Advertising Opinions

Recently Ratan Tata, Tata Group’s chairman emeritus, admitted that pitching Nano as the cheapest car was a mistake and that Tata Motors is planning to build a new image for it. It has not been a smooth ride for Tata Nano since the time it was launched; Tata Motors the company that manufactures Nano had to give up the Singur plant, some cars caught fire and other issues; anyway we won’t be going into details of their problems since this blog is about advertising, so let us analyse a few of the ad campaigns of Tata Nano seen so far.. In the above TV commercial, seen during the early days of Tata Nano, claims made were (1) 21% more space, (2) ease of driving and manœuvrability, (3) SUV like high ground clearance, (4) excellent air-conditioning, (5) best petrol mileage in India – 25 kmpl and (6) short turning radius of 4 mts. That is quite a laundry list. In this post I will call this ad - product feature ads. In the ad below Tata Nano has been presented as an affordable car which owners o...

This Parle Digestive Marie Biscuit ad which was launched in 2013 is set in an office; a male employee is shown with a pack of digestive biscuits (without any brand) on his desk which he is supposed to be eating. His boss comes into the scene and asks him as to why is he eating it, the employee replies that it is tasty, in response the boss taunts him and tempts him with various other tasty snacks like samosas, pizza and cream cake. This is followed  by an explanation by the boss as to why the ‘tasty’ digestive biscuits are actually not good for health, the reason being they contain high amount of fat to make them tasty. The ad then recommends Parle Digestive Marie Biscuit which is low in fat and high in fibre, therefore better for health; at the end the employee adds, rather reluctantly, that it is tasty as well. A few questions came to my mind after seeing this ad a few times – On what consumer insights is this ad based on? What distinctive competitive offer is the ad making to ...