As is my wont, I glanced through Hindustan Times’ epaper in the morning and noticed the Volkswagen Phaeton ad. On the inside pages, the headlines were rendered in some weird font. I attributed them to a PC-Mac issue. It dawned on me quite some time later that the headlines were meant to convey a ‘handcrafted’ feel, linked with the ‘handcrafted luxury’ proposition of Volkswagen Phaeton. Not surprisingly, some of the readers of Hindustan Times thought so,…
‘Surprisingly ordinary prices’ – that’s my first memory of Volkswagen Polo advertising. The TV commercial showed a tennis match in progress with heads bobbing left & right. And then while the ball is being lobbed across the courts, the heads are transfixed to one side. The camera then shows what’s got the audience hooked: a banner saying, ‘Volkswagen Polo, now at £ 8240’ (or some such number). Brilliant. And then there was another one: it…
In my first advertising job, there used to be the ‘5-10 principle’. The essence of that principle is that advertising communication has two broad parts: what to say (strategy) and how to say it (creative execution). On the first part, you could either score a ‘zero’ or a ‘five’ i.e either right strategy or a wrong strategy -you can’t get a 2.5 on strategy – much like being half-pregnant is not an option. The creative…
A new television spot for Accenture is making the rounds of ad blogs. It started off as a print campaign in the post-Tiger Wood phase – showing an elephant on a surfboard, with the headline, ‘Who says you can’t be big and nimble?’. Check out the Director’s Cut of the commercial: Also see the making of video, which frankly doesn’t cover much details of how the commercial was made. And oh, notice that the final…
This article of mine appeared in the Brand Wagon supplement of Financial Express, today: — There was a time when the Pakistan cricket team produced a seemingly endless list of fast bowlers. It is said that one man – Imran Khan, inspired a whole generation of fast bowlers. In India, Kapil Dev is credited with inspiring many youngsters to take up fast bowling instead of spin –which was India’s domain as it were. In advertising…
Mark Ritson, an Associate Professor of Marketing and brand consultant wrote a thought-provoking article in Marketing Week, lampooning the herd mentality of marketers who use social media for their brands, just for the sake of it, irrespective of the fit. By way of explanation, he writes: I can appreciate why 2 million people follow Google on Twitter and what those consumers get in return. But most brands don’t have the newsworthiness, broad appeal or dynamism to…
I am glad this happened. And that it is created by Pratap Suthan. I am talking about The Delhi Alternative initiative. Not surprising really, after the master piece he wrote after the Goafest awards. My rants on Goafest event don’t even come close but I do feel as strongly about the way our advertising awards are headed. The post Goafest muck that followed, including a very public spat between Creative Directors makes one cringe. The…
It’s been a while since I was really happy about anything that I wrote on my blog. And the urge to put thoughts down about a topic and dash a blog post has died down of late. Was it about dearth of topics to write about? Not really. But of late, it’s getting difficult to find the time & motivation to write a blog post. More often than not, when I see, read or think…
Of late, people writing to Steve Jobs have received a reply – mostly terse one liners. A personal reply from a CEO like Steve Jobs is a high and it provides for great publicity. Especially for tech blogs. The latest one is an email debate of sorts between Ryan Tate of Gawker and Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs delivered a ‘F$%^& you!’ statement to Gawker.
The British election outcome and Mother’s Day have provided fodder for some interesting topical ads in the UK and Australia. Telstra, tied in their long running campaign, ‘Call your mum’ with this simple reminder. Here’s my favourite: Pledge, a furniture polish from SC Johnson released this ad in The Daily Mail & Daily Mirror, UK on the 7th of May. As always, clever use of topical issues even with a one-off ad provides mileage long…