Advertising World Cup

Friday is India’s “Do-or-Die” encounter against Sri Lanka and the match has just the right amount of tantalizing lead-ups to it to make it an advertiser’s delight. If we could get access to security camera footage from some of the biggest corporates in the world, it would be funny to see company chiefs fervently praying for a victory to the team representing one of their largest markets. And it doesn’t matter who’re official sponsors, pretty much all the usual suspects will be rooting for team India come friday.

Akin to an assignment we had in Advertising class, I noted some of the ads on display in an hour of cricket and then rated them on memorability on a scale of low-medium-high. I excluded brands on players’ clothing and equipment since they vary by teams.

TV Commercials: Pepsi, Nike, Hutch, Reliance Comm, Airtel, BSNL, Videocon, LG, Sansui, ITC, Nokia, Gopal supari, Mcdowells, Dainik Jagran, Daikin, Gillette, The Mobile Store, Maruti, Thomas Cook, Hero Honda, TVS, Sprite

On-field placements : Hutch, Hero Honda, LG, Pepsi, Visa, Gatorade

On-screen placements : Hutch, 99acres.com, ITC, Western Union, monster.com, Union Bank, Nokia

LOW

The ads with lowest impact are unsurprisingly the on-screen and on-field placements due to their static nature. However, out of those the on-screen placements vary in impact depending on when they appear. 99acres.com and Western Union would lose out to monster.com and Union Bank, the difference being the former are shown during live action and the latter during action replays. I figure a viewer would be more likely to notice a logo on screen during a slow-motion sequence and not be as irritated with it as during live play

MEDIUM

The TV commercials without too many repeat airings would be in the middle, although some ads like Airtel stay in mind inspite of being infrequent. I would rate the Gatorade on-field ad to be in this category simply because it would be compelling for spectators at the ground while sitting under the sweltering hot sun. It would be a crime for expensive commercials to fall in this category since at the end of the day, the viewer might just confuse your ad with a competitor’s

HIGH

Finally, the ones that stay determined by a function of number of times they’re aired. But a boring ad falling in this category would just irritate viewers (like Videocon, Sansui, Gillette). On the other hand, Nike, Airtel, Sprite have made ads that have repeat viewability.

THE WINNER

The most ubiquitous brand hands down, in my opinion, is Hutch. The catchy SML plan ads (of which there are several versions) combined with the distinctive on-field logos and billboards. Add to that the free publicity from the acquisition bid, and we have a clear winner.

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‘Aspire’ to ‘Discover’ and to ‘Star’

It was bound to happen, am surprised it took this long though. 4 years ago, you wanted a motorcycle (bike), your options were the ever-dependable (read boring to some) Hero Honda Splendor; the solidly ‘unshakeable’ Bajaj Caliber, the undermarketed but excellent Suzuki Fiero or the Yamaha line, that had lost a lot its sex appeal once they discontinued the sensational RX100. Of course, there was the Bullet, but then you had to have testosterone oozing out of your ears to get on that one or so it seemed.

Before moving on, try naming 5 bikes in the market today(brands, not just manufacturers)…see…had a hard time? I for one only had silly images of nerds on brooms and unshaven louts stuck on top of mountains with pigeons crapping on their shoulder (ok myabe it was an eagle). After slicing and super-slicing each segment down to “that segment that’s 18 years and 4 months old, prefers wheat bread over white and is a virgin” and accordingly launching and positioning new bikes, and also following it up with that bike for “the 19 yr old male who’s just shaved off his goatee and got himself a girlfriend”, major 2-wheeler anufacturers in India seem to’ve realised its a lost cause. At the end of the day, its a 2-wheeled contraption powered by a puny engine that gets people from point A to point B. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been in Harley country and to a grizzled and tattooed rider, his Heritage Soft-tail classic is more kin than a mode of transport. But theres only so much you can do to dress up that same 100cc engine.

Finally, these manufacturers have looked at that untapped market of the female rider. Hence the Hero Honda Pleasure, Bajaj Wave and the TVS Scooty Pepplus. These aren’t the dinky l’il mopeds that were l’il more than battery-powered bicycles. All the above are 90CC and above, meaning almost as powerful as the average bike. Its the catch-lines that seem to almost challenge the male of the species thats interesting. The Pleasure commercial goes with a background score that goes “Why should boys have all the fun?”. Various scenes of women of different ages (no slicing and dicing here) enjoying their mobility. Great idea, but then it ends with a scene that leaves noone in doubt about the sex of the person who directed the commercial.

The scene…Pretty woman standing on the kerb, a dude type character in a convertible brakes next to her and offers a ride. She smiles sweetly and at the same time her equally pretty friend rounds the corner on a ‘Pleasure’ (funny choice of name) and lady 1 hops on. They both give the guy smiles and zoom off. Two issues: a) why’d the ladies look a l’il too cozy sitting on their ride…and the smile suggested they don’t ‘need’ the guy? are we there yet? (b) in case anyone noticed, the guy was driving a porsche cabriolet…err..nothing significant except by what it costs, u can probably get about a 100 odd of those dinky scooters. So, now that girls have finally made it to riding not-so-underpowered rides, guys are already that far ahead?

Just observations about the commercial itself…idea was right…but the implementation?