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!!
We have the nextgen aleque padmasee in making here. sudden change of business from baking cakes to the Coroner of advertising world
Thanks ambides…maybe its going to be my curse, to dabble in everything, and leave it halfway to jump onto some other wagon….
Great dissection of Docomo, but I did find a bias in AirTel’s ad just cos it has SRK. I found that ad equally dumb…not to mention “fair and handsome.”. I am OK with not looking handsome if the King Khan is selling his alpha-maledom (really?) for 7 bucks a pop.
No, actually there is no bias…I’d say that even if he werent in the frame. I am not saying Airtel has made a great ad, I think its creepy that he’s over looking the romantic scenes, but it’s definitely more effective. Finally its the ad team that comes up with the ad, it has nothing to do with the actor in it.