Know Thy Breaks
Awesome Ads
Have A Sweet Tooth On The First Of Every Month
May 29th
Tag line: Kuch Meetha Ho Jaaye
Punchline: Meetha Hai Khana Aaj Pehli Taarikh Hai
Client: Cadbury India
Brand: Cadbury Dairy Milk
Creative Agency: O & M
Exec Creative Director: Piyush Pandey & Abhijit Avasthi
Creative Director: Shekhar Jha & Mahesh Gharat
Music: Ehsan Noorani & Loy Mendonsa
Vocals: Kshitij
Director: Prasoon Pandey
Production House: Corcoise Films
Duration: 50 secs
Year: 2009
Message: Though Cadbury had done a lot around the ‘Kuch Meetha Ho Jaaye’ premise that involved large-scale celebrations, small groups and small towns had been kept out. Knowing that the middle class celebrate their happiness on salary day in a very private manner, Cadbury Dairy Milk (CDM) underlines its positioning that it is always around to celebrate one’s joyous occasions even of the adults who had been hitherto shying away from its consumption. It introduces another ‘meetha moment’ in one’s life, to highlight the celebratory occasion of pay day, which is an important event in the life of every middle-class Indian. (****)
Positioning & TG: Pay day emotes feelings like “Yippee! Yo! I am rich again” that are naturally celebratory in nature for many of us. For such people, this indulgent occasion comes 12 times a year & this is the moment that CDM captures in this campaign. The concept of payday itself is rooted in an existing middle class insight. This lends a support of insights and culture to the Cadbury ad. We never mind the slowdown & the salary cuts; the pay day is always a reason for us to celebrate. So Cadbury ‘pays’ a tribute to the salaried employees by giving them another reason to celebrate the payday. (****)
Cast & Craft: Set in a retro background, the TVC stars the popular TV artist Varun Badola. The old Hindi filmy ambience is uniquely middle class and the set could belong to any town in India. Its attempt at mass appeal is unmistakable. I think the concept was very appealing and implemented exactly the way it had been visualized. Proving that salary day is a big day even in these times of plastic money, the commercial gives a very warm and homely feeling which most people can relate to. Incidentally, the song is from a Kishore Kumar 50’s movie by the same name i.e., ‘Pehli Tarikh’. (***)
Freshness: Although many people did not like the add… but still the ad keeps one glued to his/her chair during the commercial… it’s something like ‘Love me or hate me but you can’t ignore me’. Although there have been quite a few commercials with this kind of approach, it still stands out… the song takes one down the memory lane & due to its lyrics turns out to be a perfect fit for the communication. The insight of payday has a very universal appeal and the ad is a good example of occasion-based marketing. It seems to be such an obvious choice for celebration but still had been unexploited. (****)
Verdict: Very retro- Bollywoodsy, very quirky, very singable, very fun! It better moved over the rhetorical concepts of a brother stealing his sister’s chocolate, or for that matter, boy gifts a chocolate to a girl. This campaign pretty much drove home well & did position CDM as something that can be a part of this day of happiness, promises and salaries. Beware mithaiwalas, Cadbury’s trying to capture the market of all those local, traditional sweets 
Hifaazat Se Majboor
May 27th
Tag line: Jiyo Befikar
Client: Bajaj Allianz
Creative Agency: M&C Saatchi
Exec Creative Director: Rajiv Sabnis
Creative Team: Parveez Shaikh, Hemant Sapre & Shaista Vaishnav
Lyrics: Gulzar
Singer: Sukhwinder Singh
Music: Vishal Bharadwaj
Director: Shivendra Singh Dungarpur
Production House: Dungarpur Films
Duration: 45 secs
Year: 2009
Story: Bajaj Allianz has unveiled a new multi-pronged corporate campaign, to re-emphasize its scale and stature in the category. The ad comprises of montage of visuals depicts that how people enjoy life taking risks when they have the assurance of protection by a loved one. While the earlier campaigns talked about products and the Super Agent (its mascot), the new one talks about how one can live a care-free life.
