Read Between the Ps

Playing the old classic patriotic songs with every flag hoisting, the emerging innovative combination of saffron, white and greens represented in our attire (and not necessarily with a flag), and the varying degrees of pride while looking at the national flag - all this along with celebrating a mid-week national holiday with high laziness quotient!  - That is how 15th August passes with most of us every year! (I am excluding the NRIs from this lot, as the " NR but I " bit in them comes out very strongly today). Advertisers try to be topical around independence day - either through s(t)ale discounts or through innovative emotive connects. Some of the key words I noticed in most of the ads include Freedom - the quintessential term without which the ad is seemingly irrelevant, Tri color representation Offers - from 15% to 2017/- only Independence day Gandhi ji  On the other hand, we talk about Freedom from the societal aspects of our country, where we take ...

The Cola Wars in 1990s were well known - with both multinationals (Pepsi and Coca Cola) pushing media to grab the largest pie of the market. However, while both Pepsi and Coke leveraged their global playbook, that strategy itself became an impediment to growth. Thums Up's management was a lot smarter than the competition thought. They waged a clever guerrilla marketing war against Pepsi by carefully studying its global playbook, and pre-empting its moves. As a result, by the time the bubbles settled, Pepsi emerged as number two in the market, but Thums Up was number one, having positioned itself as 'the stronger cola, with a more adult taste', expressed by the slogan 'Taste the thunder'. Today, India is a unique three-player cola market: Thums Up, with a 16.6% share; Pepsi with 13%; and Coke with perhaps less than 10%. According to Anwar Alikhan (JWT India) , It's a brand that's so successful that it's said to be a bit of an embarrassment for th...

eCommerce is one industry, where the word ' returns ' has various connotations - right from the order to customer and to the investor, as the subject says!  Which is the most important out of these or are these just a mere 'cause' and 'effect' of the same purchase cycle?  At Rs 13,000-crore , India's e-tailing industry accounts for just 1% of the total retail business. However, it's the fastest growing segment of e-commerce (non-travel) growing at 59% annually, as per industry estimates ( TOI ). However, profitability and eCommerce are mostly avoided in the same sentence by Industry experts.  One of the main reasons is the claim of 'building' the industry in the initial few years (the quantification of which increases with increasing valuation!), owing to high operating losses for most retailers.  One of the biggest challenges that retailers are grappling with are the returns, that can go upto the tune of 25% of the total o...

Sometimes, words are too less to describe a campaign - but this campaign should inspire a lot of Indians as well to travel and explore the country... Inspired me for sure - have to just connect the clippings with the locations! :) Incredible India!

Cartoons and caricatures have long been one of the best modes of expression – to voice out the sentiment of the public, to express implicit reactions, and to use satire to get your point of view across. One strip that has done this wonderfully for generations ( since 1961 ) has been RK Laxman’s most famous Common Man’s strip “You said it” – There was a time when we used to look forward to the daily strip in the Times of India whenever something happened, for the strip reacted responded effectively on any issue – truly echoing the sentiment of the public - it mocked at the current issues at hand, but ensured it made relevant points strongly. Such was the power of print media then. Then came our dear Amul Moppet , coming out with silent billboards almost every fortnight that talked about issues at hand, or latest Bollywood or Cricket gossip – taking a topic every time, and interpreting it in a humorous manner – called “ topicals ” by the Da Cunhas. Instant connect was what this gir...

FMCG Industry in India is witnessing a change – a change in the pattern in which it is growing – needless to say, with the changing demographics, the pattern of marketing would also change. As rural penetration increases, the rural markets would command more and more share of the overall FMCG space. Though the urban markets are growing too, the incremental addition in consumers / households is much more in rural space as compared to urban markets. According to an article in Mint, posted a couple of months back , not only have the media investments by FMCG companies moved towards rural India, but also a larger piece of the cake has started coming from the rural belt itself. Rural India, mostly termed as “ high opportunity ” market, is no longer just an opportunitiy, but is now yielding results. As the article mentions, “ 180 million rural and semi-urban people’s attention has already been diverted towards FMCG products, according to latest estimates released by industry chamber, Asso...

Sometime back I had talked about the signifance of Annual Reports and their emerging role in Branding for companies . A recent article by Rajeshwari Sharma , " Making a Statement " gives an insight into the policy framework and the specifics of Annual Report Designing. Design and Development of these tools has emerged as a separate function for some companies, and with the growing economy, it is imperative to have a tool which articulates this growth as well. A nice article to understand the norms of the industry, and trends visible in the market. A good bunch of illustrations substantiate the arguments mentioned therein. As I had mentioned earlier, this is an initiative to establish credibility among the stakeholders and promote the umbrella brand or reiterate the corporate brand image , and the article reinforces this perspective. Another trend predicted in this space - Online Reporting ..Rightly so, with the changing face of corporate branding - lesser Annual Reports, ...

Talk about India in today’s global economy, and almost every conversation would begin with “ India is doing well ”….well, it is definitely booming, and with an economy growing at more than 9.2% , it isn’t much of a surprise to hear this…in a number of sectors, India is ahead of other countries. However, there are certain other areas as well where India is ahead of other nations, but this lead is not something to really boast about … – the nation with most HIV infected people ! According to an article , more than 5.7 million Indians are living with the potentially fatal HIV virus (end of 2005 figures), making India the nation with the greatest number of HIV carriers. More so, the epidemic is unevenly distributed across India, with just six states accounting for 80 per cent of the estimated cases. The epidemic is no longer restricted to sex workers but has also spread over to the masses. Lack of sex education and reluctance to promote contraception continue to be the biggest impedime...

Lately, the Television ads of Perfetti’s Happydent have always been below expectations , and have had limited appeal in terms of humor levels – the connect does not happen and recall levels generally are abysmally low. However, this particular campaign, doing the rounds in the online space as " Be the Light " for the Indian markets has definitely outperformed the rest, and definitely scores high in terms of humor and creativity. Initially, most of the situations and sets comprise men being used as items / property and are positioned at various points which make no logical sense. But at the end of the advertisement, all the previous sets are connected with a common line of those very men serving to be the light …..by chewing Happydent . Some reviews have criticized the ad by being too stupid and lame. Its an individual perspective, but what particularly is of interest in this ad is the way the sets are connected , keeping in mind the feudal system that was practiced by ou...