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Advertising

Pappu Vote Nahi Karta: Delhi Elections 2008

November 26, 2008

While surfing some news channel yesterday, got a glimpse of the ad, “Pappu Vote Nahi Karta”. It’s a film by Elections Commission to attract voters for its Delhi Election on 29th November’08. Somehow it caught my attention as it was sort of different from the normal government or political campaigns. Instead of being preachy it was bit youthful, instead of being drab it was bit catchy and instead of looking like those same old social awareness government ads it looked bit new. Maybe it was that very famous song “Pappu can’t dance” or the animation or those vibrant color schemes or that last sentence – Delhi’s latest fashion statement, which made it look so. And the ad was clearly targeted towards youth. Well, looks like all the political advertisements this year are targeted towards the younger crowd and first time voters.

Low voter count has been a big problem in most of the elections and it’s mostly the current generation youngsters who don’t bother about voting and such elections at all. In fact, as per a recent statistics, voter count has seen a steep declining curve in last few years – in 1993, approx 66 per cent of the electorate voted for the state’s first assembly in Delhi. In 1998, the percentage went down drastically to only 49!!!  And in 2003, it declined further with only 47 per cent voting in the third assembly election. Let’s see what’s the count in 2008? With campaigns like “Pappu”, which is not only being shown in television rather at important public places in delhi, Election Commission hopes to get a higher voter turnout on 29th Nov’08. It’s good to see youth targeted and newer kinda messages from Electoral Officer and hope to see some increased % of voters this time in Delhi. Those who have not seen this film can check it out here:

[youtube=http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=crnJw938TFo]

Youtube link in case the film is not opening here: http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=crnJw938TFo

Aaj Ka Arjun: Sulekha.com

November 19, 2008

[youtube=http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=h-UPtfEkl_o]

I got this link from one of my professional acquaintances. The mail said it’s a new viral campaign from Sulekha.com. Hmmm, new viral and I immediately clicked the link. First reaction – I liked it! Looked interesting and easy to understand at the first glance itself. Presentation also was different, very unlike from the normal illustrations, cartoons and caricatures used in most of the virals these days. And the message gets communicated quite clearly. They have used a form of art to present the characters. This film titled “Aaj Ka Arjun” is showing today’s generation Arjun who is hassled but manages to get everything done at one click of arrow. Till end they don’t show the source where his arrows are targeted and from where he is managing to get everything done. The film ends with Arjun and his whole family targeting the same source and the source is Sulkeha. Quite a catchy way of showing everything happening at a click J.

But then came the surprise when I got to read it in one of the official releases that this is not a viral rather it’s a television commercial for Sulekha which will be aired soon on channels. They have released the commercial in digital medium first to see the reaction of users before airing it fully on television. Well, I’m not sure if the same creative can work for television medium as well. I have seen a 2 min version of this viral film which by any standard is a long duration for television commercial and I’m not sure if they are going to air the full or edited version of the same. If they are going to edit the film and show it in parts then I don’t think the impact will be same. To me this looks more like a digital film than a television commercial but then you never know what can work in Indian market considering the diversity of taste and preferences of Indian consumers. I for sure would be keen to observe how this film takes its course further. Overall the film surely grabbed my attention and I forwarded it to some of my friends too J

Political Advertising: Advaniji on web!

November 11, 2008

Just last week itself, I wrote about Political Advertising in India for 2009 elections and here comes another surprise of the same. Now after celebrities it’s the turn of Politicians looking up to the mighty web world. Joining the league is none other than L.K. Advani whose website http://www.lkadvani.in/ got launched on his 81st birthday on 8th Nov’08. BJP launched this website for their Prime Minister candidate Advani with an objective to reach out to the young and first time voters in India. As per BJP, this is the first website of its kind by an Indian Political party and is yet another step towards reinforcing the forward looking and futuristic attitude of their party.

The site opens up with an intro note and welcome message by L.K. Advani and is available in two different languages – Hindi and English. It’s an interactive website with loads of photos, videos, speeches and forums wherein visitors can participate and post their comment / suggestion / grievances. Overall the site looks neat and very 2.0 types except for the first landing page after home page. I think it’s too boxy, maybe they could have used some tabs and made it less cluttered. But content wise I liked the site. In fact to be honest I never expected it to be this deep esp. their “issues” blog section…quite nice and interesting posts there, though I think there should have been a section for users’ comments on each of these posts in order to make it truly interactive. I’m sure they have not allowed comments to avoid nuances and mud-slinging by opposition parties but then if you want it be interactive you need to provide the facility of comments and expressions, see some cool examples of Bollywood celebs like Big B or Aamir Khan. The forums allow posting and comments but as of today I don’t see much participation from external people over there. The home page content is definitely getting updated as I can see a difference between yesterday’s and today’s content, have a look at the scrn-shot:

lkadvani

Overall a neat website and considering the fact that most of the first time and young voters are digital natives it’s definitely a good step and modern approach towards reaching out to Indian youth. It’s good to know that Indian Prime Minister candidates are going high-tech, but wondering is it their own thought or is it Obama effect 🙂?

Also my fundamental question about Political Advertising in India remains the same – is it worth spending so much money before the elections in communication campaigns when most of the Indians know the realities of Indian Political scenario? It’s good to see such interactive platforms getting launched but is BJP going to take any step to solve the real-time issues or grievances being posted on the website or will these just remain as comment counters to prove that the website was a successful strategy with X number of comments and Y number of hits in Z number of days? Will it actually help in a building a “Strong, Prosperous and Self-Confident India” or will it end in just being yet another marketing gimmick?