Message: Your mother shields you from rain. Your husband holds your hand while crossing the road. You protect your baby from sharp edges. Each of us is protected by our loved ones. Protection, which helps us live carefree. So the ad highlights Bajaj Allianz’s promise to give consumers Hifaazat (loving protection) from all risks by enhancing their financial opportunities & helping them live life to the fullest. (***)
Emotional Appeal: When it comes to an intangible product like life insurance, trust plays an important role in convincing a customer. Bajaj Allianz made a clever move at the right time… choosing to reinforce their consumer connect during a slowdown, when no one was actually trusting financial institutions. And Hifaazat or protection is a human instinct. People want to instinctively protect their near and dear ones from harm’s way. This human insight is at the centre of this creative strategy. The film sensitively portrays the protective and hence carefree relationship between loved ones. (****)
Music: Yeah, it deserves a mention as this is what you call soulful bliss… rendered by the infallible combo– Gulzar Sa’ab, Sukhi Paaji & Vishal ji. A song that you can go on listening to for years and still won’t get bored of it. Sukhwinder has an uncanny knack of breathing life into the lyrics via his vocal chord… and what about this line ‘Jiyo har lamha, tumko zindagi peene ki aadat hai’ which delivers the real impressive punch. (****)
Freshness: Hitherto, Bajaj Allianz had done an excellent job of persuading people to buy into their products through rational and product-focused communication with the Super Agent being the important face of the brand. But moving away from its earlier motto – Jaisi Zaroorat, Vaisa Insurance (tailor made to your needs), it now says, Jiyo Befikar (live without worries). As the brand touches over millions customers across age groups; geographies & income classes, this universally appealing positioning is a timely & mindful move. (***)
Verdict: This deliberate shift from functional communication to a more emotional communication based on real life situations, had to be needed to create a much stronger connection with the TG. The ’Jiyo Befikar’ TVC does just that. While the communication needed to focus on both life and general insurance, it brings out clearly in a climax shot that Bajaj Allianz offers a range of life and non-life insurance solutions.
Hindi Rocks! And That’s Why China Hacks
May 25th
Tag line: Interpret The World
Client: The Economist
Creative Agency: O & M
National Creative Directors: Rajiv Rao, Abhijit Avasthi
Exec Creative Director: Sumanto Chattopadhyay
Creative Directors: Sukesh Kumar Nayak, Heeral Desai Akhaury
Director: Shashanka Chaturvedi (Bob)
Production House: Good Morning Films
DOP: John Jacob Payapalli
Music: Ashutosh Phatak
Duration: 50 secs
Year: 2010
Story: The first film is based on the trend of Chinese workers migrating to work in China-owned factories in India. It creatively expresses the connection that growing India-China projects may tomorrow lead to Chinese children learning Hindi, the main language spoken in India. The second ad is particularly hard-hitting, pointing to the way in which the civil wars in Africa are robbing kids of their childhood, in some cases due to the global demand for diamonds.
Message: No more limited to print & OOH, The Economist in India made its debut on TV too… as to focus wider the obvious media choice had to be the ‘mass-merizer’ (as I nickname TV). The idea here is to communicate what the brand has to offer to an audience who have no or very little awareness of the brand. The campaign emphasizes the thought that The Economist brings to life connections between world events that may not be overtly apparent and helps to interpret those connections. (***)
Execution: The casting and cinematography is brilliant. Also, television(the medium) has allowed it to add an extra dimension to the story telling. The tone, texture and the music are in tune with the brand essence and the seriousness of the situations explored. The film based on Chinese kids is in black-and-white; & the African film’s film is toned down to give it a realistic and documentary feel. Somewhere this stark and studied look is much like the content of The Economist. (****)
Freshness: The beautiful films have an international vibe to them & their message is simple & intriguing. In the spirit of ‘Interpret the world’, the stories are fresh and very present. They are engaging as one has to decode the sequences. But I feel, to people like me who know the international Economist work, one tends to miss the famous wit a bit. Good news is– The Economist’s advertising continues to be thought-provoking as ever. (****)
Verdict: The Economist has huge legacy to live up to and that’s a tough task. But with each creative, I feel that India is getting there. There is an invisible thread connecting events in different parts of the world, which apparently appear unrelated. The Economist makes that thread visible. It provides the explanation at the end to maintain the surprise factor, and to reinstate the message that The Economist helps its readers to understand things better.
Time Tested Take-Offs
May 24th
Tag line: On Time
Client: Indigo Airlines
Creative Agency: W+K
Exec Creative Director: V Sunil
Snr Creative Director: Keshavan Naidu
Director: Harvey B Brown
Production House: Bang Bang Films
Music: DJ M.Mat, Tarun & Vinayak
Duration: 45 secs
Year: 2010
Story: IndiGo Airlines, in its new campaign, highlights the benefits of being on-time, while drawing attention to the brand’s own track record of operational efficiency. The ad shows how the airline’s crew & staff does their job on time, thereby enabling IndiGo’s fliers to be punctual, which, in turn, eventually leads to the development of the country.
