‘Advertising that builds brands'

The venue was the buzzing Crossword at the bustling Kemps Corner junction in Mumbai, on a work day evening. From the legendary ad man Gerson DaCunha to Radio City's Apurva Purohit to Reliance Industries' Kaushik Roy, there was a sizeable selection of people from advertising, media and the corporate world in attendance, making the book store look smaller than it actually is.

Releasing Draftfcb Ulka Advertising's second book of Brand Building Advertising Concepts and Cases , Chief Guest Ravi Kant, Vice-Chairman, Tata Motors, made a plea to the authors to reduce the time period between the agency's case study books, so that the cases featured stay current.

Given that the first book of Draftfcb Ulka's Brand Building Concepts and Cases was launched in 1999, the Chief Guest's observation does seem fair.

But it would be quite a challenging task to increase the frequency drastically, given that the authors want to ensure that competitors (to Draftfcb Ulka's clients featured in the book) do not end up gaining from the information and insights published!

The senior Tata Motors official would perhaps agree, given that among the work featured in the second book of cases is that of Tata Indica.

The second book has been in the works for three years, according to authors M. G. Parameswaran, ED and CEO Mumbai at Draftfcb Ulka Advertising; and Kinjal Medh, COO, Cogito Consulting (brand consulting division of Draftfcb Ulka).

The book of cases draws upon Draftfcb Ulka's experiences in the Indian market across client brands. Besides Indica's ‘More car per car' campaign, the second book features the successful brand-building cases of Tropicana, Amul Ice cream, Mint-o-fresh, Zod!, Tata Indigo, Compaq, Whirlpool, Naukri.com, UTI Mutual Funds, TCS and Zee Cinema.

The target audience for the book is B-school and other students with interest in marketing and brand building, besides young advertising professionals.

“When you look at the Tata Indica campaign or that of Amul Ice cream, students and young professionals would wonder how we arrived at these campaigns.

The book will give them an insight into how and why we arrived at these campaigns,” said co-author Medh.

Buoyed by the response to the first book, Parameswaran expects that the second book of cases too will be received well.

“The cases featured are those of advertising that builds brands — not advertising for advertising's sake. That's the core message,” noted Parameswaran.

The book also features three selected articles from the group's Cogito Journal , a controlled circulation publication: How Advertising Works , Celebrity Endorsements and Promotions in Car Marketing .

The second book of case studies comes as part of the 50th anniversary celebrations of Ulka (now Draftfcb Ulka) in India, being commemorated as ‘50 Years of Celebrating BrandWealth'.

The book reiterates the agency's promise of advertising that creates ‘BrandWealth', as does a Web site the agency has created: www.brand-building.com.

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