Micro Max>>Micro in shelf space...Macro in peoples mind

Guys its been very long time since i updated the blog. Most of the reason goes to "lack of interesting ads". And also devoted the time to search for a widget where we can give commentaries and ya its in process. Now today i saw this micro-max Q7 commercial. Awesome it was. A brilliant agency must be behind this. I have previously seen their Ad with Akshay Kumar (ha ha ha ad :P) and it was too captivating though not convincing enough to write something on it. To give you some edge on Micro max. With a 4.1% market share in Indian Mobile makers space, this combined with spice, karbon, lemon and lava made nokia the one biggie to lose 12% market share in a year ( that's a huge figure). Catering to the ever big Indian population not just through cheap handset but looks and feature wise too they are too captivating (Remember i dint say performance). Micro-max currently challenging the 3rd position is one big and strong contender. People got lured with chinese and korean sets and so once those mobiles ruled the black market. Then again after IMEI issues that market literally crashed. So here comes Karbonn and Micro Max to wake up the lazy bones inside Finnish mobile maker. The mobile phones of these developers are mostly imported from China by bulk purchase. Branded with their name and circulated within this country. People call it Box Movers. So what even Dell does it !!! Nowadays you can see lot of Blackberry's on your neighbour hood. One gaze closely will tell you those are Indian versions of Blackberry :P . Highly known as copy cat these mobile makers to attract semi urban and rural areas make sure their design matches with some popular mobile makers be it nokia or black berry and even ericsson. So whats special with these newbies. Why its so attractive?

1) Price ( Even an high end phone costs less than 10000)
2) Battery Life (Micro max launched its first mobile in rural area with a 30 day battery backup)
3) Design (Will you be able to get a QWerty with dual sim and attractive look?? Never)

Three reasons which i mentioned above is enough to attract wide audience. And that's why international mobile makers now fear the end of their era. They made all possible ways to reduce the shlf space. Univercell or any leading moble store in chennai doesnt carry much of Micro max. Reasons are really about margin concerns. Since Micro max or Karbonn doesn't have huge industries/plants like Nokia or ericsson as most of these biggies cost comes through that they make it sure that these mobiles stay out of their shelf space.

This blog was really meant for Ads :P lets shift onto that.
Micro max started their ad life with IPL. This ad attracting so many million people..



The best feature in this ad was Abhishek ha ha ha ... Half of audience like it rest of em doesnt. However the brand got affixed and ya the game in it too (Will you get a WII for 5000 ... Definitely not !! ) . The promoters attribute more than half of their cost to Ad spending. Really true .Recent one was even ASIA cup which they hosted. So which ad really attracted me to write here. See that.



This ad would have made the board of Nokia get really really pissed off.=)). I remember one of its director few weeks back complained ( probably after getting agitated after fall in market share) that Micro max will not be able to provide any customer support in the future like how Nokia or other Biggies does. Very valid point indeed. This AD specifically targeted to these agitated group really must receive an thunderous applause. "SORRY WE ARE REALLY SORRY" this clearly means that we are not ready to stop our low priced phones but we are also not ready either to stop adding features. A wifi in 5000rs. phone is really really a tough contender of customers choice. So far corby with 10000 is the lowest in Wifi segment for which even Nokia was crying. Now here comes Micro max with half the price of Corby. Would really put the board of nokia to tremble. After some dig up i found the predecessor of this Sorry sorry ad .




Both of these ads were really made to add fuel to the existing fire. As anyone can really see these ads are highly emotional. Must have been a do or die job for AD makers. Its really important for people to interpret the ad correctly. If you see both the videos you can know the concept where one guy makes lot of troubles to others just with one phone he holds. 2 Way interpretation can be made. one in a regular way that this person is affixed to his mobile so it must be really nice and great with features and he is just saying sorry to trouble caused by him on road. Second one is audio alone where it clearly pities the other phone makers and says we are sorry for disrupting your growth and sorry for people to have made them more attractive. Of course there is every chance for nokia to think that in a third way that the man itself is micromax and like the climax in ad,sensing micro max to die soon just like the man. Ya enough reasons it gives but the ad is a clear winner. Now i can see some one with real flesh after Docomo (Remember they spoilt the mobile service provider market). Expecting more ads from Micro Max soon. Still iam wondering why i write lot about telecom related ads 8-> .. more to come !!!! Cheers !!!!

