BMW Vs. Audi Outdoor Skirmish

Ajay, our Tribal planner mailed me this nugget. It seems new fighting between BMW and Audi has started in Santa Monica, USA!

AUDI hung up a commercial on the main street with the text: "The entirely new AUDI A4. Your move BMW."

BMW thought about it for a week and hung up on the next building a much bigger advertisement hoarding, "Checkmate!"!! (source: interesting-thingz.blogspot.com)

K.I.L.B : Mixed Feelings

Am glad they revealed it. These K.I.L.B bus-shelters/hoardings were now irritating the hell out of me(and my guess is I wasn't the only one...)

At first I thought it might be Vodaphone, then I guessed it could be a new TV soap. Fellow blogger Praneeth had a nice post on how the client/ agency frittered the online search opportunity. And you are directed to Big Adda here!!! Cute...

Hold your breath, The BIG Brand Reveal is actually AEGON Religare Insurance!! You can get an update here.Insurance was the last category that would have come to my mind. But then again, if the work managed to get so much attention, guess it worked:-)

But guys upload your TVC onto YouTube(it's free)...Tag it well(that's free as well)When you generate interest, please know how to channelise and engage that interest!

Else it is K.I.L.B - Kill Interest, Lose Buyers...or Kill Interest Lose eye-Balls(sounds better:-)

Bang On, Big Bang But Very Expected!

Of course I didn't watch the Hutch(oops Vodaphone) TVCs on now the much hyped Star TV block. There are more interesting things like the Twenty20 on the tube!

Hyped as a major media innovation( although I fail to see why it's an innovation.)It's a big budget ROAD BLOCK rather than a Great Idea.

Well, finally Hutch - the country’s fourth-largest mobile service provider has changed it's identity yet again. And I think it has done it the right way. Almost too right I feel:-)

1. Retained the cute, lovable pug as well as the two animated characters (the girl and the boy)

2. Promises to retain the tagline - "Wherever you go, the network follows" especially for the network related ads.

3. “Hutch was a well-loved brand, and all the things which the customer found endearing will continue to be projected,” said Harit Nagpal, the company's marketing and new business director, on agencyfaqs.com. Well, that again is the most sensible thing to do. Indian marketers I feel are too trigger happy with change. Very often change for change sake!

4. The company insists, Vodaphone will be a more mass brand, offering value-added services, in all the existing 16 circles rather than maintaining an up-market brand imagery from it's international lineage...

5. It's among the most humongous brand name changes in Indian marketing, affecting the lives of almost 35 million customers across 400,000 shops! And looks like the client and the agency have done a great logistical job!

From the little that I have seen of the name-change, it's bang-on and correct but somewhere my expectations from Hutch( sorry Vodaphone:-) and the agency Ogilvy in particular were a bit higher...But it's still early days!

Ogilvy has a habit of surprising everyone with great advertising particularly towards the year end:-)

The Bland(?) & the B E A U T I F U L

Among the better OOH communication this month! Although, I find it a trifle bland for outdoors...

The visuals and art could have been more lustrous, with more sheen and shine like the hair they are talking about...

But then again Dove is a mild brand in its essence, packaging and communication!
And who knows what women want:-)

The Rules of Mallvertising

Was at the Inorbit mall, Malad the other day...Saw one of those increasingly ubiquitous LCD screens - some in-your-face locations, others tucked in corners...

Had some thoughts and observations on the increasingly relevant subject of Mallvertising!

1. Treat them as more electronic hoardings than TVCs.Which means LARGE FONTS, clutter free, very less copy and visually engaging....Lets not forget the LCD screen is nestled in a Mall environ with many more distractions!

2. From WIIFM to WIIFMN. That's What's in it for me NOW? Saw couple of TVCs playing on the LCD screen . Would have preferred to see where the SALE is, which store on which floor has a new range, any contests, promotions, trial offers...
Last mile communication must be about WIIFMNOW...

3. Mute Check. Another test that we could subject our messages to, is to see if they are comprehensible on 'mute'. The Mall has it's own decibel level and the LCD messaging might get lost unless it is 'Mute-Checked'.

4. It may make more sense to model the last mile communication on Cinema Slides.. Focussed, fast and 3-sec long(not 30sec).

5. Think catchment not catch-phrase.Related to points 1 & 2 above.
Slogans, what's the big idea, brand propositions could be suspended at the mall. It's a different buyer mind-set that we are looking at. In a hurry, the mood being part-indulgent-part-VFM.

Although I hate the word - eye-balls, Mallvertising is made more difficult as we are addressing travelling eye-balls! And the last thing people need is some esoteric brand advertising...

As mobile, digital screens, sensors, blue-tooth, RFID technologies develop, I am sure the science of Mallvertising will be more focussed and engaging for the customers...

Out of Loop

Saw these very colourful, very un-connected - In the Loop- BPL mobile hoardings, print ads, kiosks and banners all over the city!

Obviously an attempt to contemporise, youth-ise the brand. But why did they have to play 'Holi' with the BPL brand beats me?(There are yellow, green, purple banners all over the neighbourhood!!)

I found the 'In the loop' teasers also very 'thanda'!! Personally I feel brand make-overs should mostly be continuous and not 'disruptive' like this one seems to be!

While BPL never really was as desirable a brand as say Hutch, I had always loved it's clean look...I feel the contemporisation should have happened within the broader design contours of the brand.

And if the service, product and customer programmes haven't changed along with the brand design/communication, then it just might be a case of all the money down the drain!

The Beach and the Thoughts on Kiosk Advertising

In my new role as the weekend papa, I took Neo and his cousin Ved to Juhu beach. In fact like most such excursions, this one too was initiated and co-ordinated by my wife...

So early morning, we trooped in a cab to Chaupati beach. The beach(like much of this hyped city - Mumbai) itself was too dirty to be enjoyed. The water was muddy and there was poop in generous dollops all around!!

But Neo and Ved had a ball of a time...Building sand castles, throwing water on each other and generally frolicking around.

Among the muddied water and two energy-filled kids, managed to spare a thought about two outdoor signage(I think I am losing it...I manage to think about my next post in the most unlikely of situations:-)

The first was on the long mocha wall opposite the beach. It was a Provogue signage. In fact multiple repeats of the same message all next to each other. It was cluttered. Jarring to the eye. And purposeless. What could 10 signages achieve that a single one cannot?
>Clearly when it comes to OOH( out-of-home) messages, people don't realize that diminishing returns of exposure set in with every needless extra unit!

The next on linking road were the Exide pole kiosks. Again I feel, in year 2007 with
'an acute shortage of consumer attention' and a general filtering of commercial messages by the common man, logo assaults of the Exide sort seen in the picture are an utter waste of money!Okay, so we know Exide, now what are we supposed to do? Yet another case of visual pollution and little else.