Uber India has unveiled a new campaign titled #ParksNotParking that aims to raise awareness about the ills of growing congestion and pollution in cities which is turning many of them into giant parking lots, thereby underscoring the urgent need to better utilise urban spaces for building parks.
Speaking about the campaign, Manisha Lath Gupta – Marketing Director, Uber India & South Asia, said: “Increased car ownership is robbing cities of their parks and much needed green spaces. Through our #ParksNotParking campaign, we aim to educate and encourage citizens to choose smarter and shared mobility solutions. Just as cricket builds bridges and helps people come closer together, we remain confident our initiative will build communities united by a vision of promoting more sustainable lifestyles.”
Taking a fresh spin to the campaigns around the 2019 Cricket World Cup, Ola unveiled its latest music video that embodies the enthusiasm of cricket lovers to watch the tournament promising them a reliable ride to their destination to catch the match.
Conceptualised and developed by Leo Burnett Orchard, the campaign emphasises on what is most important to fans – the sheer pleasure of watching cricket at their preferred location.
Speaking about the campaign, Anand Subramanian, Senior Director, Marketing and Communications at Ola said: “This video reiterates Ola’s versatility and its long term commitment to meet the dynamic needs of Indian consumers. An extension of the brand’s promise, the campaign highlights how easily and seamlessly Ola gets you to your preferred destination. With the World Cup being one of the most watched cricket tournaments in the country, this campaign is bound to strike a chord with cricket buffs, ensuring they’re able to get to where they want to be to cheer for their favourite team.”
Added Amod Dani, ECD, Leo Burnett Orchard: “We were looking for a unique and innovative way to capture the synergy between cricket and music. With this video, we not only showcased the emotion, zeal and excitement of cricket fans to watch the matches but also demonstrate how Ola is the ideal solution to fulfilling the commuting needs of Indians. This was a great opportunity for us and are pleased to have created this campaign with Ola.”
Durex India has launched a new brand campaign which aims to create awareness about orgasm inequality, the film highlights the fact that sex is great when you #ComeTogether. The campaign has been conceptualised and executed by Havas Creative.
Said Pankaj Duhan, Chief Marketing Officer, RB South Asia Health: “We are very excited about launching our latest innovation Mutual Climax condoms. Our ongoing campaign #ComeTogether along with this new solution aims to create awareness on the issue of orgasm inequality, thereby encouraging couples to have a discussion on the issue. With Mutual Climax, we want to empower couples and make equal pleasure and sexual equality a reality in India.”
Commenting on the creative strategy, Bobby Pawar, Chairman & Chief Creative Officer, Havas Group said, “Orgasm is still considered as a tabooed topic in Indian society, to come up with a film talking contextually and visually of orgasms was no easy task and needed to walk a fine line. We have conceptualized the film keeping in mind the sensitivity around the topic, by creating a film in a fun and engaging style by using indirect metaphor. The idea behind the film was to create awareness and to build conversation around the topic. The driving force behind the campaign is the philosophy that sex & pleasure are great when equal, fair & mutual.”
Online general insurance brand Acko has launched its latest marketing campaign. Conceptualised and created by Leo Burnett Orchard, the campaign revolves around how Acko has transformed the critical car insurance purchasing process into one that’s quick, easy and fits one’s budget.
Said Kavita Chowkimane – VP Marketing at Acko: “Consumers are bombarded with too many choices today. They want to pick the best one but at the same time, avoid the cognitive load when it’s not worth the hassle. Our campaign is inspired by the thought of simplifying this decision for the value-conscious but time-poor consumer. Buying an insurance policy does not need to be such a taxing process & we think Acko is definitely a no-brainer choice.”
Added Prashanth Challapalli, COO, Leo Burnett Orchard: “The relationship between a man and his car is a fascinating one. Irrespective of how much the car costs, you care for it and also take it for granted. Anything that is critical to the everyday running of the car is always a priority. Anything that is under the hood is taken for granted and usually becomes hassle to get done. Our story is a classic argument between a car that is upset at being taken for granted and the guy who is trying his best to remedy a bad situation.”
GoQuest Digital Studios (GQDS) has been retained by Volkswagen Motorsport India as its content partner for its annual racing championship, for the second time in a row. The Volkswagen Ameo Cup 2018 championship was hosted across three cities in India over a period of five months with over twenty racers in contention.
Darshan Bhatt
Speaking on this partnership, Darshan Bhatt, Director, GoQuest Digital Studios said: “It is an exciting moment for us to have been retained again by the iconic brand as its content partner. It speaks volumes on the success of the team at GoQuest Digital Studios. I look forward to our continuing partnership with Volkswagen Motorsport India and work together towards the prime objective of bringing motorsports closer through engaging innovative concepts and creative content”.
