Advertising Opinions

The above picture is from the latest Thums Up TV commercial which is yet to be released. The brand Thums Up has been associated with action, courage and dare-devilry for quite some years; although I am not in favour of using celebrities I find that alongwith Akshay Kumar’s celebrity status his action hero image plays an important role in the brand’s positioning. All the three cola brands have been using celebrities for years; currently Pepsi is trying to appeal to the youth with its ‘Youngistan’ campaign perhaps trying to reposition Coca-Cola as fuddy-duddy like it occasional...

I would like to go on rewind mode this time and would like to recall the Sil Jams TV campaign which caught the attention of TV viewers more than a decade ago; I do not recall the exact year. The campaign comprised two commercials and the message was that the jams were so tasty that they brought out the child in you. One commercial was set in a boardroom where very senior gentlemen were shown to be holding a meeting, their behaviour underwent a complete transformation when snacks were served with Sil Jams – each of them began to behave and talk like small children. The other TV commercial features ‘experts’ giving their opinion on Sil Jams, these ‘experts’ are actually grownups behaving and talking in the voice of kids. The punch line of these two commercials is: Sil Fresh Fruit Jams, you are never too old for Sil! When I viewed the ads in the beginning I did not quite like them because I found them bizarre; grownup men behaving like kids and also t...

When you think of Tata Sky Aamir Khan its brand ambassador is always top of mind. Aamir Khan has been associated with the brand since its inception; he was featured in about a dozen Tata Sky TV commercials and each one of these had an interesting story to tell. We have seen him as half-man & half-woman, a salesman, an old sardar, a milkman, a Bengali babu stereo type, as Gul Panang’s husband, as a ventriloquist, as himself, and there were more. The celebrity was used quite obviously to draw attention to the brand; Tata Sky’s nearest competitor Dish TV also had a major cel...

The international tyre brand Michelin recently announced its presence in the Indian market with a print campaign. The ad which is a print version of their television commercial, appealed to the child in me thanks to the Michelin Man and the cute looking animals. The claim in the advertisement that the tyre helps the vehicle stop upto three feet shorter is in a way similar to the Ceat bike tyre claim that focuses on the driver being able to stop the vehicle in the nick of time. However, while Ceat bike tyre deals with the foolishness and carelessness of people, Michelin’s message is that the tyre prevents the death of innocent animals on highways and lonely stretches of road. Since I found the print ad appealing I searched the internet for Michelin tyre commercials and there were quite a few interesting commercials but what I found more interesting were the comments. It’s quite obvious that people have a sort of emotional bond and there is also a sense...

In this post I would like to recall and comment on five noteworthy ads which were released in 2010: 1.  LIC of India – Father & Daughter Sometimes talking about death can be a tricky although it is inevitable, no one likes to be reminded that he will die. Here is an example; once I happened to witness a young man trying to sell life insurance to someone. The young insurance agent began his talk by saying “Suppose you suddenly die …” his prospective client looked unpleasantly surprised and jovially requested him not to remind him about his death. Once a gentleman told me that he always tried to avoid a certain insurance agent because he was reminded of death whenever he met him, such people are resistant to life insurance. In order to avoid the unpleasant topic of death some insurance agents try to sell life insurance as an alternate savings plan where risk is also covered, the word risk means ‘If you were to die suddenly’. Some agents prefer t...

I have in my earlier post ‘ Not Celebrities But Excellent Actors’ indicated my aversion for ads featuring celebrities. I may sound a bit prejudiced but as I have already pointed out in my earlier post, an overdose of celebrities makes you lose track of the products being endorsed; if a Sharukh or an Amitabh or Saif is seen endorsing every other product you tend to remember only the celebrity and not the product. I also feel a sense of loss for I miss out on the opportunity of seeing new talent, after all Priety Zinta and Genelia D’souza started off their careers with commercials. I find it particularly annoying when a self conscious performance by a celebrity in a commercial is followed by a commercial featuring talented nobodies performing with obvious gusto. Recently I did have this experience; as I was watching the commercials one day I noticed how self-conscious Abhishek Bachachan was in this Idea commercial. His gait, the manner in which he ...

The emotion of fear is used quite often in ads and in case of the CEAT bike tyre TV— Streets are filled with idiots campaign it has been used very effectively. According to me the emotion of fear, in the two commercials (Man with the pram and Crossing), has been shown in its raw form without any sugar coating; the element of shock and horror, clearly shown by the expression on the face of the bike drivers in each of the two ads, adds to the overall impact. Many years ago when I was planning to learn driving I was told that when I drive I must consider every other driver on the road to be pagal or insane and must always tell myself that I am the only sane person on the roads; in other words I was advised to be very very careful while driving. Maybe an insight of a similar kind inspired the creative minds at the agency which developed the script for these two TV commercials. Over the years I have observed that messages conveyed in tyre ads (I mean any tyre ad, not just motorcycle ty...