#Chess Olympiad : Chennai

 

This Tamilnadu Government initiative to provide a global platform for “Chess” through this has gained high visibility through branding. While the Mascot “Thambi” looks pathetic with its name Tatoo on its hand but what is interesting is the way the 360 communication has been roled out. The branding experts have cracked some real good innovations besides the bus shelter branding, bus branding, kiosks, print ads, Billboards, signages, posters, Television ads, Mascot dummies etc.,

 

1.    Painting the Napier Bridge : The bridge has been painted with Black n White chekkers in total and looks very impressive. (I will put the controversy aside, of this creating an optical illusion for the riders passing through the bridge). But unfortunately these squares getting painted on roads is not creating that impact because any ways the traffic codes are black and white lines.

2.    Aavin milk packets with the chekker pattern on it is a good thought

3.    The Kolam that people are contributing makes this brand inclusive has the brand has managed self participation and ownership from people at large.

4.    Ramraj Dhotis launching “Thambi Vetti :  A Special Edition” with a chekkered border is interesting and I am sure there will be many takers. (PM Modi wore that for the inaugural function!)

5.    Amul jumping in with its interesting bill board

6.    AR Rahman’s Music Video for Olympiad

7.    Spicejet promotion offered some free rides for children

8.    Interesting backdrop during the inaugural function

9.    Launch of a stamp

      

 

 

Coffee Decoction

 

Atlast

 

Forward and backward integration are common in business and some brands smartly execute it and some clearly stay away from it. Large Brands tend to experiment a lot and they realise sooner or later if it is their territory or not. But the best part is they do try! Milk brands venture liberally into various categories such as Ice cream, Butter, Ghee, Curd, Milk Shakes, Panner, Cheese etc., Chocolates have extended to biscuits and health drinks, Food brands have moved to spices and masalas. The category examples can be many, but the point i wanted to highlight here was the launch of “Coffee Decoction” by Nescafe SUNRISE.

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eebrivkj9a0

 

Brooke Bond and Nescafe has been fighting the Instant Coffee market for ages and they have been launching variants under different names : Sunrise, Green Label, Bru, Nescafe Gold, Nescafe Original. Both the brands were keen on benchmarking themselves to “Filter Coffee” positioning hence the visual identities such as “Filter” “Dabara and Tumbler” etc., More competition in the form of Lavazza, Levista, Cothas started attacking these MNC brands aggressively. But the jolt to them came in the form of local brands trying to sell Decoction through bottles & sachets : Mambalam Iyers, Vivekananda Coffee, Leo Coffee, ID etc.,

 

These started eating into the shares of MNC brands as the “Instant” promise becomes questionable. I think after a lot of deliberations Nescafe has reacted with its  Sunrise Liquid Decoction and a communication too to gow this category. While the pricing might be on the higher end, but that’s the premium the brand deserves. With this I am sure Brooke Bond too will jump into the race making this Liquid Decoction category a lot busier. Leaders in a category should have led this with their innovations , unfortunate that they have been pulled into it through the smaller brands. We need to wait and see how these perform in the long run.

IPL 2020

 

#IPL2020

#dream11IPL

 

 IPL window has grown extremely popular over these years with more and more brands patronising IPL to promote their brands. There have been cases of brands getting overtly popular through this, classic examples were : Micromax, Snapdeal, Muthoot Finance, Zoo Zoos from Vodafone, Polycab and many more. I always feel that to understand the advertising landscape and the brands that are active in India can be easily decoded by watching a set of matches. This will give us a clear picture of the big spenders in our country. So the objective of this note is to capture the brands that got featured and also to highlight the good work done by brands, some bad work and some extremely bad work. There are some brands which have just use the opportunity to shout loud, louder and loudest without a strong proposition to share. Few categories had to stay away as the weather conditions were not favourable for them – Icecreams, Softdrinks etc., Some of the brands moved smartly into capitalising on an upcoming festival “Diwali” and unveiled promotions around it, notable ones are Ajio.com, Titan, and Coke.

 

Most of the brands tried some connections to bring in the Virus into their theme : Paints, Fans, Laminates.