Virgin vs. Airtel

Have you guys seen some fight in the ad industry after Pepsi and coca cola ?? Hope everyone had seen the direct strike by Pepsi on coke by letting a 8 yr old boy stand on coke can to get Pepsi. Of-course those ads are banned in the industry but very well available on you tube :P Now here is another fight within the Indian telecom industry with their ads. These two ads were released long time back and still running even today. The conventional hair oil ad or detergent ad would target its competitor by showcasing the normal product with the competitors product color. But right now the ads of virgin and airtel has shaken the industry with a big surprise. Now lets watch both the ads and then we can discuss on it




So now that you have seen both the ads you could sense that Virgin completely opposed Short Messaging Service(sms) and next week this airtel ad came strongly insisting on sms. Virgin roped in Ranbir Kapoor and so does Airtel did with Sharman Joshi. So whats the fuss all about. Virgin a strongly believed youth brand should never have done that. That's a really big mistake on their part. They forgot the fact that more young Gens come every other day and most of them live on sms and IM's. So completely its affecting the brand of Virgin. And this shifting phase would really kill the brand. So now coming onto airtel. Airtel always perceived as peoples brand came immediately to the rescue of youngsters. This immediate reaction from airtel would have seriously made the virgin marketing team to sweat at-least for a moment. To add some more sugar they have also started a GPRS campaign which again convinces the youngsters perfectly well. Why now airtel taking away Youngies?? Well thats a big question :P Telling people to convey things by talking is a real feel good factor but now who tells it there lies the problem and whom you are telling to again that's a major criteria. Tik Tik bandh karo Talk Talk Shuru Karo may sound rhythmical. However Airtel's ad purposely carried a guy laughing at Sharman Joshi that sms wont work and asks him not to waste time and there Sharman gets a instant reply with lots of love :P. Sure to raise smiles when compared to the drowsy Ranbir ad. So this i wanted to bring to your notice such ads are really pathetic that could even drive away the brand as fast as possible. Soon iam planning to bring a new column for commentary on specific ads for which again i need all your support !!!!! Cheers !!!!!

chennadmania !!!!

So here it goes guys !!!! my long awaited post !!!! :P ... Chennai has a different architecture for its ads. A sense of style which i haven't seen anywhere else in our country. If you see my first post you could sense how corporates are exploiting the ad space over here. The city is largely held through hoardings wall paintings umbrella messages and at times even tea shop captivity. I will be posting few images over here and lets discuss on that.



This picture shows you the back side of a bus carrying UNI-NOR advertisement. Of course this is quite common in most of the cities but if you watch it closely you will surely come to know that the size is really huge and pretty fitting on a bus and unlike any other bus where they post on the side-top of the bus here its done on the backside. Most of the commuters look for the bus number and the respective route and just a glance is enough for them to carry the brand on their heads. Secondly vehicles following the bus its 'n' numbers. Obviously every one will get a glance of this ad and mostly there are varied ads displayed and it includes magic shows too :P . So tell me how they manage to do it, its because the ad rates as i heard is very cheap on a monthly basis. Very cheap then 1 lakh pamphlets :O Now that's surprising. So this has been a tradition here its because of the fact that it attract high rate of viewership.

So now let us dig deeper into Chennai





Now you see these pictures these are more common sights in Chennai. Mostly cement ads you can find and obviously its more popular in deep suburbs of chennai. Most large scale manufacturers tend to use these ads in chennai. Now docomo has even started using this :P (God knows who are the marketers:P). These ads tend to attract the sight of people in transit and one more information the last two wall ads photo was taken in front of local train station so you can imagine how much these ads are really worth. But actually an one time payment on 10000rs would do :D in the housing fraternity.



Now the previous video. Really a fantastic addition to experiential advertising. As you can see the ad is meant to be electrifying as how it is shown. This is a pepsi ad posted on a tea shop through its name board. Of course the tea shops name is less visible but the contentment of tea stall guy is priceless. He got a flashy board for free with his name imprinted just by allowing Pepsi to do it. Adding the brands name on to someones board has been a custom in Chennai but getting digital in this platform whole of the credit goes to Pepsi. The ad is flashy enough to attract all eyes passing by. Who else but Dhoni is sitting on it too so a very special ad for very special people must be the tag line. When i took the video i found it in just one shop near my home but almost all the shops now are proud owners. Pepsi you rock!!!

There are few other ads like Big umbrellas given to road side flower shop or pan wale which is enough to attract the pedestrians unfortunately i don't have those pictures. These umbrellas are engraved with brand name and logo. And few others like vodafone give home use umbrellas to the customer so just that any user steps out with it on a rainy or sunny day we can have at least one kid saying "papa see that". This attention grabbing exercise is done flamboyantly well in Chennai.

The ultimatum of the blog is to highlight where Chennai stands in ad world. Your comments and criticisms are highly motivating thanks for the feed back from off-liners. :) Next blog on ..... keep guessing !!! ;)

Touristry !!!!

