We have moved….

to a new place….

http://branditlikeitis.blogspot.com/

Sorry for the change….
Unfortunately all the comments were lost during the shift…let’s put it down to me being technologically challenged…
But I’d love you to keep reading…..and keep commenting there….

Do you see me?

Driving around Parle West, saw this huge ad banner on a famous college building, so I clicked it…and then thought about it. The immediate thing that struck me , was the target was bang on, the tag line was cool, and something told me, colleges didnt allow branding. So then as usual, my digging(googling) began…
But before I come to that, the ad that got my grey cells ticking:

The tag line: Boost your chances

Target: duh…college going guys….so that they can…er…boost their chances

Does it work: Im quite sure it does, the tag line is suggestive yet not crass, but some doubts prevailed, as the target seemed a bit off. I dont know, maybe it’s the times, but for us HSC was a bit too early for attracting attention, where most students were more weighed down by percentages and career streams.

On second thoughts though, it seemed odd that a college would allow an ad like that floating down its walls. I mean, agreed the building needs more than a dash of paint, but I’m sure they wouldn’t stoop so low. Thankfully I had another close up of the ad:

Ahh, the fine print!!!

It says ” Paragana 2009″ at the bottom!! The strange thing is, that is not Mithibai’s festival, but actually a B school festival of Narsee Mongee, which , for those who dont know, is right across Mithibai!!!  That explained a lot of things!! Not only does the target get more focussed( anyone associated with B schools knows that they have enough money to buy AXE, and they definitely are looking out to “boost their chances”), but things seem to have worked in the favor of AXE, as it got a huge dull backdrop for its really big ad(NM isnt as tall, and is painted) as NM and Mithibai belong to the same organisation.

Well one mystery solved is one mystery less…and for those who are wondering my take on this advertising…I have to admit it’s quite good….

Ad slaughter: Docomo – Friendship express

Docomo has been in the news for its unexpected and aggressive market share capture by per second billing. A good sound short term strategy; a little hasty; but that’s not what we are going to talk about.

But is having the right strategy enough? It evidently is not, as strategy has to be supported by a really good ad campaign. For most products, the ad campaigns that introduce the product or service, spend the first phase educating the people about what’s different in their product. Differentiation is the key to capturing eyeballs and creating a favorable opinion of the product. After this first phase, which can go on for quite some time; depending on whether the product has to be introduced or just differentiated; comes the stage of creating emotional appeal, where people are already aware of the brand name.

This is where docomo thinks it is. Considering the ad below:

What is wrong with this ad?

- Well a bunch of people start singing something sounding like “du du du…do do mo mo”

- Then suddenly the very boring train transforms into something like a singing express, and you are stumped for what the ad is actually trying to tell you

- It makes you think quite a bit about what just hit you, which is not something one wants to do, because though thought provoking is good, it’s no good, if your thoughts run all over the place with no specific direction.

- It also ends with the really corny “Do the new” tag line, which just clashes with the friendly “du du du” and all those friendly smiling feel good faces. It seriously reminds me of “Do the dew”, and makes it feel like a rip off by a creatively handicapped ad team.

- I personally feel it’s too early to tap into the emotional quotient of the market it’s just captured.

It somehow seems that the Docomo campaign has been handed over to some over eager MBA right out of his marketing strategy classes, who wants to implement all that he has learnt, all at once..

For what it’s worth, this ad definitely has recall value, but I have serious doubts about whether it’s going in the right direction.

Airtel on the other hand, has effortlessly mixed the emotional with the product, where SRK in his characteristic style asks a simple question “kitna waqt lagta hai kisi ko manane mein – sorry” … and ends with a “per second billing by Airtel”

It might not be the best of ads, but its effective, and it gets the message across without any hassles, clean and the right amount of emotion, that people can identify with. Though they could start experimenting with their ads, the Airtel ads rarely disappoint.

Maybe Docomo would do well to filch Airtel’s ad team along with the market share!!

Going Natural

I saw this print ad for Odomos naturals day before, it was a huge half page ad, with a kid arm wrestling with another kid (this kid being made of mosquitoes…gross but enough to make a parent paranoid). It said its non sticky and smells nice and is non allergic.
Later on during the day, I saw another naturals ad, with Vidya Balan in a park, seductively confiding to the camera the new cream repellant is…the same three things…. non sticky, smells nice, non allergic. So far so good. But after seeing the same ad 4-5 times during one movie break, something odd struck me. This ad was not for Odomos, but for Good Knight naturals.

After some light digging up, I realized that the news of the launch of these two campaigns appeared in different news sites, with a gap of a couple of days.

9th Oct 2009  – Dabur launches ODOMOS Naturals Mosquito Repellent

Oct 10 2009 – Godrej Sara Lee launches new campaign for GoodKnight Naturals; ropes in Vidya Balan

So we now have two different brand campaigns with the same product name, extolling the same 3 virtues!!!
Like me, I guess most customers will end up thinking it’s the same campaign. So if someone sees the Good knight ad first, the Odomos ad is going to be mistaken for the Good Knight one and vice versa.
In most probability the initial sales will now be largely determined by the shelf presence of these brands and brand loyalty.

The brand blog!

Hi!!

Welcome to Total Recall….that’s a very silly sounding name for a blog, so is the link “brand it like it is”, but the blog name will stay as a reminder to not start a new blog at midnight when the brain cells are almost shut down, and the link, I cant do much about, for most of the link names I could think of, seem to be already taken!!

So if you’ve read past the rant, this blog will talk about brands. And ads, and people who are brands. And target segments, and crappy ads, and good ones. Basically everything under the sun that even comes close to a brand. Welcome to the blog!!!!