Sony and MS Dhoni

The recent news of MS Dhoni pulled up by the ICC for a case of ambush marketing for Sony’s HD TV campaign wasn’t intentional. No publicity is bad publicity doesn’t apply to Sony. It is too big a brand. On the contrary, I feel Sony doesn’t even need the Indian captain MS Dhoni too.

It was rather surprising to see that Sony has signed on a brand ambassador for its TV brand. They had Kareena Kapoor for its VAIO laptops. It was a brand fit since Kareena was in the news for her ‘size-zero’. And the new laptop was positioned as a ‘size-sero’ laptop with its thin width. Hrithik Roshan was brand ambassador for Sony Ericsson cell phones. But Sony never had a brand ambassador, at least in India, for its flagship product, TV. Many people might not agree but for Sony, I think TV is their best selling product.

Sony is one of those brands which really has an effect of envy for the non-owner. It’s one of those distinctive brands which is ahead of its competition in terms of brand equity in India. Dhoni or no Dhoni, Sony TVs would have sold. Moreover, I don’t think Dhoni is a brand fit for Sony. Although MS Dhoni is a cricketer par excellence as an individual player, world cup (T20) winning captain and captain of no 1 test playing team, and Sony is excellent in its quality, they some how don’t go together. Dhoni is quite young whereas Sony is a legendary brand. Sachin would have been a more apt choice. I can already see many people up in arms and refuting my choice. It is just a point of view and a different view. Not that I am right. Sony would have their reasons and rationale. Its just that I have a slight diverse take on it.

Considering the creative side of the TVC, I am disappointed. Clarity is a very obvious differentiation that they are talking about. A very clichéd representation.

Relevance of colours in our lives:

Do you remember the days around two decades back when we had just black & white televisions? Colour TVs had to be imported and were a status symbol in the drawing room. Don’t we reminisce when we see our black & white photographs? It was until Kodak entered India that we got colour photographs. When we buy a consumer durable such as TV, refrigerator, washing machine, don’t we fret over the colour of it? Many a times women change the brand for want of a specific colour. Why do you think women take such a long time to chop for clothes? Colour forms the most integral part of the attire apart from the design. Don’t you take days to decide the colour for our abode? Colour denotes our personality and our style and way of thinking.

Each colour has a peculiar function to when we go socialising or even for a business meet. There goes a saying “when in doubt, wear black”. We do not want colourful attire at an inappropriate place or an inappropriate time. Black solves the problem of a faux pas.

Colours add vibrancy to our lives. It acts as a differentiator for each and every materialistic need or rather ‘want’ of ours. This ‘want’ for appropriate colour has been used by marketers since time in memorial and will continue to be used.

The ads for apparel, show fabulously dressed models with an aura of confidence to get that aspirational feeling to the customer. Currently Videocon and Sony Bravia TV ad shows colours in its ads. The Bravia ad has colour as its theme with the tagline “See more colours”. It shows colours formation in a breathtakingly beautiful way. The non-stop paint company ads lead by the India paint giants Asian Paints and Kansai Nerolac followed closely by Berger and ICI paints talk about colour.

Corel Draw software in computer for creative drawing in ad agencies and Adobe Photoshop has millions of colour combination. The vignette effect and the shine visible for the print in 2D format are exciting to say the least.

This liking for colour has been manifested in humans time and again. Colours truly enlighten our lives and make them vibrant and exciting.