Message: Having picked ‘on the dot performance’ as the key attribute, it wisely takes punctuality to the level where the nation’s economy is the ultimate beneficiary of this quality. It stylishly serves to bring home the point that despite operating in the LCC (low cost carrier) category, IndiGo is chic– not cheap. From the campaign perspective, I feel communication with a human connect is what lives long, communication which is just information or a claim is just on a momentary memory recall. Also this is certainly not the first or the last ad on the ‘on-time’ proposition in the category. (***)
Execution: Both the execution and crafting lack a certain finesse. Look at the faces, the costumes and the awkward manner in which the models try to stand like trained dancers. It’s little slip-ups like these that, unfortunately, make the ad feel ‘fake’ & lacking life. Besides the overall not-exactly-there finish of the commercial, another concern is with the casting which wholly look the same—bland and faceless good-looking models. (***)
TG Connect: Look at the general optimistic sentiment in the country. Esp young India is more optimistic than ever before… today, we have more disposable income than ever before, more career choices than ever before. IndiGo so ‘timely’ feeds into this space and talks about a better and brighter India, while putting forward its own ‘on-time’ performance. (****)
Freshness: If you’ve seen the quirky title sequence of the Spielberg film ‘Catch Me if You Can’, you know where the inspiration for this TVC comes from! Nevertheless, full marks to W+K and the client team for trying this new and very different genre to break through the clutter of our same-to-same TV environment. It gives the brand a zippy, contemporary feel—and the single-minded message of ‘on time’ gets established well. (****)
Verdict: In today’s busy media environment, it’s important to keep the message simple and single-minded— and be entertaining at the same time. This new Indigo ad does a great job at being single-minded and that’s the reason the message sticks long after you’ve finished watching it. But rather than showing a mere chain reaction of being on-time, this ‘basic proposition’ could have been communicated with a sense of humour & also in a more effective way, where the insight would have touched people deeper down.
Rocket Singh & Company Acquires A ‘Virgin’
May 21st
Tag line: Think Milke, Think Hatke
Client: Virgin Mobile
Creative Agency: Bates 141
Regional Creative Director: Sonal Dabral
Exec Creative Director: Russell Barrett
Copywriters: Riti Hamlai, Karunasagar Sridharan, Nikhil Panjwani
Art Director: Kunal Sawant
Director: Bardroy Barretto
Production House: Brown Skins
Duration: 50 secs
Year: 2009
Story: As another initiative to inch closer to the youth and take the brand to the next level, Ranbir Kapoor and Genelia D’Souza have been appointed as the new brand ambassadors for Virgin Mobile in India. This new campaign, which celebrates the philosophy of ‘Think Milke, Think Hatke’, exhorts Indian youngsters to ‘make connections and use connections’.
Message: While the youth today is finding the individual within, they are extremely aware that it’s with the push of their friends and extended network that they can make many things happen, which they otherwise can’t. All of them for instance have an extended list of friends on their mobile or Facebook who will come in handy when they need help with an urgent presentation or may be a job recommendation. Today’s Indian youth believes that there is a certain magic in their connections, Virgin Mobile exhorts them to build and take advantage of these connections. (***)
Brand Ambassadors: While looking for brand ambassadors, it is important to see if they fit the bill– whether the brand could build on them and whether they could build the brand. Rationalizing the company’s choice, the duo is an extremely good fit for the brand– both of them are popular, affluent & recognized faces. Kapoor is one of the desired guys today, and similarly, D’Souza is known as a next-door, fun-loving girl. It was a real delight to feast our eyes on Diana Penty (oh baby!) acting in a storyline for the first time, though not as an endorser. (****)
Freshness: Going forward it needs to build on this distinctiveness to help itself stand out in a very heavily advertised category and beat media muscle with cut through creativity. In the GSM space, the canvas is bigger so it is all the more exciting to have engaging stories for the youth in India to make them feel that it’s truly their brand. It has kept up the brand’s tonality with respect to its previous campaign i.e., its whacky advertising. And hopefully this network of friends will soon have many more millions of friends on its network. (***)
Verdict: Virgin Mobile in India continues to be inventive and a partner in crime of the youth 
& has carefully chosen the celebs, who are an exact fit for the brand and will bring it scale and visibility. The brand has now all the ingredients for a successful GSM foray. The brand has exhorted the Indian youth to inventively bypass the sanctions that life and society threw at them. In the course, it gives Indian television its first brush with advertising that was not all white-washed in goodness.
