Vodafone's Busy Caller Tune Advertisement: Ammazing.. Simple but yet delivers so well..

Apple Vs Blackberry

Ammazing.. just Ammazing.. This is marketing rivalry at its best. I am not talking about the Indian version of Pepsi vs Coke or Thums up using cheap body doubles of Salman, Hrithik or Akshay a few years back. I am talking top class creativity.

No words required. No explanations. No gyan on 'creativity' or 'strategic marketing'. Just watch the two videos. I love'em. So will you.

Blackberry Takes a shot at Apple..



And Apple hits back




Go on. Keep Raising the Bar.. I likes..

Cadbury's Dairy Milk : Behan hoti to aisa na karti!!!

Yesterday i just heard a couple of new radio spots by Cadbury's and couldnt stop writing. All of us are already aware of the strategy to link chocolates to celebration and festivities. How cadbury's is trying to replace sweets with chocolates and according to me, it was a super strategy. 'Kuch Meetha ho jaye' was amongst some of the most memorable campaigns in the past 5 years and then came 'pappu'. Amazing idea. Brilliant Execution.

And then came the 'Pehli tareekh' series, which according to me was Pathetic in terms of ideation. But yes, if you go deeper you might find that may be the brief is more to do with 'clutter breaking' execution rather than ideation. So that 'brand talk' begins and thats why the picturization also has been kept a bit tacky.

Well. The post is not about the 'pay day' campaign. Its about the jingle related to the 'raksha bandhan' campaign. There are two spots which i faintly remember. The idea is very simple Sisters love brothers more than brothers love each other!!! So, This Raksha Bandhan gift something special to your sister, and that something special would obviously be the Cadbury's Dairy Milk Rakshabandhan pack. Simple but damn effective.

First one talks about the younger brother telling his elder brother's girlfriend that all the past 7 girlfriends liked the same thing in his brother. and the jingle something like "Raghu kul reet sada chali aayi.. Bade bhai ki girlfriend patayi" And then the voiceover: "Tch Tch.. Behan hoti to aisa nahi karti" Stressing on the point that sisters love brothers more and brothers are chaalu and sisters are sweet!!! As i said.. Simple Idea, but delivers so damn well..

The second one is on the same lines. This time the elder one says something mean to his already crying younger brother like "Tu to mandir ki seedhiyon par Polythene mein mila tha..." The younger one cries even louder. Similar Jingle. And the same voiceover.

I wish i could put in the Spots here but couldnt find the jingles anywhere. So to get the 'feel' of the spot, you need to tune into your radio and wish that it comes on air!!!

I think they are following a very careful and thought of 'two pronged' strategy. On one hand they are trying to break the clutter and be in the eye of the consumer through 'pehli tareekh' and still not losing out on the main idea of replacement of sweets with chocolates like these two jingles. For me although the pehli tareekh ones dont go down too well neither in the concept nor in the execution, but i guess the idea is to be tacky and just get noticed. But the jingles strike a very emotional chord with me, there is a sweet smile as soon as the jingle finishes and you suddenly think about your sister and the sweet things she did or does for you. I am definitely gonna buy her a box this raksha bandhan. Nice.. Very Nice..

Deodorant Advertising and 'The Rakhi Sawant Effect'

Was just flipping through channels sometime back and noticed a few advertisements predominantly in the Male Deodorant segment having already present high recall brand like Axe and the newly launched brands like WildStone, Fuel and Denver.

Couldn't help but notice that the whole category is just working on the 'Attract women' platform. No matter how stupid it may sound, in India, Deodorant as a category anyways doesn't sell as much depending on how it 'smells' but how it 'attracts'.Axe has done wonders internationally on the same positioning and the easiest way to replicate the same model is to 'lift' the positioning bit too. Nothing wrong with that. But i have a problem with the execution of the positioning. There is a difference between being naughty using verbal undertones and just being plain sleazy

Fuel : Ignite the Fire!!!

A Desert, Guy at a petrol pump, Sprays Fuel Deodorant, a HOT girl comes near, Smells the guy, and opens her shirt to flaunt her cleavage and bra, pulls the guy towards her!!!



Denver: Ride your luck!!

A Desert, Two guys walking (One Hunk, the other ' boy next door' types), A HOT girl driving a bike, The boy next door sprays, the girl moves towards the pillion position in the 'Sleaziest manner possible'!!!!


Wild Stone: Wild by Nature!!

