MxMIndia

Category: MARKETING

  • The detailed brief can be downloaded from www.timespowerofprint.com

    Times Power of Print launches 4th edition

    By Our Staff

     

    Times Power of Print (POP) has entered its fourth year year. The Times of India group has invited creative minds to build impactful print campaigns :that can make a big difference”.

     

    Infiniti Retail Ltd (Croma) has continued its association for the second consecutive year. The detailed brief can be downloaded from www.timespowerofprint.com

     

    Said Partha Sinha, President, Times Response: “There is no better medium than print to influence change, opinions and behaviour. It is also a medium that enables the highest level of innovation and messaging that can be put forth in a very compelling manner. Times Power of Print has been at the forefront of influencing change through creativity and has supported very relevant subjects in the last three years. We are very happy to continue our association with Croma on an extremely important subject given the times we live in. The aim of this initiative is to ignite and direct creative passion and the potential of print to have a large impact on society”.

     

    Added Ritesh Ghosal, CMO, Infiniti Retail Ltd. (Croma): “To move beyond the pandemic, we need to step out in the world and resume our productive lives and the mask is an essential safe-guard against a resurgence of infections. Till date, India as a society has achieved limited success in persuading people to wear masks in public. A false sense of invincibility combined with the mistaken belief that the mask is intended to protect the wearer from the world has led to compliance only by some people and some of the time. Croma which started serving customers in its physical stores since early June has witnessed this reluctance to comply among customers first hand. I believe the answer lies in educating the individual – creating awareness that the mask actually helps protect his loved ones from him rather than him from the rest of the world.”

     

    The contest will be open to all communication agencies – Creative, Media, Digital, PR and students above the age of 16. Students will stand a chance to win an Internship and vouchers from Croma.

     

     

  • Any day, I will take an advertisement that clearly delivers the brand message, than one with convoluted creativity resulting in much appreciated creative but lacking clarity, writes Sanjeev Kotnala

    Sanjeev Kotnala: Fixed. Simply, Functionally & Emotionally

    By Sanjeev Kotnala

     

    Creative minds always try to find different ways to present things. It is part of their role expectation. The brands also want to Innovate and Improvise. The brand guidelines are often wrongly quoted as constraints and stifling freedom of expression. These at best, are excuses. More so when the recent campaign tries to match past brilliance. No one wants to just fix it and remain faithful to the brand’s creative language.

     

    Any day, I will take an advertisement that clearly delivers the brand message, than one with convoluted creativity resulting in much appreciated creative but lacking clarity. Simplicity is critical in such executions. Here is one of the recent example.

     

     

    1. FIXIT, REALLY FIXED IT. 

     

    The recent communication by Dr Fixit is one of the functionally loaded campaigns. Yet, it manages to deliver the message while adhering to the brand’s creative language.

     

    Fixit uses Amitabh Bachchan as Amitabh Bachchan. The script is excellent, and it even makes Big B interaction sound convincing. In the TVC, Big B asks the unaware consumers some probing questions and in the process introduces him to the right solution for roof repairs and waterproofing; Dr Fixit Roof-seal.

     

    The brand attacks the prevalent practice of using paints and patch-up as a solution for water seepage. What is creditable is that the story creates an almost perfect environment for the protagonist to give a perfectly valid answer and technical reasons. With visual support, Elastomeric Nanofiber Technology does not sound like a technology bomb. It seems a perfect explanation. It makes you believe that the brand will provide long-lasting protection against water seepage and leakage.

     

     

    FIXIT HAS BEEN FIXING IT FOR LONG.

     

    The brand retains its humorous take and tonality in its communication. There is somewhat of a questionable sarcasm like in case of Leakage ka doctor, rising star, Jodi, Leakage man  and my favourite the waterrrrr series ) Dr Fixit Roof-seal TVC. The script is sensitive to the situation—the dialogues delivered in a typical banter between the brand Ambassador and the unaware consumer. Yet, the consumer is enlightened without being embarrassed. That’s the beauty of it.

     

     

    Fixit is not the only brand that has successfully used the brand communication language to build familiarity through continuity. Here are some more examples

     

    One cannot  forget how the Happydent campaigns always bring a smile to your face. The new TVC has evolved with time and addresses a social problem, but the smile and the flash retain past campaigns’ language.

     

     

    With its Men Will Be Men series, Imperial Blue shows how a brand can stay true to its creative language. The brand does it consistently enough with not-so-subtle situations that it even encourage spoofs and customer-generated content. To me Imperial Blue along with Fevicol and Tata Tea that symbolises this consistent brand language.

     

     

     

    And while we are at it, a small reminder from MTV. Saal Khatam Khatra nahi.

