Addendum is a fortnightly column that takes a sometimes hard, sometimes casual, sometimes irreverent, yet never malicious look at some of the new or recent advertisements and comments on them.

I have always felt the earliest mass marketers were the French. And what a fantastic job they did. Their champagne, cognac, wine, cuisine, language, fashion and, of course, their perfume. Everything about them has been branded carefully, marketed consistently and the results are there for everyone to see. Like their stuff or not, that is a personal choice, but one has to admire their brand-building efforts. And so it made eminent sense for Titan to piggy-back on the French mystique and establish an unmistakable connect between their perfume brand Skinn, which is made in France and the French itself. And O&M has delivered just the vehicle. A young man and woman meet inside the Titan perfume store (it looks rather tastefully decorated, I hope it is how the real store looks) and immediately begin flirting in a very, well, French way. And in case you still miss the French connection, the voice-over is in French. With English sub-titles. The script could have been far more compelling, riding as it does on such a bold idea, but I’m just nit-picking. If one is alluding to the language of fragrance, and to the firm French roots that Skinn is rightly proud of, they got it just right. The sheer novelty value of the French voice-over and the steadfast focus on everything French makes it, well, very different. Vive la difference!

Perfect solutions

These are tough days. And tough days with severe problems call for divine intervention. And if the Almighty is difficult to access directly (His line must be always busy) one can reach out through his chosen agents, the godmen and godwomen. IndianOil and the Grey group have chosen a light-hearted route to provide perfect solutions to truck and fleet owners. A worried father goes to an archetypal godman who speaks in that caricatured sing-song way and explains that his son is weak in Math and he is looking for some divine intervention to help him improve. The wise godman finds out that the petitioner is a truck owner and so he gives him a can of Servo Pride XL Plus engine oil. And hastens to explain that the oil will help the fleet run smoothly, resulting in less maintenance and more free time for daddy to tutor sonny to buck up in not just Math but even aim to be a rocket scientist. Definitely a very unique and interesting way to market something as “industrial” as engine oil. Good production values help make the film better. No celebrity, no jaded jingle, just a pointed message which even brings a smile to one’s face. What more could one ask for these days?

Trumping Donald

Here I was, sitting in a remote place near Coimbatore sipping some green tea and viewing some Whatsapp messages when I found this video in a school friend’s group. It had been posted by a friend in the US. And so I idly played it. There was this Indian tea brand called Te-A-Me which I had never heard of and it had made this film which showed that large sections of the US and the world were worried about Trump and what he stood for and since one could not beat him, here was an effort to change him. And so a van was shown making its way through busy Manhattan to deliver 6,000 tea bags (four years’ supply) right to Trump Towers. And as the large well-packaged box was being escorted by two sari-clad Indian ladies and a porter to the doors of Trump Towers, some large digital screens in the vicinity suddenly came alive with a pleasant Indian face saying Namaste Mr Trump and then the young lady on the big screen went on to explain to Mr Trump the benefits of drinking green tea. And ended with the exhortation “Mr Trump, please drink the tea”. The film goes on to show many Americans repeating that exhortation but the message was already made loud and clear even without the shots of graffiti on New York walls with the same message (digitally altered, maybe) or the nagging answer to the question “Did the person at the entrance accept the tea?” Actually all that is irrelevant. The point is that a little-known Kolkata-based Indian tea company and Fisheye Creative Solutions seized upon a burning topic today (Trump), shot a film in the Big Apple, and it has really gone viral. Does it hope to sell tea in New York? Does it matter? It has reached the Indian audience in a gutsy manner and everyone here will now know the name Te-A-Me. This is ambush marketing with panache. Oh by the way, remember I said I was sipping tea somewhere near Coimbatore? I looked at the name on the tea bag and believe you me, it was Te-A-Me. I love the advertising. Now how about a novel ad film for our very own super-achiever chai-wallah ?

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