Out-of-the-box thinking thrown out of the window

Really now. That is a limit of trying to fool the customer. It is as if the buyer is completely a stupid person who would get swayed by words, openly questioning the intelligence of the buyer. Firstly the name 'Times Square' blatantly copied from the famous Times Square in the US financial capital is a turn-off. Secondly shouting in the headline that you need a out-of-box working place to think out-of-the-box would make Edward De Bono cringe in his seat. Thirdly i do not see any futuristic thinking in the building architecture. A very sad attempt at trying to create a positioning where it clearly doesn't exist, not in terms of attributed or metaphorically even. The copy isn't mentioning anything out-of-the-box i.e. features if any.

The DLFs, Indiabulls, Lodhas, Hiranandanis, Rahejas of the world at least have created some sort of differentiation. Credit though has to be given to the thought but the context seems completely wrong for Times Square. Alas the razzmatazz associated with the original place seems missing here and it doesn't seem it will ever get associated here.

Usage of children in endorsements:

The rule of advertising is to use celebrity or people in ads who relate to the target audience. E.g. A sportsman would endorse a sports shoes not a filmstar. The rule doesn’t hold in the continuously changing market in India. Especially if it involves children. There was a time when children were used in ads only for children’s products such as nutrition category (Bournvita, Chyawanprash) or ice creams (Amul or Kwality) or chocolates (Cadbury).

As time progressed children were used more and more in ads for products not bought for them but were for household consumption such as consumer durables (Airconditoners, refrigerators, television, Audio systems) or food (Maggi, type of masala). Pester power was considered to be the weapon then. Things have not changed. Pester power still remains but the thought process behind using children for an array or products/ services has changed. Nowadays children are used for all types of product/ service categories. Aviation, banks (Axis bank, IDBI bank, Kotak bank), Cars (Volkswagen, Maruti), insurance (ICICI Pru, HDFC Standard Life, Metlife, Max newyork), detergent (Rin, Ariel, Tide, Wheel), oral care (Colgate, Pepsodent), tourism (Mahindra resorts), real estate (almost all ads in print media such as Lodha, DLF, HDIL), mutual funds, retail (big bazaar), Textile (Raymonds), telecommunications (Vodafone), oil and gas(Jaypee), cement, steel to name a few companies. You name a category and children are used. The rationale being that research has shown ads with children having more recall value than its ads of competitors without children. Children are endearing to all of us. This could be the reason for the high recall.

Communication is all about the message rather than the characters involved. The effectiveness of an ad is in understanding the way to reach the target audience and knowing the idea to make the target audience relate to the message and thus the product/ service. This has been understood by the Indian advertising industry.

Thus we see the latest offering from Metlife fixed income plan where we see the grand son blackmailing his grandmother for buying stuff and relating it to fixed income from financial products. A child in an ad who does not know what insurance means.

IPL- truck load of brands

“Break The Clutter”. One of the first things a client asks when an agency presents a concept for a TVC is whether the ad will stand out on its own by breaking the clutter of other brands on TV. Whether it has a recall factor by ways of a celebrity or a jingle or just a completely new way of dissipating information (ala zoozoos). Frequently we hear the agency saying that this ad breaks the clutter but it rarely does because when the agency presents the commercial to the client in the clients’ boardroom with all the speaker sound at its peak, complete silence and everyone in rapt attention focused on the screen. With so much attention, any averagely good ad would seem good. The real litmus test starts when the viewer has the remote in his hand with options available to change channels during program breaks.

IPL 3.0 currently being aired on TV has all the mass product/ service companies hopping on to the bandwagon showcasing their wares. The official sponsors of the event are DLF, Vodafone, Hero Honda, Fly Kingfisher, Citi, Karbonn Mobiles and Maxx Mobiles. Thus we have a sponsor name for each event in the match e.g. DLF Maximum, Citi Moment of success, Karbonn Kamaal catch, Maxx Mobile strategic timeout just like we have Hyderabadi Biryani and Kashmiri Pulav. The commentators use these phrases as if they are getting paid to mouth them as frequently as they can. Whenever the MRF blimp is shown, the commentators say a very uniform line which seems that they are given a script to read out. It goes like this “MRF blimp. At the forefront of technology. The first to get the blimp in India”. Thus there are 8 official sponsors.

SET MAX which broadcasts the tournament and has paid a mammoth amount for the telecast rights also has its own set advertisers. The cola Majors, Pepsi and Coca Cola, Consumer durable majors such as LG, Samsung, Videocon, Godrej, Sony, Whirlpool, telecom service providers Vodafone, Idea, DoCoMo, Aircel, Airtel and the latest entrant Videocon, Mobile handset manufacturers Videocon, Karbonn mobile, Maxx mobile and Micromax. Apart from these, some others such as Hyundai i10, Kent water purifiers, Vaseline, Metlife insurance and Havells. Whats more, now there are ads between balls compared to between overs earlier. There is no place in the stadium without ads plastered. The boundary roped, boundary boards, stadium walls, the playing field, the stumps, umpire’s attire, third umpire display board, the sight screen. The total tally thus is 21 plus 8 i.e. 29 With such a huge number how does one expect to break the clutter?