     

  • The platform aims to highlight the way young Indians date and celebrate the old school way of romance

    Aisle launches ‘One by Two’ campaign to celebrate the Indian way of romance

    By Our Staff

     

    Aisle, the dating app, has launched its ‘One by Two’ campaign. Through the campaign, Aisle, notes a communique, aims to celebrate the old school desi way of romance highlighting “what’s mine is also yours”.  The campaign is produced by Nationwide Pictures.

     

    Speaking about the campaign, Able Joseph, Founder and CEO, Aisle said: “There is no one love language that suits everyone because romance is different in every part of the world. At Aisle, we understand desi romance. We wanted to create something that was simple and yet resonated with our young audiences. With One by Two, we want to inspire people to find their share of romance, the traditional way.”

     

     

  • With the campaign’s catchphrase – ‘Bhondu just chill’, the new social media campaign features actor Sanjay Mishra and highlights significance of opting for life insurance

    IndiaFirst Life stresses on ‘Stress ko Karo Kill’

    By Our Staff

     

    IndiaFirst Life Insurance Company Limited (IndiaFirst Life), promoted by Bank of Baroda and Union Bank of India, has launched a new social media campaign, titled ‘#BhonduJustChill – Stress Ko Karo Kill, IndiaFirst Life & Chill’. The campaign is conceptualised by WATConsult.

     

    Commenting on the campaign, Sonia Notani, Chief Marketing Officer, IndiaFirst Life Insurance Company Limited said: “We understand the importance of a stress-free life and want to propagate the role IndiaFirst Life Insurance can play in ensuring the same for our customers. We have a suite of 40+ products tailored to suit protection and assurance needs of customers across life stages. This campaign provides an interesting take on the fact that safeguarding our family’s needs, does not have to come at the cost of our own peace of mind.”

     

    Added Heeru Dingra, CEO, WATConsult: “Inspired by a famous comedy movie dialogue, the campaign’s catchphrase – ‘Bhondu just chill’ is a humorous way for people to bring in a little relaxed and chilled moment to their lives. We wanted to capture the hilarity and weave it with the brand’s belief that the right insurance plan can ensure peace of mind at various life-changing moments. Humour also wraps the message in a more fun package, helps in better expanding its reach and accentuates the point further. Today, as stress has become an unavoidable part of everyone’s lives, a small reminder to simply chill definitely presents itself as a welcome breather.”

     

     

  • Protekt Magic’s new TVC reaffirms is conceived by Creativeland Asia

    New film showcases Godrej Protekt as gamechanger

    By Our Staff

     

    Godrej Protekt has released a new TVC for Protekt Magic conceptualized by Creativeland Asia. The TVC is aimed at building awareness for the powder-to-liquid format.

     

    Said Sunil Kataria, CEO – India & SAARC, Godrej Consumer Products Ltd (GCPL): “Godrej Protekt has always focused on providing affordable yet superior hygiene products to its consumers. Protekt Magic is one such offering which stands out and is a category game-changer. With this new TVC, our aim is to create awareness for the powder to liquid format and highlight 99.9% germ protection which is now available at an affordable price point of INR 15. We would like to further penetrate the market and increase trials of this unique product. The TVC also highlights the newly launched lime variant along with the existing neem and aloe vera variant.”

     

    Added Anu Joseph, Chief Creative Officer, Creativeland Asia: “This is truly a revolutionary product – magical, I would add. It’s magic at so many levels – innovation, price point and germ protection. Our effort was to make a piece of communication that actually called out all the magic in the product. And we did that in Protekt’s unique way – with delight and expertise.”

     

     

  • H+K will manage strategic communications and drive narrative forward for brand Kingsley Gate Partners

    Hill+Knowlton bags Kingsley Gate

    By Our Staff

     

    Kingsley Gate Partners, the global executive search firm, has appointed Hill+Knowlton Strategies (H+K) as its official public relations and communications agency in India.

     

    Said Umesh Ramakrishnan, co-CEO, Kingsley Gate Partners: “We are delighted to have Hill+Knowlton Strategies India onboard as our strategic communications partner. India is one of our key growth markets and we believe with their strong experience and in-depth understanding of our market requirements, H+K will drive our narrative in a compelling manner.”

     

    Added Abhishek Gulyani, CEO for Hill+Knowlton Strategies India: “We are delighted to begin an exciting journey with Kingsley Gate Partners and manage their strategic communications in India. With committed teams and our in-depth domain knowledge and experience, H+K is well positioned to drive the desired impact and outcome for the brand.”

     

     

  • Dentsu India has launched a film called ‘Shine on’ for Jos Alukkas to pay homage to strong women in society

    Dentsu India partners Jos Alukkas for new ad

    By Our Staff

     

    Dentsu India has launched a film with its long-standing partner and jewellery brand, Jos Alukkas.

     

    Speaking on the film, John Alukka, Managing Director, Jos Alukkas said: “We hope that we can inspire real change with this film. Of course, it’s about starting a conversation, because silence can never bring about change.”