Added Sirish Vissa, Head, Volkswagen Motorsport India: “GoQuest Digital Studios has played a significant role in bringing forth quality end-to-end content solutions for motorsports in a country that has cricket as religion. We are delighted with the audience engagement that was initiated through the unique content and I am confident that this year too we will be able to effortlessly raise the championship’s popularity across newer target segments.”
FCB India along with their development partners Boltd have been recognised as the 2019 Amazon Alexa India Champions for their winning idea towards building a scalable voice experience, strategy and complete pitch with a proof of concept and demo. As they have completed the India round, they will move on to the next leg, which is the APAC round of the Alexa Cup.
The FCB India team comprised Giamaria Fernandes, Nikhil Fernandes and Vinesh Nandikol. Boltd was represented by Vishal Golia and Chetan Bothra. As a part of the challenge, the team had to convey the customer experience, target audience and value, originality, technology and APIs, feasibility and usability and a multi-channel go to market strategy in an eight-minute presentation.
On the team winning, Joemon Thaliath, CEO of FCB Interface said: “We are really proud of FCB India’s Digital team’s achievement wherein they had to present a complete go to market plan covering strategy, proof of concept and a demo. They emerged winners among agencies and other tech partners, and this shows how far they have come in their thinking and their ideas through constant learning. We are also thankful to Boltd, our development partners who helped us bring the winning idea to life and Amazon Alexa India for this great initiative.”
Food major Ebro India has appointed Publicis India as its creative agency. The account was won after a multi-agency pitch and will be managed by the New Delhi office of the agency.
JP Laborde
Commenting on the appointment, JP Laborde, MD, Ebro India said: “Panzani is the world’s second largest brand of Pasta having its presence in more than 50 countries. It is getting inside Indian market with a whole range of pasta products with distinct product features, which will cut across all SECs. We are excited to put out our inaugural communication and create a high recall for the brand in India.”
Sridharan Iyer
On winning the mandate, Sridharan Iyer, EVP & Head of Office, Publicis India said: “As more and more Indians recreate the experience of western cuisine at home today, we are extremely thrilled to partner Ebro Foods – one of the world’s largest pasta company, in the quest to make Panzani the most favoured pasta brand in India.”
iProspect India has bagged the digital media duties of Olx India. The account was won following a multi-agency pitch and will be serviced from the agency’s Delhi office.
Commenting on the win, Rubeena Singh, CEO, iProspect India said, “Olx changed the way one looked at online marketplace in the country and it has only grown ever since. I’m glad to have a brand like OLX on board and hope to serve their growth ambitions.”
On the association, Olx India, in a statement said: “Olx is determined to effectively reach the growing internet population of India and to partner our journey of this growth, we have iProspect on board as our digital media agency. After a two-month long pitch, we believe iProspect was able to understand the brand Olx, its ambitions and its influence in the digital classifieds space. This is extremely critical for us and we are confident that iProspect, with their proven track record, will be able to drive our new brand objectives successfully to our target audience.”
Four years back, HDFC Bank had launched its mogo, short for musical logo, which basically is a unique sonic identity. Now sibling (or cousin?) HDFC Life Insurance too has got its own mogo.
Said Pankaj Gupta, Chief Marketing Officer of the insurance company: “The advent of technology and rapid digitisation of the world is completely transforming the way consumers live, work and play, today. HDFC Life as a brand has always had a strong visual identity. With changing consumer habits, we realised early that sound would play a critical role in creating brand recall, differentiation and engagement with our stakeholders. The musical logo creates a sonic identity for a brand that’s in tune with the evolution taking place today, while remaining true to the brand’s core values.”
The HDFC Life MOGO has been created in collaboration with BrandMusiq. Founded by advertising veterans Rajeev Raja with Ajit Varma as co-founder and CEO, BrandMusiq expresses a brand’s essence by applying the science of sound and the art of music to create powerful sonic branding. BrandMusiq had also created the mogo for HDFC Bank.
Said Raja: “It was very exciting for BrandMusiq to evolve and contemporize the existing HDFC Life jingle into a comprehensive sonic identity system with its distinct MOGO.”
The ratings for the India-Pakistan World Cup cricket match on June 16 are out. The hopelessly-one-sided game scored a whopping 18+ TVR (Urban All India). Ratings nearing 20 can only evoke nostalgia for those following the Indian TV market over the years. It’s in the first half of the decade of 2000s that one would see such numbers for daily shows, with Kyunkii… and Kahaani… leading the way for a while. Thereafter, the numbers progressively dropped, a trend that’s generally believed to be an outcome of the launch of more channels and the resultant fragmentation of content choices available.
The top Hindi GEC show moved from the 20-mark in early 2000s to the 10-mark late in that decade. In the first half of the decade starting 2010, the 5-6 level was aspiring enough. Today, even a 3-level is gold.