Well. ALL have either seen or heard about the Ad. And may be THATs the idea as well. Just start a word of mouth and increase brand recall. Girl smells the deodorant off her brother in law, is attracted towards him, pretends to have sprained her leg and makes him pick her up and in the last shot its established that the guy is actually married to her sister!!! Now can you get ANY cheaper than this?? I guess not..



I think this sort of an advertising can be termed as 'The Rakhi Sawant Effect'. I thoroughly understand that this sort of sleazy advertising could actually be a strategy to generate some cheap publicity and word of mouth, in order to increase brand recall, much like Ms Sawant who would go to any limits just to be in the public eye. The 'Rakhi ka Swayamwar' however stupid it may sound, but the bottom line is people are watching it and the TRPs will prove this point pretty soon. Same is the case with these advertisements, the idea is just to generate Top of Mind recall and nothing else.

With Hundreds of brands available in the marketplace and add to that a low involvement purchase behavior, it becomes imperative for the brand to be able to stand out on the shelf and if the consumer can atleast RECOGNIZE the brand on the shelf. The probability of the purchase getting through increases manifold.

Logical : Yes. Strategy: May be. Execution : No.

I believe that the same recall could have been provided by the agency through slightly more 'Creative' and less 'sleazy' campaigns. But, as they say sometimes, the end justifies the means and ANY publicity is Good Publicity!!!

Google

Google Inc. is an American public corporation, earning revenue from advertising related to its Internet search, e-mail, online mapping, office productivity, social networking, and video sharing services as well as selling advertising-free versions of the same technologies. The Google headquarters, the Googleplex, is located in Mountain View, California. As of March 31, 2009, the company has 20,164 full-time employees.

History

Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were students at Stanford University and the company was first incorporated as a privately held company on September 4, 1998. The initial public offering took place on August 19, 2004, raising US$1.67 billion, implying a value for the entire corporation of US$23 billion.

Google began in January 1996, as a research project by Larry Page, who was soon joined by Sergey Brin, when they were both Ph.D. students at Stanford University in California.They hypothesized that a search engine that analyzed the relationships between websites would produce better ranking of results than existing techniques, which ranked results according to the number of times the search term appeared on a page. Their search engine was originally nicknamed "BackRub" because the system checked backlinks to estimate the importance of a site. A small search engine called Rankdex was already exploring a similar strategy.


Name Origin

The name "Google" originated from a common misspelling of the word "googol", which refers to 10^100, the number represented by a 1 followed by one hundred zeros. Having found its way increasingly into everyday language, the verb "google", was added to the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary in 2006, meaning "to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet."

Corporate Culture and Philosophy

Google is known for its informal corporate culture, of which its playful variations on its own corporate logo are an indicator. In 2007 and 2008, Fortune Magazine placed Google at the top of its list of the hundred best places to work. Google's corporate philosophy embodies such casual principles as "you can make money without doing evil," "you can be serious without a suit," and "work should be challenging and the challenge should be fun.

Google's mission is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful". The unofficial company slogan, coined by former employee and Gmail's first engineer Paul Buchheit, is "Don't be evil". Criticism of Google includes concerns regarding the privacy of personal information, copyright, and censorship.

Innovation Time Off

As a motivation technique (usually called Innovation Time Off), all Google engineers are encouraged to spend 20% of their work time (one day per week) on projects that interest them. Some of Google's newer services, such as Gmail, Google News, Orkut, and AdSense originated from these independent endeavors. In a talk at Stanford University, Marissa Mayer, Google's Vice President of Search Products and User Experience, stated that her analysis showed that 50% of the new product launches originated from the 20% time

Source: Wikipedia

For Further Information visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google

Disney

The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS), often simply known as Disney, is the largest media and entertainment conglomerate in the world,[3] known for its family-friendly products. Founded on October 16, 1923, by brothers Walt Disney and Roy Disney as an animation studio, it has become one of the biggest Hollywood studios, and owner and licensor of eleven theme parks and several television networks, including ABC and ESPN. Disney's corporate headquarters and primary production facilities are located at The Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California. The company has been a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average since May 6, 1991. Mickey Mouse serves as the official mascot of The Walt Disney Company.