     

    Added Anjo Jose, Creative Head, Dentsu India: “The attempt was to tell a story every girl out there would relate to. At the same time, while we were making the film we ensured that it had certain cinematic values to it. The feedback we’ve been receiving is great. I believe, we’ve achieved what we wanted to.”

     

    Added Vidya Sankar, VP, Dentsu India: “To me, ‘Shine on’ is not just a campaign. It is a movement that reverberates the ideology of what the brand stands for. It is a powerful way that puts the spotlight on the subdued, yet strong women in society that’s sure to start the warranted momentum,”

     

     

  • Tata Coffee Grand presents goes with TV campaign showcasing crackling sound of big coffee crystals, the Shik-Shik-Shik way

    Tata Coffee blends sound & emotion for new ad

     

     

    Tata Coffee Grand unveiled its recent campaign that aims to create a new language for coffee – Shik-Shik-Shik that evokes emotions and excitement amongst consumers. It is conceptualised by Lowe Lintas.

    Speaking about the campaign, says, Puneet Das, SVP – Marketing, Beverages – India, Tata Consumer Products: “We’ve been excited about the idea of the ‘sound of coffee’ for a while now. Through this campaign, we have built the proposition of ‘The sound made by our Tata Coffee Grand pack, which has big granules and decoction crystals that make a great cup of coffee’.  A simple and powerful narrative is linked to a simple action of shaking the pack, remembering that unique sound, replacing coffee with Shik-Shik-Shik when asking for it. We are hopeful that the disruptive unique sound of Shik-Shik-Shik will soon become an overarching synonymous word for coffee.”

     

    Added Sagar Kapoor, Chief Creative Officer – Lowe Lintas: “It’s always a great opportunity when your brand has a product differentiation. Leaping to the creative idea from the differentiator lands on a disruptive idea, more often than not. With Tata Coffee Grand we had the decoction crystals. Besides delivering a superior cup of coffee, these crystals also make a unique Shik-Shik-Shik sound when one shakes the pack. So great coffee was always known by its aroma, it will now be known with its sound. That led us to the idea of ‘Great coffee will now be known as Shik-Shik-Shik. Going ahead we will engage with the consumer in many ways with the ‘Shik-Shik-Shik device,”

  • ‘Wear The Next’ Fashion will use targeted communication for brand lovers, trendsetters and spotlight stealers

    Flipkart gets Ranbir & Alia for new campaign

    By Our Staff

     

    Flipkart, the homegrown e-commerce marketplace now majority-owned by Walmart, has launched the sixth edition of its ‘India Ka Fashion Capital’ campaign. Featuring Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt, the campaign is aimed at inspiring fashion-lovers across the country to upgrade their fashion quotient with the latest styles available on Flipkart.

     

    Speaking about the launch of IKFC 6.0, Nishit Garg – Vice President, Flipkart Fashion, said: “Consumers today are fashion-conscious, value-seeking and aspire to own the latest celebrity fashion trends. We believe in addressing these needs meaningfully by collaborating with the best in the industry and are constantly onboarding new brands, sellers and partners in order to enhance the customer shopping experience. Fashion is an important growth driver for us and we believe there is a world of opportunities out there for us to explore. Through our latest campaign featuring Ranbir and Alia, we want to inspire consumers across the country to explore the latest trends and create their own personal style that they have always wished  for.”

     

     

  • Focuses on tackling root cause of pain with catchphrase ‘Jadd Se Dard Ko mitaye’ through real life scenarios

    Omnigel TVCs to reintroduce product benefits

    By Our Staff

     

    Omnigel  has launched a series of short 20-second TVCs created by Brand David Communications to reinstate its product benefits.

    Commenting on the new TV commercial, Shivam Puri, CEO, Cipla Health said: “Being true to the core of the brand, Omnigel’s latest TVC takes a refreshing route to showcase the product benefits that have been scientifically proven and intends to educate the consumer without intimidating them. We have taken the humorous route to connect with our consumers through real life scenarios, and help them make the transition towards focussing on eliminating the root cause of pain than availing surface level temporary relief measures. It is important to shift mind-set from ‘plain’ relief to pain recovery to spring back in action.  Further on, we are grateful to our consumers who have bestowed their trust in Omnigel all these years making it India’s no1 pain recovery gel.”

     

     

  • With the tagline ‘Thoughtful is Beautiful’, the Hindware TVC focuses on bathroom solutions to making life easy

    Hindware campaign woos young customers

    By Our Staff

     

    Hindware has kickstarted the new year with its new brand campaign ‘Thoughtful is Beautiful’.

    Conceptualized by MagicCircle Communications, the films redefine the category convention, treating beauty as table stakes while starting a conversation that reinforces the brand’s inherent strength of innovations through technology. Directed by Karan Shetty and produced by Fingerprint Films, the ads are centered on the playful and relatable one-upmanship of a millennial couple.