Movie ratings have also shown a downward trend, but nowhere close to soaps. The top movie could do 15+ rating about 15 years ago, the equivalent of which is a 7-8 rating today. That’s a 50-60% drop, vis-à-vis an 80%+ more drop when you compare the top Hindi GEC shows across the same two periods.
The popular belief has been that with the expansion of the measurement universe over the years, the true heterogeneity of the Indian market has a more and more significant impact on the TV ratings. That, combined with a multiplication in the number of channel options, would mean that fragmentation, and the resultant creation of a long tail, is inevitable.
The India-Pakistan match ratings challenge this notion head on. The message from the audience is clear: If there’s content that carries a certain level of appeal and viewer pull, India can be fairly homogenous after all. Yes, there are more options and more diversity in the universe today. But there’s always content that cuts through, because it enjoys that broad-based appeal. And hence, justifying sub-3 numbers as the best-case scenario is only a self-fulfilling prophecy, whereby content creators and broadcasters are justifying low ratings as a market behaviour, than questioning them as symptoms of a loss in the collective ability of the industry to make truly mass, pan-India shows.
One may argue that big-ticket sporting events have the ability that genres like drama, comedy and non-scripted content lack. That’s a fair argument too. But one is not expecting the top show to deliver 18-rating. Even the inert and one-sided India-South Africa match touched the 6-mark (averaged over more than seven hours, no less!). That’s surely a level a top Hindi GEC show should aspire to achieve. But today, even half of that is being celebrated as an outright success.
If these signs continue, we may soon be a television market where sports, news and movies become the staple, and drama the alternative. It has already started happening during events like the IPL, the elections and now the World Cup. It could be a matter of time when more routine days begin to exhibit this trend too.
If all the content creators can take a week’s break from their OTT pre-occupation and think about this, I’m sure they have the collective ability to come up with something worthy. The real question is: Do they have the will? Or has television already been reduced to a fuddy-duddy medium that’s not even cool to ideate about?
G-Shock from Casio has unveiled an ad film that takes its #ChallengeTheLimits campaign forward. Featuring the recently appointed brand ambassador Tiger Shroff, the commercial highlights the challenging spirit of the actor and his journey to becoming a successful star and youth icon.
Said Kulbhushan Seth, Vice President, Casio India: “With the latest television commercial, we have brought our ‘Challenge The Limits’ campaign alive by showcasing the personal story of our Brand Ambassador. The commercial further cites Casio as the new age companion for today’s millennials, who are willing to challenge limits and improve themselves. Casio G-Shock salutes their challenging spirit with a promise to be their trusted partner and stand by them through thick and thin.”
Challenge The Limits is a 360-degree integrated campaign that seeks to inspire consumers to push the boundaries and find new levels of performance just like G-Shock watches do.
Added Charles Victor, Executive Director, L&K Saatchi & Saatchi: “We’re absolutely proud to partner with this legendary brand in this big campaign made specifically for India. The story was a simple one and reflects the honest reality of today. There’s a lot of other exciting work coming, so keep watching.”
No, this isn’t an update on whether Kartik Aaryan and Ananya Panday are dating each other (see, we are fairly up and about with the goss). Cadbury Perk has launched its latest campaign ‘Masti ka Daily Dose’ featuring Panday and director Anurag Kashyap. Conceptualised by Ogilvy and Mather, the campaign is based on the actor-director camaraderie where Anurag pulls a prank on Ananya to get her to shoot for a Cadbury Perk commercial.
Commenting on the same, Anil Vishwanathan, Director – Marketing (Chocolates), Mondelez India, said: “Cadbury Perk is a brand that believes in infusing fun into the mundane and our new campaign lives up to that in an exciting, youthful way. In the past, we have had vivacious personalities like Preity Zinta, Genelia D’souza, and Alia Bhatt who embody what Cadbury Perk stands for – youth, fun and Joie De Vivre. As the new face for Cadbury Perk, Ananya Pandey was our natural choice for the brand as she is seen as a rising youth icon and brings alive the brand purpose to life so effortlessly. The brand has a good connect with the youth and with Ananya on board we believe this connect will only get stronger.”
Added Amitabh Agnihotri, Group Creative Director, Ogilvy India: “Cadbury Perk is known for its light hearted pranks and masti-ful approach for the last few years. Now with Ananya Panday as the new face of the brand, and both she and Anurag Kashyap playing themselves in the campaign, the brand has pushed the envelope in every aspect of communication. This time the whole campaign unfolds as if shot behind-the-scenes and in an unscripted style. I hope our audience will enjoy the campaign as much as we loved creating it.”
FCB India along with their development partners Boltd have been recognised as the 2019 Amazon Alexa India Champions for their winning idea towards building a scalable voice experience, strategy and complete pitch with a proof of concept and demo. As they have completed the India round, they will move on to the next leg, which is the APAC round of the Alexa Cup.
