Advertising Opinions

A series of new TV commercials (TVCs) for Tata Ace are currently on air now, whenever I saw them on TV I found it difficult to comprehend the exact message the advertiser is trying to convey. To begin with I did not realize that there were more than one TVC running on TV for Tata Ace. In order to understand the commercial better I decided to examine it (at that time I thought that it was a single TVC) closely on YouTube. The first thing I realized that there are three TVCs each of 90 seconds duration; the titles given to them are Lalitpur , Malipet and Pehelgaon . The look and feel of these TVCs are almost identical, whatever differences exists among them are of no consequence, the script is essentially the same; if you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all. The TVCs attempted to be funny, how successfully I am not sure. Two TVCs feature one white man each and the third TVC features a white woman, each of them are shown participating in a quiz show at a rural mela like setting. The quiz ...

Vodafone UFO One fine morning in the month of April this year I looked out into the sky from my bedroom window and saw a strange object moving in the sky. It was surely a U.F.O. -- an unusual flying object. I went to my balcony to have a better look. The object looked like an airship with the brand ‘Vodafone’ written on it. The object was on its rounds and appeared to be remote controlled.. One is used to seeing balloon advertising but this was a remote controlled airship and I have never seen anything like this before. During this period the ‘Zoozoo’ campaign was making waves, this itself was a very innovative campaign. I think it was an unusual, innovative and great way to reinforce the brand; it surely grabbed the attention of the people of the area over which it flew. The TV commercials of Vodafone have always been impressive, that includes its previous avatars (Orange & Hutch) as well, and this outdoor advertising was ruling the skies, quite literally. BRU Coffee - Live Confer...

When the first black and white print campaign of Shoppers Stop broke in 1993, it immediately attracted my attention. It was so different from the other retail ads which were then prevalent in the media. These ads looked less like retail store ads and more like designer wear ads. What struck me about the campaign was: •    It was in black and white --- which until then was unthinkable for ads of retail stores. •    The merchandise was not shown in the ads. •    None of the ads showed the store. •    The ads relied primarily on the body copy to convey the advertising message rather than on the visuals of the merchandise. •    Significantly Shoppers Stop was being promoted as a product or brand rather than as a store. The campaign was so striking that it immediately prompted me do a story on it. It appeared in ‘Perspectives’ the advertising and marketing supplement of ‘The Metropolis on Saturday’ – a Times of India ...

The other day I happened to see an advertisement for a property, it was featured on the jacket of The Times of India, Mumbai edition. It prominently showed a pizza delivery scooter, the box fitted on the scooter had “Express Packers and Movers” written on it, the ad continued overleaf. The advertiser was Nirmal Lifestyle; the ad was for, as they call it, “India’s First Fully Furnished Designer Homes”. The idea of showing a pizza delivery scooter was to convey that you need to carry very little with you when you shift to the new homes that Nirmal was providing. The ad was truly attention grabbing thanks to the high standard of creativity. Advertising for real estate has surely come a long way. In the good old days developers did not need to advertise their properties, they only had to rely on word-of-mouth and network of brokers. There was practically no effort on the developers’ side to sell as they do now because homes were always in heavy demand; there was virtually no competition. ...

When low cost airlines first started operations in India the main differences between these and existing airlines was that they cost less and did not serve food on board. The existing airlines were then given the tag of full service airlines to distinguish them from the low cost airlines. Over the years the number of low cost airlines increased, the full service airlines also joined the bandwagon by introducing low cost services of their own. However most of the advertising in this category was all about communicating the low fares and there seemed to be little effort in brand building. Today the need is to not just to distinguish low cost ones from the full service ones but to also distinguish and differentiate one low cost from the other, after all air passengers have got used to the low cost concept by now. What do air passengers expect? Punctuality, surely! This applies to all airlines, full service or low cost; Indigo Airlines in their current TV campaign have addressed the import...

The Tata Docomo commercial for caller tunes which is currently on air definitely strikes a chord with its message “Suno Wahi Jo Sunna Chaho”. Docomo is a service provider, providing services similar to other service providers. It is up against the very, very, popular award winning Zoozoo campaign of Vodafone. Unlike some other service providers they do not have a celebrity to draw attention to their message. But personally I feel they better off without a celebrity. I found their concept extremely appealing, it immediately attracted my attention. The commercial shows a man interviewing a young man who is obviously a fresh graduate. The interviewer asks the young man, “Do you have any previous experience? Will you work on weekends? Are you a team player?” He gives a negative reply to all the questions and when he is asked “Do you have a goal?” He reacts, “Uhh”, almost as if he is thinking “Goal? What is that?” Surprisingly the interviewer smiles and says “you are hired” and the voice -...

Hindustan Unilever Limited launched a campaign for Dove Shampoos just around the time summer had set in this year; the campaign is on right now while I write this blog. The ad copy is pretty direct and reads: ‘Normal anti-dandruff dry your hair. Dove is different. NO DANDRUFF NO DRYNESS.’ The model is shown wearing, what looks like, a woolen pullover; she is shown to be pulling up the neck of the pullover which is a normal behaviour of a person who is feeling very cold. Some white specks are shown on her hair, what are they? Dandruff? No, does not seem like because these specks are very large for dandruff flakes, are they snowflakes? I really have no idea. I like the ad for its straightforwardness but I do not understand why it was given a wintry look when the campaign was launched in summer.