 

 

In-film advertising is FASHIONable

November 9, 2008

Watched Madhur Bhandarkar’s Fashion yesterday, I liked the movie…really liked it, though I think the name of the movie should have been “Kimaya’s Fashion” or “Fashion from Kimaya” J. Another interesting case of in-film advertising with not one or two brands rather many. To name a few, which I can remember – Kimaya, Lenovo, Sunsilk, Café Coffee Day, Reebok, LG, Cellucom were the key brands with Kimaya and Lenovo being the most prominent ones. In fact in-film advertisements were so loud and clear that I couldn’t help myself noticing a Godrej carton as well while Priyanka was relocating but guess Godrej’s presence was just by chance and not planned as it was shown hardly for a second or two.

But the good thing about in-film advertising in Fashion was that the brands were chosen carefully and the presentation was perfectly in sync with the scenes and sequences. Nowhere they looked jarring or force-fitted and instead of being just used in background they were properly integrated with the script esp. Kimaya considering the last round of fashion shows in the movie were critical part of the script. Overall good example of in-film advertising otherwise we have seen some horrible examples of in-film advertisement in Bollywood – remember Subhash Ghai’s Yaadein and those numerous brands within the movie…oh God those were very irritating. Good thing is that commercially the movie has made quite some money by these in-film advertisements. Out of total 220 million investments in Fashion, the producer has made 85 million by just these branded advertisements only! Now that’s approx 39% of the overall investment and definitely is some money to make through in-film advertisements.

In-film advertising in Bollywood is getting popular day by day and advertisers are coming out with interesting ways of integration. If done in the right way, it’s definitely an interesting promotional strategy which is mutually beneficial for the brands as well as the movie – brands get the right kind of visibility and registration in the minds of consumers whereas producers get to make some good money to cover up their cost of production. But such in-film advertisements only make sense if they are done in the right way like the recent example of Fashion otherwise in most of the cases they just end up in being logo showcased in background for few seconds.

Political Advertising

November 7, 2008

In this season of advertising and mass media budget cuts, it definitely rings a bell if you suddenly listen about any campaign having a budget as high as 150 crores! Yeah, such budgets are still there and that too in India for advertising campaigns of just 2-3 months duration.

Recently read that Congress has hired Crayons for their communications campaign for 2009 election and as per the industry sources campaign budget is estimated to be Rs. 150 crores. Crayons is the same agency which has worked on lots of other political campaigns including BJP’s 2004 election campaign, 2003 Rajasthan Elections campaign, Delhi Government’s “Badalti Tasveer Dilli Ki Aapke Liye” campaign and Tourism Industry’s Incredible India campaign for the whole of Europe. Following the course of Congress is BJP whose account has been given to an agency called Hive. And interesting thing is even BJP’s overall budget for the communication campaign is estimated to be Rs. 150 crores! Well, BJP’s budget had to be this or more, isn’t it? As per figures quoted, overall spend in forthcoming election campaign by Congress and BJP is going to be over Rs. 300 crores. This is definitely some money, in fact 300 crores is far more than the annual advertising spend of some very known FMCG giants in India. I’m sure for advertising agencies the forthcoming election campaign is going to be an interesting assignment both from commercial as well creative perspective.

But one thing keeps pinging my mind – from where do all these money come for just building brand image of these political parties? Isn’t 300 crores huge sum of money to be wasted in communications during election campaign esp. when we all know the realities of Indian Political parties be it Congress of BJP or any XYZ? Whole year they don’t do anything and when the time of election comes then they think of communicating their message! Wish they could have spent such money in genuine developments and upliftment work then maybe they need not spend such money in building their brand. Doing any communication campaign is perfectly alright but just communicating false promises with no end result is rubbish and sheer waste of money.

See you at home… Airtel or BigTV?

October 10, 2008

So, my confusion was genuine enough and I was not puzzled unnecessarily … I was observing this ad on television showcasing a big Red Sofa and “See you at home” with small fonts mentioning “coming to your home on 9th Oct” but looks like they revealed their product on 8th itself as suddenly on 8th I saw the same Red Sofa with “See you at home with 32 cinema halls” or “See you at home with digital picture and sound” kind of promotion from BigTV. First reaction – ah another one from BigTV but then immediately one thought crossed my mind – why are they doing teaser campaigns again when they have already launched the product with that hopeless “Ho toh BIG ho campaign”! Got quite confused but then thought maybe because of the response to their pathetic creative last time they are planning to re-launch the campaign with a different message.

But well, got an answer to my confusion when I read yesterday’s Livemint having coverage on how BigTV crashed its rival Airtel Digital TV’s teaser campaign. That Red Sofa and “See you at home” campaign was originally of Airtel but the idea got skyjacked by BigTV’s campaign immediately. Since that teaser campaign was not having any mention of Airtel or any other brand, so Airtel was not having any copyright on the same. BigTV launched a stunningly similar campaign using that very similar Red Sofa and the same line “See you at home” with some extra additions like 32 cinema halls, digital picture etc. Ah, so it was a spoof on Airtel Ad and yet another counter strategy to spoil the campaign of a rival brand! Now spoofs, satire or take-offs are not something new in ad world in India – be it the never ending war between Cola giants or the strife between Telecommunication players. But now looks like with increasing number of players the same trend is observed in DTH industry as well. Nothing majorly wrong strategy wise but somehow I didn’t like this counter movement of BigTV at all – first they launch their service with a terrible campaign like “Ho toh BIG ho” and now this force fitted spoof using that red sofa needlessly. Wish instead of thinking of spoiling Airtel’s ad campaign if the creative agency of BigTV would have thought of some other original idea then chances are that they might have come out with something more sensible than nonsensical “Ho toh BIG ho”…