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Airtel Digital TV

Airtel Digital TV Ad

October 13, 2008

Guess BigTV got a nice answer of spoofing Airtel’s teaser by this new ad of Airtel Digital TV. Well, if I have to describe this ad in one word, I will say it’s BIG, it gives the impression of being big, being colossal. What an irony, isn’t it? BigTV kept on insisting “Ho toh BIG ho” through different creatives and through different properties…but the imagery of being big got very subtly and beautifully established by Airtel with just one television commercial featuring 10 popular celebrities! And the interesting noticeable point was that the celebrities are not used as endorsers rather they are shown as representative of different properties of the product. After a long time I think celebrities have been utilized in a very interesting and different way, else most of the ads these days just take celebrities for the sake of featuring celebrities and there are quite some examples of multi-starrer ads where not even one celebrity was required. But in this ad, the celebrities totally fit in the concept and the message gets communicated clearly. If I’m not wrong this is the first Indian ad featuring 10 popular celebrities.

The ad features a normal guy Rahul who is being welcomed as soon as he is out of Airport with “Welcome Rahul” board, it shows some Kathakalli dancers, then Sudha Chandran in her “K” serial avatar, comedy icon Raju Srivastava, youth icon VJ Ranvir, some cartoon characters, movie celebrities like Vidya Balan & Madhavan, sports stars – Zaheer Khan, Gautam Gambhir, then sizzling Kareena Kapoor opening door for him at his home, A.R.Rahman on piano and finally Saif Ali Khan waiting in his living room, all these characters having only message “Welcome Rahul”, come home to the magic. Wonderful execution! All these celebrities representing different genres and varied categories give a well-structured impression of WHOLESEOME ENTERTAINMENT & COMPLETE FUN. Here is the youtube link for those who have not seen the ad till now:

[youtube=http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=4Xd5qQgIrLo]

Overall, I liked the central theme as well as the execution style of the ad. And guess the whole effort of picking up Red Sofa by BigTV resulted nothing as in its main advertising, Airtel has not used that Sofa at all 🙂. Good work by JWT! Now lets see if next ad from BigTV is a spoof on “Welcome Rahul” :O

BTW just an afterthought – I’m wondering why these two new DTH players are competing against only each other (atleast in advertisements) and not with the already established players like Tata Sky and DishTV?

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”…