 

STAR, National and Regional channels have enabled brands to focus on their relevant markets thereby avoiding unnecessary media spillage. Hotstar has further localised the advertising opportunities where usage / location based advertising has boomed.

 

The usage of celebrities across categories is a proof that the quality of creative is sliding down. The easiest way to crack a brand is to use a celebrity and write a few lines. “Phone Pe “ and “CRED” are  great cases where the celebrities are going beyond and engaging with the audience. Using Aamir Khan as a “dummy” in the CEAT ads is a very bold approach and one needs to see the success of this communication. But the overall feel of the creative scene seems to be pathetic and not encouraging comparing the kind of talent we have. This also could be an indication of over spending rather than smart spending.

 

The big list of popular celebrities who occupied enough advertising space: Ayushmann Khurana, Vicky Kaushal, Aamir Khan, Amitabh, Shahrukh, Aliabhatt, Kareena Kapoor, Ajay Devgn, Hrithik Roshan, MS Dhoni, Saurav Ganguly, Sachin, Salman, Ranbir, Ranveer, Deepika, Hemamalini, Akshay Kumar,  Rakul Preet Singh, Hardik, Pant, Rohit, Shikar Dhawan.

 

Let’s try and take a look at the communication and brands categoriwise:

 

1.Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG)

 

Colgate Toothbrush’s  “ Taxiwala” proposition is a very strong one while the communication may not be highly engaging, but the thought of germs in toothbrush is a powerful one.

Coke introduced its Cola advertising as a continuation from the old series with Ranbir and Paresh Rawal, a very timely one.

Five Star’s “Do Nothing” is an interesting shift from “Suresh / Ramesh”.

Dairy Milk Silk’s Romantic proposition got stronger with the interesting 30 sec where the boy is travelling with an umbrella, is definitely engaging.

ITC’s sponsorship has enabled them to promote their brands : Savlon, Engage, Bingo and Sunfeast range.

The big colas featured late while Thumbs up was stealing the thunder with Ranveer Singh from the beginning. Salman’s shifted loyalties into Pepsi camp.

Sprite’s Drone Ad with Anirudh in South and some other person for the rest of the country goes only to prove that the southern markets need to be handled with care, but the same care should have been taken while conceptualising the TVC.

 

·         Bourbon

·         Sprite

·         Thumbs up

·         Coke

·         Dark Fantasy

·         Fortune  Oil and other products

·         Dairy Milk Silk

·         Five Star

·         Bingo - Promo

·         Colgate Vedshakti

·         Colgate Zig Zag Tooth brush : Taxiwala / Ayushman Khurana

·         7up

·         PEPSI – Salman Khan

·         Sunfeast

·         SKORE

·         Sensodyne

·         Maggi Tomato Ketchup

·         Maggi Noodles

·         Savlon

·         Tide Ultra : Triple action by Ayushman Khurana

·         Engage Deos

·         EVA Deodorants

 

Building Materials / Construction Industry

 

Nothing really stuck in the heads, except for the Alia Bhatt and Ayushman Khurana’s Colors of India campaign, still I felt the connect with the brand was lagging and therefore the recall.

Asian Paints with some simple story line was average.

JSW tried connecting some  Rishab Pant’s  old incidents from his on field experiences were stupid and too far fetched.

 

 

·         JSW Steel with Rishab Pant

·         JSW Coloron Roofing Sheets RishabPant

·         JSW Paints with Alia Bhatt and Ayushman Khurana

·         JSW Cement with Ganguly

·         Indigo Floor Paints

·         Berger Silk : Kareena Kapoor

·         Berger Paints : Akshaykumar

·         Asian Paints Weather Shield

·         Polycab wires

·         Merino Laminates

·         Century Ply : Virus protecting furniture

 

 

Automobiles / Auto Products

 

Clean road shots continued to occupy this ever challenging category, where FORD for a change concentrated on SERVICE aspect a smart decision to move away from the clutter.

Aamir featuring as a Dummy : an expensive celebrity that way, the question is Why should there be a Celebrity at all?

