Now Perfetti wanted to leave people with a simple message of hope i.e. if one can find their smile, one can find their way through these challenging times.
So out came a film conceptualised by Perfetti Van Melle and Ogilvy which closes with the message: “We will smile again”.
Said Rohit Kapoor, Director Marketing (India), Perfetti Van Melle: We want to leave the viewers with a simple message of hope, i.e., if we can find our smile, we can find our way through this tough period. And like the girl, who returns to her usual joyful state, we believe the world will also find its laughter once again. The Alpenliebe in the little girl’s hand, is symbolic to Perfetti India, a sweet candy that can quickly lighten up a child’s face.
Added Anurag Agnihotri, Managing Partner-Creative, Ogilvy Mumbai: “The brand wanted to do a message of hope in the context of what we all are facing right now. Because this message was coming from a confectionery brand, we took care that the ad must belong to the category in an authentic manner. A kid is so happy to see a candy and we sort of used that as a metaphor to say we all will smile again. We devised the element of magic, in a fairy tale way, where candy is just a symbol of brightness and magic. We brought in magic dust etc in terms of execution. There is so much uncertainty and we must tell each other to keep faith and that everything will be fine again.”
Continuing with its tradition of innovation, Perfetti has launched Center Fresh Endless and has unveiled a TVC too. With its unique blue and white stripes, the product promises long lasting freshness.
Commenting on the launch, Nikhil Sharma, Director Marketing, Perfetti said: “Long lasting freshness is a very relevant benefit in the gums category. Our R&D developed a product whose freshness lasts longer than the other gums available in the market. We are extremely excited about this new launch and we believe this will open up new avenues for consumption.â€
Playing on its unique proposition of long-lasting freshness, the launch campaign features a series of three hilarious commercials with funny situations that seem never ending. From the nervous groom endlessly trying to lift the bride’s ghoonghat to two office colleagues unable to get past each other in a doorway, to the funny Sheikh who simply can’t stay steady on the camel’s back, it’s non-stop fun, which is symbolic to the long lasting proposition offered by the product.
“Some of the simplest situations in life can become very funny if they were to go on and on, seemingly without an end. The fun can be compared to that offered by the gum due to its long-lasting freshness,â€Â shared Anurag Agnihotri, ECD, O&M Advertising Gurgaon.
Apart from television, the campaign will also be supported on the digital medium including social platforms.
Blame it on the late player auctions that were held early this year or the match-fixing allegations that keeps cropping up intermittently or the fact that the General Elections may have taken the hype away from the greatest sporting spectacle coming out of India every year – the IPL. While IPL 6 was already making waves this time last year, the scenario is a little different in Twenty Fourteen with most team-owners still making last ditch attempts in getting their act together including enticing advertisers into partnering them afresh.
But whatever the challenges being presented, the tournament does promise to provide its dose of entertainment this year as well. To begin with, there would be only 60 matches being played this year with the tournament being staged in two phases including one in the UAE from April 16 to May 1 and the India leg that will be staged from May 2nd onwards. In fact broadcaster Multi Screen Media (MSM) is already making its presence felt and has managed to get a decent number of brands to endorse the event this year as well – the same number as IPL 6.
MSM has inked deals with nine presenting and associate sponsors for the seventh season of IPL. The presenting sponsors include Vodafone and Karbonn Mobile who are estimated to have spent approximate Rs 50 crore while the associate sponsors comprise Amazon India, Havells, Perfetti, Marico and TVS all of whom fall under the Rs 25-30 crore cost bracket.
While MSM does seem to have made sufficient inroads with brands, what will eventually decide the success of the tournament is the average viewership ratings that it will throw at the end of the tournament. According to data shared last year, IPL managed to generate an average cumulative TVR of 3.1 in HSM markets and a rating of 3 in C&S 4+ all India. This was much lower than the 3.45 HSM average TVR it reported in 2012.
Ashish Bhasin
Anita Nayyar
Sharing his opinion on whether the tournament will live up to its hype or not, Ashish Bhasin, Chairman & CEO South Asia, Dentsu Aegis Network and Chairman Posterscope & psLive Asia Pacific, said: “I think the seventh season of the IPL will build up as the tournament progresses and be near normal towards the final stages. But it will have a slow start, compared to past years,” he affirmed.
Putting forth her views, Anita Nayyar, CEO- India & South Asia, Havas Media Group said, “IPL has always been an interesting event irrespective of the reasons. Across seasons it has delivered well whether in India or South Africa. Especially the last leg towards the finals has always been an advertiser’s delight with ratings upwards of 10.”
On what the current season will hold for the tournament, Ms Nayyar said, “The seventh season is generating a lot of interest inspite of the shift between UAE and India amongst advertisers who do view IPL as a mass reach medium. Moreover, while it is election time the interest in IPL still stands. This is further vindicated by an analysis of viewership of various genres during elections, which indicates that it does not have any major impact on sports (cricket) or GECs, however the Hindi news genre gains share. Given the situation, IPL holds its own and should continue to deliver viewership and hence interest and acceptability from advertisers.”
Perhaps the right indicator of how viewership could be bought back to the sport could be assessed from what Vinit Karnik, National Director, Sports & Live Events, GroupM ESP had to state in the SportzPower-GroupM joint report on the Sports Sponsorship report. Karnik had stated thus: “Even though the IPL is off to a rough start this year, in the long run accountability, better corporate governance, more transparency, are all good for not just the IPL, but the BCCI too.”