The Walt Disney Company was founded in 1923, and found much success under Walt Disney's leadership through his death in 1966. Walt Disney signed a contract with M.J. Winkler to produce a series of Alice Comedies, beginning the Disney company under its original name Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, with brothers Walt and Roy Disney, as equal partners

Divisions of the Walt Disney Company

* The Walt Disney Company
* Walt Disney Pictures, the film banner
* Touchstone Pictures, Disney's film banner for more mature films
* Walt Disney Animation Studios, the main animation studio (formerly known as Walt Disney Feature Animation)
* Disney Channel is a cable TV network
* Walt Disney Theatrical, the stageplay and musical production arm
* Walt Disney Television, a United States-based television production company
* Walt Disney Television Animation, a television studio dedicated to animation
* Walt Disney Parks and Resorts manages and builds the Disney theme parks and vacation resorts
* Disney Interactive Studios publishes Disney video games and interactive entertainment
* Capital Disney, Disney radio station in the United Kingdom

Mickey Mouse is a comic animal cartoon character who has become an icon for The Walt Disney Company. Mickey Mouse was created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks and voiced by Walt Disney. Mickey was created as a replacement for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, an earlier cartoon character created by the Disney studio for Charles Mintz of Universal Studios. The Walt Disney Company celebrates his birth as November 18, 1928 upon the release of Steamboat Willie. The anthropomorphic mouse has evolved from being simply a character in animated cartoons and comic strips to become one of the most recognizable symbols in the world. Mickey is currently the main character in the Disney Channel's Playhouse Disney series "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse."

Source: Wikipedia

For Further Information visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney

McDonald's

McDonald's Corporation (NYSE: MCD) is the world's largest chain of fast food restaurants, serving nearly 47 million customers daily. McDonald's restaurants are found in 119 countries and territories around the world and serve nearly 47 million customers each day. McDonald's operates over 31,000 restaurants worldwide, employing more than 1.5 million people.

McDonald's primarily sells hamburgers, cheeseburgers, chicken products, french fries, breakfast items, soft drinks, milkshakes, and desserts. More recently, it has begun to offer salads, wraps and fruit. Many McDonald's restaurants have included a playground for children and advertising geared toward children, and some have been redesigned in a more 'natural' style, with a particular emphasis on comfort: introducing lounge areas and fireplaces, and eliminating hard plastic chairs and tables.

The business began in 1940, with a restaurant opened by brothers Dick and Mac McDonald in San Bernardino, California. Their introduction of the "Speedee Service System" in 1948 established the principles of the modern fast-food restaurant. The original mascot of McDonald's was a man with a chef's hat on top of a hamburger shaped head whose name was "Speedee." Speedee was eventually replaced with Ronald McDonald in 1963.



Business Model

McDonald's Corporation earns revenue as an investor in properties, a franchiser of restaurants, and an operator of restaurants. Approximately 15% of McDonald's restaurants are owned and operated by McDonald's Corporation directly. The remainder are operated by others through a variety of franchise agreements and joint ventures. The McDonald's Corporation's business model is slightly different from that of most other fast-food chains. In addition to ordinary franchise fees and marketing fees, which are calculated as a percentage of sales, McDonald's may also collect rent, which may also be calculated on the basis of sales. As a condition of many franchise agreements, which vary by contract, age, country, and location, the Corporation may own or lease the properties on which McDonald's franchises are located. In most, if not all cases, the franchisee does not own the location of its restaurants.

McDonaldization

McDonald's has become emblematic of globalization, sometimes referred to as the "McDonaldization" of society. The Economist magazine uses the "Big Mac Index": the comparison of a Big Mac's cost in various world currencies can be used to informally judge these currencies' purchasing power parity. Scandinavian countries lead the Big Mac Index with four of the five most expensive Big Mac's. Norway has the most expensive Big Mac in the world as of July 2008, whilst the cheapest country is Malaysia.

The brand is known informally as "Mickey D's" (in the US and Canada), "Macky D's" (in the UK and Ireland), "Mäkkäri" (in Finland), "McDo" (in France, Quebec, the Philippines and the Kansai region of Japan), "Maccer's" (in Ireland), "Macarrannis" (in Mexico), "Maccas" (in New Zealand and Australia), "McD's" (in New Zealand), "Donken" (in Sweden), "de Mac" (in the Netherlands), Mäkkes (in Germany), "Mac" (in Brazil), "Makku" (in most of Japan; "Makudo" in the Kansai region); "Mek" (in Serbia), "Mekáč" (in the Czech republic), "Mak-Dak" (in the Russia), Mac (in Portugal) and "MacDon's' (in Canada).

Source: Wikipedia

For Further information visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mcdonalds