    Speaking on the campaign, Sudhanshu Pokhriyal, Chief Operating Officer, Bath Products, Brilloca Limited said: “Today, Hindware has carved a niche for itself as a relevant and trusted brand, as it has proven with time its dynamic capability to evolve with changing aesthetics over the years. It understands its consumers, and in return, its patrons trust Hindware to offer the best bathware products in India. The increasing amount of consumer data, in particular, is fundamentally changing how brands operate. This is especially true with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, where the already complex path to purchase has evolved even further, setting the scene for long-term changes in consumer behaviour that we must be prepared to address. This is expressed in our positioning direction and it guides our business decisions.”

     

     

  • Bhuvi Gupta picks things that have caught her eye in the last fortnight

    Bhuvi Gupta: On Fesive sales, Micromax & Hooked by Nir Eyal

    Bhuvi GuptaBy Bhuvi Gupta

     

    Today’s column is a bit different from my usual deep dive into a single topic, with some thoughts from my notepad about things that have caught my eye in the last fortnight.

     

    2020 has been strange, to say the least, and I, like most, have been awaiting the festival season to celebrate and feel some joy. A sentiment shared by the corporate sector, which depends on this quarter for their profits, but this year, it’s depending on it for minimising losses. The initial reports are showing signs of recovery and buoying positive sentiment. According to data from Redseer Consulting, the first week of festive sales conducted in the last fortnight has seen an increase of 51% in Gross Merchandise Value  (from $2.7 billion in 2019 to $4.1 billion). While this is partly also fuelled by offline consumption moving online, the economy is heaving a sigh of relief.

     

    Micromax’s Comeback

    You might have seen Micromax’s relaunch campaign helmed by the CEO, Rahul Sharma.  With more than half a million people yet to go online in India, combined with the high replacement rates for smartphone for people, the smartphone categpry is and will be on fire for the coming decade at least. Every year the festive e-commerce sales also depend on smartphone sales with the category contributing upwards of 40% to the GMV. Coming back to Micromax, India’s Number 1 homegrown smartphone brand, in the relaunch video (link – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRo69b1wTNg), Rahul Sharma plays all the cards which are sure to strike a chord in the average Indian’s heart – he talks about being a middle class boy who took a loan of 3 lakh from his father to launch Micromax, but with the onslaught of Chinese smartphone makers stumbled, and lost his way, vision and subsequently market share. He touches on the ‘Make in India’ call to rouse audiences to buy the new series aptly titled ‘In’

     

    The problem of course is that the story, while compelling omits certain points Micromax built its market share on the back of great marketing.  It took China-manufactured phones and branded them as Micromax devices. As a result, because of a lack of R&D, the after-sales service and support was negligible – a weak point which all the China mobile behemoths took full advantage of to wipe out market share (and rightly so, after-sales service is crucial for an essential device like a phone). He also forgets to mention his marriage to Bollywood/ Kollywood/ Tollywood star Asin, which makes his description of the middle-class boy-next-door a little hard to stomach, as these descriptors no longer hold true.

     

    While the majority of the market is oblivious to these facts, and these points will work, I am sure it will give competition to the Chinese behemoths which control the smartphone market for a large part today.

     

    Hooked by Nir Eyal

    The advent of the internet has brought with it great changes in marketing in the last decade. A key differential of the digital evolution as compared to the TV evolution is how understanding consumer behaviour has become easier. This in turn has lead to building products, which fit target audiences better. The concept is beautifully explained in my latest read, ‘Hooked’ by Nir Eyal.

     

    Eyal has explained the consumption process through a four step model – a internal trigger like a frisson of anxiety or external trigger such as an ad, which leads us to the action of logging into social media like Facebook or Twitter, which through previous interaction, we know will reward us by showing us our posts which has been liked, or content which is of interest to us, thereby assuaging our anxiety.

     

    Such feedback loops help in establishing habits, which make these products so addictive. The fourth quadrant which focuses on ‘Investment’ explains why such habits are so hard to break – users invest time and build a community of friends and followers which feeds these feedback loops and creates stickiness to the platform.

     

    While the book focuses on digital products like Facebook, the concepts can be applied to other industries and products. All in all a great read on understanding consumer behaviour and psychology.

     

    That’s all from me today. Do share if you have read ‘Hooked’ or whether I have inspired you to pick up a copy.

     

    Bhuvi Gupta is a marketer with over 10 years across industries, of which the last six have been in Media & Entertainment. She has been a part of many launch marketing campaigns – specifically at the Times of India group, Republic TV and the latest in marketing a Bollywood film. She will write on A&M (mostly marketing, but often on advertising too) every other Tuesday. Her views here are personal. She tweets at @bhuvigupta3