Ok friends !!! After a long time i am going to publish this blog with so much of editing and finishing touches which i had to give that took a lot of time. As i have already given an hint in my previous blog the topic for today is tourism ad's. The first thing which strikes us when we talk about tourism ad's is the plush landscape, green trees and smooth rivers hope all this were spread everywhere!! All imported from kerala lol!! we have only been through those kinds of ad's. So today leaving of all that typical ad's(one ad included on that) we can discuss about two ad's. One is our INCREDIBLE INDIA ad. The other one is a surprise ad NEW MEXICO ad. Lets come first to the mexico ad then we can move onto the biggie.



Mexico ad a clear bold attempt to defy the contemporary portrayal that i described few cm's away. The ad is showing an alien who wants to take a break and finds that mexico is the best place and even his boss recommends him the place with few ad-dons. The ad is NOT AN HIT. You can know from the picture itself it gives a sense of awkwardness right ? Yes that defeated the ad. I was wondering how even if they could have attempted an ad without the default setup they would fail and this ad was sitting in the extreme opposite of default setup. The aliens were disgusting that made people to switch channels. And even if someone would watch for a few minutes he would give up because it was boring and not usual alien and human thing they used to see. If someone very boldly sits and watch the full ad (like me) he/she would decide Mexico is a place for aliens and not for humans. The ad is a complete disaster and shows the height of craziness one would go to make an ad different. Even if their target market was children (convincing parents kind) the ad should not have carried over an office setup. Ok the conclusion is this ad became an huge disaster. This non typical ad dint work out. so what about Incredible India ad. Lets see in two parts



This ad is an typical tourism ad. You got all we wanted landscapes river greens even Everest. This ad can convince someone outside and inside. And this ad does not carry any special weight age also. But if the same typical ad that you saw now if gets some flavor what we will be getting ?



This ad gives an excellent portrayal of our country. The ad carries an foreign hero. May sound a bit disturbing but the fact is marketers behind this ad are born genius. A flavor which i had mentioned previously is this foreigner. Here in this ad we can see India from the eyes of the foreigner. Its visual treat for Indians and delightful treat for foreigners. The man starts writing a letter to his friend and keeps thinking what to write. He tries to remember what all he did. From Bike and camel ride to mud bath and tiger safari he comes off with different instances. The music is truly Indian. The feel is also well protected with the visual treat given. Unlike many other ads Taj Mahal is showed just once. The weird things which are done by Indians is being done by an foreigner and this thought requires hard brain. The ad would do good with Indians cos of two main reasons. One is visual treat as i said before and the other one is comedies which revolve around a person coming to India. Indians always like when someone cant pull it off. And if an foreigner is part of it that would tickle their bones off. But these kind of instances would be taken with an feeling of willing to experience factor among foreigners. The ad does justice to everyone who is watching the same. I would rate it as the best tourism ad. Its splendid creativity by bringing in a foreigner. Many would have suggested SRK but this was indeed an bold and successful attempt. Now this is the best part. Finale of the blog is a must watch cos the same foreigner compiles all his thoughts and puts it in two words. INCREDIBLE INDIA. I love it and it gives me a sudden goosebumps. Hope you all felt the same. The previous ad we were talking about BAJAJ DISCOVER and the way they found out inside India. This ad also finds out few new things for us the luxury train the elephants washing and the Indian discotheque. May sound little odd but I feel these things have been a change factor for us. So guys do watch our Incredible India and this ad truly is credible. Next ad on..... keep guessing.....No wait will give an hint..hmm something on chennai ...

Hamara Bajaj !!!

One of the best Motor Bike ADS ever is what i feel when i see this AD. Enough creativity to attract anyone of any age and attire. Did anyone imagine that any place of that kind did ever exist. The AD was of simple texture. Brave enough to give you a content purely based on the geography of our country. A minutes time it takes and hours thought we make. Always an AD goes out of its product or through other resources and then it succeeds. Normally other resources here includes actors debates or even open criticism against other product by way of absolute silence or with product design (eg. parachute and few others design the competitors ad in green or blue color accordingly). Here its an mixture of the product and the content. I am happy they are not environmentally concerned like others and that would really make us shift to other channels. And a follow up ad again giving details on a city without doors was also fantastic. I would call it as a money well spent on R&D. Its not so easy to come up and say these are the cities with this specifics. An old ad was given on with public sense of not disturbing Taj Mahal was the last AD that i can remember. These kind of ADs impact the consumers really well. Also the phrase of visiting INDIA with a litre of petrol is the best way a product can be portrayed to others. Thats sounding more of proud but not selfish attitude on the product. Also people always expect new things and a typical AD showing you stunt scenes will only attract the youths. Ofcourse Bajaj also did that but now they have tried to brush up their own concepts. I can also remember an castrol AD which came out in a different way challenging the other marketers by posing them a 'who said fuel ADs must be containing only liquids in it' question. They came out with a politian AD and tat too during the election time. It was an all time hit. Servo was put to chaotic situation after that. And Bajaj i have been following from Hamara Bajaj days. They have a sense of patriotism when they did with scooter ADs and those ADs we can never forget specially the tunes. Now we dont have scooters and thats a different story. But coming up with this kind of AD with an entirely different genre makes me think again these people are inventing new age marketing. Also developing tourism. Areey why dint ITC or India Tourism think on these lines ??? !!!!