Another factor that will decide whether the tournament receives a positive response this year is the buzz that it will create from the online medium. This year, starsports.com has licensed the digital distribution rights for IPL 2014 from Times Internet. Starsports.com thus will be streaming video on demand on its portal and would not be played on Youtube like last year. With an aim to attract 20 million more users onto the digital platform, starsports.com will be looking at bettering the 2013 viewership numbers that were reported to be in the region of 200 million video views.
Thus, with the countdown to the greatest cricket spectacle only a few hours away, one can look forward to an average outing from the team and brands at the IPL this year. One only hopes that the match-fixing allegations do not make their presence felt yet again or the organisers will have to face additional bottlenecks next year as well. And possibly no ‘bulawa’ as well.
When Lata Diwan went shopping for the household, her 5-year-old daughter Tanya suggested her to choose a certain brand on mosquito repellent. “It will drive the mosquitoes out as well as leave a fragrance around,” the young scholar told her mother.
Tanya’s knowledge about mosquito repellents comes from an advertisement she watches in between her favourite programmes on cartoon channels, where it’s no longer just toymakers and children’s product brands that advertise. An increasing number of nontraditional advertisers including Maruti Suzuki, Honda bikes and Samsung is advertising on kids’ channels as more children participate in their parents’ purchase decisions and more parents watch television with their children.
“While traditional advertisers such as GlaxoSmithKline, Hindustan Unilever, Cadbury, Mattel, Kellogg, Perfetti and ITC are amongst our top spenders, close to 50% of our revenues now come from non-traditional advertisers,” says Juhi Ravindranath, ad sales vice-president for South Asia at Turner International India, which owns Pogo and Cartoon Network channels. Most houses in India have one television set and it’s common that children and adults watch it together, and often the younger ones hold the sceptre – the remote control – and decide what to watch.
Rahul Johri
So advertisers targeting parents too are turning to kids’ channels. “Advertisers do not want to miss any opportunity of reaching out to their target audience, whether it is mothers, fathers or grandparents,” says Rahul Johri, senior vice president and general manager, South Asia, at Discovery Networks Asia Pacific, which owns Discovery Kids. The maximum growth in terms of adspend on these channels has been observed in fast-moving consumer goods.
A spokesperson of Pogo channel says unconventional advertisers on the channel include Maruti Suzuki, Honda bikes, Hero Moto-Corp, Micromax, LG, Samsung and Hitachi. “We expect the number of new categories and advertisers to only grow,” the person adds. That’s because it’s seen as a win-win. While the kids’ channel gains from the increased advertiser base, the non-traditional advertiser benefits from the huge secondary target audience of parents and grandparents.
Santosh Desai, advertising veteran and MD and CEO of Futurebrands India, says, “For marketers there are a couple of advantages of being on kids’ channels. First there will be some spillover adult viewer and children’s role in decision-making for the household has also increased. Secondly, these channels are relatively cheaper in the overall media mix.”
A study by Cartoon Network, ‘Cartoon Network New Generations 2012′, shows a majority of parents watch television with their kids. After serials, cartoons are the most preferred genre for parents, ranking above news channels.
About 75% parents spend time watching TV at least 5-6 times a week with their kids. This number is even higher, close to 80%, for parents of younger children. Channels say that in spite of the decent growth, the kids’ genre is extremely under-monetised, with 7% viewership and just 3% of revenue share.
The last evening of the financial year saw the start of something unique in the media space: celebrities using Twitter to seed in a viral video of a TV show which was scheduled later the same evening. The unique thing about it was that it was not only to promote the show tune-in, but to actually create awareness of a branded content segment by Center Fruit in the Mirchi Music Awards.
Perfetti Van Melle India is credited with introducing some catch phrases through their advertising which have gone on to become common lingo amongst the Indian youth. After Center Fresh’s Zubaan Pe Lagaam and Mentos’ Dimaag ki Batti Jala De, this time Indian audiences were witness to something unique for Center Fruit on Mirchi Music Awards which was aired on Colors on Sat-Sun.
Starting early evening before the show was supposed to premier on Colors prime time, a video was seeded through Twitter medium. It was not just a plain seeding. The campaign took the help of celebrities to seed in the video as a teaser. The video had the host of the award show Shaan being interviewed just before he was about to take the stage. In the middle of the interview, the journalist holds up the jar of Center Fruit, and off goes Shaan with his tongue-wagging act. This was similar to what happens in the brand commercial where a singer competing with a tabla player wins the battle when Center Fruit makes the singer go non-stop laplap with his jeebh (tongue).
This was probably the first time a FMCG brand used the Celebrity tweet route to create a teaser online for amplifying a TV show scheduled later in the day. Commenting on the initiative, Sudarshan Saha, Client Leader, Maxus says that the idea came to his team when they saw top trending topics in the evenings in India recently tended to pick up what was being shown on Television. The agency team decided to turn the tables around, and used Twitter to seed in a tease before the show went on air, in this case. Sample this: Sophie Choudhrytweets – Does Darrling Luscious Lopez make your #Jeebhlaplap? or Poonam Pandey tweets -Shaan’s exclusive #jeebhlaplap backstage footage from MMA. Eesha Koppikar tweets -Enjoyed Shaan’s laplap secret. Watch Colors to see what makes Usha Uthup’s #jeebhlaplap.
Perfetti Marketing Director Nikhil Sharma feels that the quality of innovation executed for Center Fruit pushes the benchmark further on how to use multiple mediums, especially Digital along with TV for FMCG brands. He leads marketing mandate for an array of impulse purchase brands in Perfetti, and treats Maxus as a long term partner to drive the growth agenda for his brands.
