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DishTV

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?

Aamir in Tata Sky Ad

September 16, 2008

I had written earlier in July about Jhingala’s counter strategy and now that Aamir’s ad is out, I have a mixed reaction. Not that I didn’t like the same but at the same time it’s not something which made me say wow! The ad as we have seen features Aamir Khan in a half man half woman (ardhnarishwar) role. Here is a short description of the ad & the video from youtube:

Aamir plays the role of a Punjabi bride AND groom who are fighting over which satellite connection to have? Bride says if he will not get the SKY connection for her, she will go back to her house in London. They fight over TATA or SKY and then dramatically groom says, its India where Tata and Sky are already married to each other and hence by having TATA SKY the consumer not only gets the world class technology from SKY but also reliability and best service from TATA.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujUv9HlMpkI]

Well, as a consumer I think it has definitely caught my attention but I think it has its plus and minuses.

  • Message: I think the message is clear and emphasizes the strength of brand very clearly. I’m sure not many people were aware that TATA SKY is a 80:20 joint venture between Tata Sons and BSkyB, a Rupert Murdoch company and this ad very subtly conveys this message thereby accentuating the tech supremacy of the product.

  • Creative Idea: Hmmm, for this I do have a mixed reaction…Am wondering if there could have been any better creative idea for this campaign. Well, starting was sort of ok but I didn’t like the cheesy bollywoodish style ending of the same and the ending line which sounded something like “jo family dekhe Tata Sky saath who rahe hamesha saath saath”! Ummm knowing the excellent creative ideas which Rediffusion DY&R comes up with, I think it could have been bettered up.

  • Execution elements: I think this was brilliant! Whatever the creative idea was Aamir has lived upto it beautifully. Once again you can’t resist from praising Aamir’s acting and performance in this half man half woman role. BTW I think he is looking quite cute as Punjabi bride, LOL :). The ad definitely has got a recall value because of its execution and presentation style.

The ad is making noise all across, now its time to wait and watch if this brand campaign boosts up the figures of Tata Sky as against DishTV whose last campaign (SRK announcing Set Top Box Free!) was pure n pure sales promo campaign.

Jhingalala’s counter strategy

July 11, 2008

So, this is the counter strategy of Jhingalala brand – TATA Sky. Well, media is splashed all across these days with “Wish Karo Dish Karo” statement of SRK – TV, Press, Online, Outdoor almost everywhere you go, you can see an ad of DishTV these days! Even the price has been reduced drastically now and Set Top Box offered is completely free. I was wondering where has Tata Sky gone suddenly? They had started with a big bang with Hrithik Roshan, Kirron Kher, Paresh Rawal etc etc appearing in their ads but then there was sort of silence from their side for quite some now. Well looks like the silence is over. Aamir Khan has been signed as the new brand ambassador for Tata Sky! Bingoooo…Aamir to counter Shahrukh! Well, good one. Anyways there is enough noise about Aamir – SRK hot chemistry in media these days be it films or the endorsements or the blog 🙂. Remember the buzz about Aamir’s blog with Shahrukh or tiff-taff between these two endorsers indirectly through their brands like Samsung (read Aamir) vs. Nokia (Shahrukh). So, looks like now it’s again gonna be Aamir Vs. Shahrukh through DishTV vs. Tata Sky.

With Indian consumer spending more and more on entertainment these days, DTH market is growing quite positively esp. after the recent price war between different players. Infact like most of the consumer electronics & entertainment items, prices have gone down drastically for DTH too in India. DishTV had recently launched its very attractive pricing based campaign where set box was offered completely free! As per the media coverages, DishTV subscription has gone up by 60% after the launch of this campaign. With 57% market share of overall DTH market, DishTV has currently approx 3.5 million subscriber base whereas Tata Sky has just 2.2 million (source: televisionpoint.com, date: 10th July’08). Hmmm time for Tata Sky to pull up its sleeves now. Let’s see what’s in store for consumers from Tata Sky now, with Aamir as the new endorser and campaigns round the corner, hope Jhingalala comes up with something better this time as against Wish karo Dish karo!