Enviromobiles......

If you have seen in the recent past a new wave of ads have been coming in with a strong shift towards saving the environment. And who is carrying it none other than mobile makers and mobile service providers. It all started with Nokia coming out with recycling your phone concept. Where once your phone gets old and you are about to replace with a new one you can give it to nokia itself for recycling where they have also promised a tree for every phone which had been put inside their box. Pity them they are not aware of the second hand market which is ruling in most of the city Even at the most no one would throw it off in a box without any share of advantage to them. Its been a success with the likes of Rich class but not definitely among the masses. You can even take me i would at least give it to my relatives or to friends who are really in need of a phone. But a fearful service provider who rose like a dragon in the ad world made it a point that it would reach the masses. Yes the same environment concern gushed across leaps and bounds of our country. Iam talking about IDEA . One day if i ever get a chance would like to meet them and ask them just one question "how do you guys alone get few thoughts like this". There has been a tremendous response for their ad "mind it" its from the masses. The reception has been huge and its nothing else but the theme they are into. SAVE PAPER. We all know and have gone through this same old saying that we should use less paper as many trees are destroyed for few pages of our note book. That's not all, we have been through with recycle books and books of little less trees blah blah. But have we ever thought a mobile can replace a paper. NO. And these people have done it. The version of abhishek is good and i like the fact that he is of little use unlike other ads where the star fits into the whole 1 min. The ideas are so touchy enough to make our souls recognize the ad when we see a touch screen phone. I specially loved the vegetable market ad where money is transferred through phone its high time we realize that it is possible. The effort is tremendous once again and you really need to take your brains out for these ads. There is clearly no intentions to target the competitor and thats very good on their part. A serious concern towards the environment evokes, which i feel is terribly good. Wish more ads come like that. And one more thing i should criticize it for one main reason. They left the walk when you talk campaign as it is. Its so good new themes are emerging unlike every other marketer sticking on to a single theme. But its so very odd coming out of the previous one. No one can forget shriya looked amazing in the ad (atleast for that). So they must not have left it abruptly but carrying it for a long time is also not advisable. IDEA is not like zoo zoo which sticks on to a theme and expands it within the theme. But changing its theme between few set of months its not so advisable. But as long as they have the word IDEA with them its all drained out. Salute for you guys. Expecting some more ads from you which will turn up heads and serve the purpose of what we are marketing for. Next blog on Bajaj coming up....

Noodles vs Foodles

Wish you all a very happy new year... Its been quite a year for me now happy to step into 2010... But me not the only one who is happy about 2010. There is one big fellow waiting to enter the 1000 crore rs market which has been more or less a monopoly for many years. The big guy is GSK (Glaxo Smith Kline) the king in Health drink market yes i am talking about Horlicks. Now GSK is entering the noodles market. I almost had an heart attack cos the market is wholly dominated by the Nestle group so if someone new is going to come must have a strong presence in India. Top ram-en failed in that cos of the Nissin Brand with that which is hugely unpopular in India. So this Horlicks maker with a strong presence across each and every home and hospital (psst its true that Horlicks is for hospitals) coming for noodles market almost threw me apart. So this big guy is not marketing with the brand GSK now . They are using horlicks for campaigning that's a noble thought great indeed. Now how is the noodle market for new entrant will people really like.

According to The Nielsen Company, the instant noodles market in India is 88,951 tonnes with a value offtake of Rs 988 crore. This market has seen growth of 30.6 per cent this year ending August 2009 over last year in value terms and a volume growth of 25.29 per cent. So mostly like the segment being hosted like a monopoly both nestle and gsk are doing it in different segments. But will the consumers take it that's a big question. There is one important case study on Dettol that was one war against savlon. Johnson & johnson tried to enter dettol segment through savlon they made many tactics on brand positioning by removing smells more hygiene and all. Dettol a brand by itself is there in the market for more than 50 years so one could dare beat that and yes savlon tried to do that. So what was the immediate strategy of Dettol it entered into band aid segment the key market for Johnson & Johnson. It almost tumbled like anything so J & J had to take back from Savlon and finally Dettol was the winner . You may call it as failure in Marketing strategy but its hard to break the brand loyalty. This is what nissin tried to do with smoodles and now GSK is trying with Foodles. I wish them a break even year. Who knows if the foodles are really tasty and if i like em surely in the next blog i will recommend you guys the product.