MG Gloster’s Abbreviation led campaign with the kid stood out only with the feature “Reverse parking”

HERO’s corporate message focussing on COVID was run of the mill

 

·         MRF Two Wheeler : Virat Kohli

·         MRF ZLX

·         CEAT : Aamir Khan / Don’t be a dummy

·         MG

·         KIA

·         SKODA

·         HYUNDAI

·         HERO corporate / Covid

·         HERO Xtreme : Virat Kohli

·         TVS Jupiter : Amitabh

·         TVS Apache

·         TVS Victor : Dhoni / Amitabh

·         TATA ALTROZ

·         FORD Service

 

 

 

 

Finance

 

RBI continued with its cautioning messages, AMFI (mutual fund association) used almost all cricketers to drive the message “SAFE HAI”. CRED’s simplicity to lot of people came across as complicated.

 

·         HDFC Bank

·         RBI with Amitabh

·         Mutual Fund

·         CRED

·         Master Card

 

 

 

 

 

Enablers

 

Aamir’s multiple storyline TVCs were endearing and engaging with his presence and some simple story telling.

Amazon with idea of “Khushiyon ka Door” wasn’t making an impact

AJIO came late, but with its filming and presentation was creating some engagement.

 

·         Phone Pe

·         Amazon

·         Flipkart

·         Ajio

·         Bharat Matrimony : Dhoni

·         Housing.com

·         Pharmeasy

 

Online Gaming

 

Dream 11’s interesting series, did  justice for being the Title Sponsor. Two distinct set of commercials certainly created impact for that brand. Lot of consumers seem to have logged in to the brand.

 

·         Dream 11

·         My 11 Circle

·         MPL

 

Education

Coding can be done even by 3 yr olds looks like a tall promise from Whitehat Jr another Byju group initiative. BYJU’s with SRK had some interesting TVCs last year, not this year.

UPGRAD was an absolute non-sense and I think they recovered by another meaningless TVC.

 

·         Byju’s

·         White hat Jr

·         UPGRAD

 

Surrogates

 

As usual, NO COMMENTS.

 

·         Sterling Reserve

·         British Empire

·         Mc Dowell’s

·         Royal Stag

·         100 pipers

 

Footwear

Sporto work though came in during the later part of the season looked good but the messaging was confusing.

 

·         Paragon : Hrithik

·        Sporto

 

Luxury Products

We can afford to miss these.

 

·         TITAN

·         TANISHQ

·         MANYAVAR

 

Online / Apps

 

Facebook’s thought of Open up your thoughts to expand your world was interesting. (the same thought translated into Tamil “Ulagam viriyum” was funny). Regional Agencies have a lot of potential to tap these.

JOSH, the replacement for Tik Tok attempted something interesting.

Instagram Stories was inviting.

 

·         Whatsapp

·         Facebook

·         Instagram

·         JOSH

 

Home Appliances

 

Anti Virus Fans was a real killer, goes only to prove how businesses are getting desperate.

BOSCH’s powerpoint advertising was pathetic, especially from a brand of this stature.

 

·         Aquaguard

·         KENT RO

·         Polycab Anti virus fans

·         Bosch Washing machines

·         Luminox Inverters

 

Services

 

Swiggy was a good repeat. The new TVC encouraging people to order definitely had some good performers, as their expressions were highly noticeable.

 

·         Urban Company

·         Swiggy

 

Mobile  Phones and Services

 

Surprisingly Vodafone’s communication wasn’t impressive.

Jio continues with its song and dance. The brand is still struggling to find a strong proposition for itself.

 

·         Vodafone Name Change and Giganet

·         Jio

·         Apple

·         Vivo V20 Twins

·         Oppo  F17 Pro Diwali Edition

·         Samsung Galaxy

·         One Plus

 

Garments

 

AMUL innerwear

 

 

Gutkhas

 

This larger than life projection has never appealed (probably I am not the consumer!!) but I still remember the “PAN PARAG” TVC!

 

·         Kamla Pasand

·         Pan Bahar

·         Vimal

 

Entertainment

 

STAR PLUS promoting their own shows

 

 

Let’s hope IPL 2021 will unfold with more interesting work that is relevant!