With apologies to none at all
By Vikas Mehta
Sure, the IPL this year has been as exciting as ever. Sure, Gujarat Titans have established themselves as a force to reckon with. Sure, CSK with the evergreen M S Dhoni still around, have shown that they are not a spent force. Sure, Mumbai Indians with a 34-year-old spin bowler who was bought as an afterthought, being the leading wicket-taker, have proved that the game is now totally batsmen-dominated.
And surely, the advertising during the IPL touched new depths of despair.
I say this with conviction because of four solid reasons:
One, a big number of brands used old ads which had been running on mass media for months. So, IPL which was once an event where new campaigns would be launched or for some brands like Vodafone ZooZoo, the IPL was the only platform to advertise had now become a rerun platform for old ads.
Two, it was not a category like mobile phones, or chocolates or cold drink which dominated advertising but a category like Pan Masala with surrogate ads which dominated the advertising charts.
Three, even new age category players like Cred or Phone Pe gave the tournament a miss.
Four, there were very few ads which did not have a celebrity. Which means that lazy advertising was at work. Just get a celebrity and spend money on location was the celebrity mantra. Or get more than one celebrity and fit them in a frame, on location. Or better still get some old, well past their sell by date celebrities and fit them into split frames, on location. As a result, advertising ideas or stories were totally missing.
The twist in the tale was one brand, Dream 11, which took the celebrity route and tried all the tricks of the trade mentioned above. And yet came up with the most compelling and memorable ad campaign of IPL.
The trick in the tale was that Dream 11 started with an advertising idea. Cricket stars being challenged to cricket by film stars. With a simple but endearing idea that can spawn off many anecdotes, the brand continued to evoke interest right through the event with different executions.
And the biggest reason why this campaign worked was that it had many executions. It was not a one-off but seemed like a continuous soap opera. With the idea firmly established the brand effortlessly continued the story with simple executions. The personal touch like Rohit Sharma ribbing Aamir Khan about his not attending award ceremonies or Aamir Khan being a stickler for perfection, kept the audience interest high.
For a tournament that lasted for two months, it’s not easy for a brand to create interest and sustain it. And for a product like Dream 11 which is all about gaming, where each match means more footfalls, more revenue for the brand, the essential thing is to maintain interest and involvement. Dream 11 achieved this wonderfully. My only grouse with Dream 11 was that it could have involved the audience much more. With a firmly established idea and a galaxy of celebrities involved, they could have invited the audience to send in their own scripts. Some good ones could have been executed and some more even shared and acknowledged.
Advertising has to go beyond just ads. In its glory days, before the advent of digital, the advertising folks would think of an activation idea. Today, that proactiveness or that going beyond the call of duty has been lazily surrendered to digital. The problem is not digital but the lack of an idea. That leads to a one off which just drowns in the sea of ads that are visible during an event like IPL.
Mind you, there is a difference between having an idea which can be executed in different ways and just running a series of ads. Tata Neu and Tata Tiago go.ev. Both the brands which are from the IPL main sponsor stable, spend heavily and did make their presence felt during the tournament telecast. But in my mind, these were like a press announcement. Specially the Tata Neu coins ads. The brand was trying to exhort users to use the app more and get more rewards. It did have many executions. It did start with some promise. I thought there was a sliver of an idea in the continuity loop of buying something, getting some coins, buying something else with those coins but it looked as if the brand custodians themselves were not sure of the idea. The execution idea with humour involved could have been sustained but it was hastily abandoned with the need or pressure of increasing app usage and finally it was all about the announcements of extra coins etc. A pity as a floundering product like Tata Neu app could have been revitalised with an idea-led campaign and not just a series of ads.
This was the promising beginning Tata Neu, And this was the abysmal level it dropped to. Pun intended after you watch the ad. Tata Neu drop
Tiago ev.go tried to sell the category of electric vehicles with the hackneyed idea of “so many reasons to buy a EV” And the execution of why go.ev # number was worse. Again, they tried humour as a route but most executions fell flat. Another case of missed opportunity. Watch
But for me the most tragic case of advertising on IPL was of Airtel. Tragic, because this brand was built on the back of some great advertising campaigns. Tragic, because the brand had a new offering 5G to talk about and in the absence of its biggest competitor Jio, which had dominated IPL in the recent year with its inane celebrity led advertising, Airtel had a unique chance to build on its legacy. Tragic also because Airtel is headed by one of the sharpest marketing minds in India and it is sad that Airtel produced this drivel under his watch. See it here.
And finally, an epitaph for soft drink advertising on IPL. The timing of IPL is just right for soft drink category. The onset of summer, the sight of players sweating, the humid conditions all add up to a great opportunity for the category. And yet Thums Up came with some apology of ads with Shah Rukh Khan and though Pepsi did come up with an interesting ad with Ranveer Singh, its presence was hardly noticed.
It’s indeed a sad state of affairs when a category like Pan Masala with mostly washed out celebrities, dominated the IPL advertising scenario. It was an apt reflection of the sorry state of Indian advertising industry.
The annual Indian advertising and marketing Festival Goafest starts today, Wednesday, May, 24, 2023. And here I was with Vermajee, my mentor and friend, sipping cold beer and trying to answer a question he had raised last week. Why have I attended Goafest all these years, and why am I not there this year?
