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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. Write in with either advertisements you wish reviewed or with your comments at addendum.brandline@gmail.com
Another year goes by. The advertising industry celebrated 2011 with a grand GoaFest where over 3000 creative guys and girls saluted excellence in advertising. Yes the ABBY awards grew even bigger. The AdAsia returned to India after eight years and gave the industry something to be proud about, veterans Gerson Da Cunha and Bal Mundkur gave the industry own first book, the Ad Katha and the Olive Crown awards proved the industry was taking its responsibility to Planet Earth seriously. In the midst of all this was the business of advertising. Let’s take a look at some of the good advertising that brightened up our TV sets, our homes and our lives. And in the mellow year-end mood, we are sticking to only what was good. Don’t worry, I’ll be back to my normal irreverent self next year.
Every friend counts
We are living in an era where the average youngster has a thousand friends on his facebook page and they are in a constant state of frenzied communication, or should I say, “kolaveri”. Pokes, messages, chat, sms, telephone calls, emails and every other form of communication in between. This is the generation that has made multi-tasking a fine art and has bared its heart and everything else to its wide world of friends. Obviously someone who said “Har Ek Friend Zaroori Hota Hai” in all our lovely languages “machan”, hit the jackpot. And Airtel couldn’t have asked for something more relevant, more vibrant, more catchy and more true. And if the first TVC where they had this group of students spewing raw energy to this wonderful jingle, the follow up with the “kanjoos” friend who gives a missed call to report a crime and the “waiter” friend who saves the life of a down-and-out friend with two girl friends at a café were great extensions. The Zoo zoo’s are a tough act to challenge, but challenged they were, and effectively.
Keeping it simple
The KISS principle couldn’t have articulated better than by the youth icon of the year Ranbir Kapoor. And Tata Docomo with a reported 35 quickies (I’m staying with the KISS theme) had the talented young star reaching out to the young audience who seem to be connected to their mobile phones with an electronic umbilical cord. Playing the charming stand-up talk host, he took a novel approach to advertising to a greater height and Draft FCB Ulka and Tata DoCoMo had a winner on their hands. They kept is simple silly, and it worked. The telecom sector is going to get even more difficult in the coming year and I can’t wait to see how creativity deals with these challenges.
The value of values
The Tata group have a great brand equity. They have successfully taken the “values” space in style and proven that if there is anything better than a company that performs as a socially conscious and responsible corporate citizen, it is one that effectively communicates that it does. Tata Steel came up with a lovely set of TVC’s which spoke about what a company with values can do. I loved the ones about the Tejaswini Project and the one on Bachendra Pal. And Tata Tea showed how to extend a great idea and stay topical and relevant. The Soch Badal TVC really resonated with the current mood prevalent in the country and extorted the citizenry to change the way they were thinking and think positively instead. Well, the scenario is turning out such that what we really need is a “soch badlo”. A different way of thinking. And all this from a company that sells tea!
Always Hoyenga
Remember the Greenply TVC with the little Sardarji boy breaking into Tamil and running into a house to be re-united with Savitri, his aged wife of a previous birth and the desk made of Greenply that refused to age? I thought that was one of better TVC’s I had seen and now Low Lintas and Greenply have returned with another outright winner. The timing is perfect. The film shows a New Year’s eve party where everyone is as usual making having a blast making fools of themselves. The lyrics are hilarious and speak about all the most outrageously impossible things that will the singer claims will definitely happen. And so you have a cure for baldness and a man getting pregnant, and a world without cell phones, India winning big at the Olympics and a solution to the Kashmir problem(ouch!) all presented as things which could happen sometime in the future. And then as the clock counts down to the new year, a sobering voice-over wonders aloud as to who will be around when all these eventually happen? And the answer is of course the chair made from Greenply. Whacky, zany lyrics, a tune you will try to remove from your mind and fail miserably, and all in all a memorable film made by Lowe Lintas and Ram Madhvani. I can even see DJ’s playing this on New Year’s eve.
Have a great New Year and keep watching advertising. And don’t forget the content in between the ads……
Ramesh Narayan is a communications consultant.
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