regular copy of The Times Of India except that it had a silvery metallic look. I guess it had three layers - paper, foil and plastic film; the printing I think was done in the reverse on the plastic film against the foil. Th...