Know Thy Breaks
Emo Ads
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.
Apple: A Well Known Trigger For Ideas
May 17th
Tag line: Smart Ideas Lead The World
Client: Maruti Suzuki
Brand: WagonR
Creative Agency: Hakuhodo Percept
Creative Director: Manish Masih
Director: Robby Grewal
Production House: Red Ice Films
Duration: 45 secs
Year: 2009
Story: In this campaign, Maruti Suzuki WagonR retains & pushes its core positioning as a smart choice car and has a new slogan ‘Smart Ideas lead the world’. Also the brand retains its tag line ‘For a Smarter Race’. A notable fact is that this is the first time that Wagon R has roped in a brand ambassador.
Message: The objective is to communicate the fact that ‘WagonR owners make smart decisions’. R Madhavan tries to refresh the brand’s values and attempts to add some youthfulness to the brand. He’s well known across the country and is not divided as a face of the North or the South. And this important fact that he is a superstar in the South will only add to the brand’s popularity in its more targeted South Indian markets. (****)
Freshness: It is also interesting to see how the brand has used Madhavan in its communication. Madhavan is being used as a model… more like a character in the TVC plot rather than as an endorser. He is being cast as an entrepreneur in the ad. One of the reasons can be that if Madhavan acts as an endorser, no one will believe that he uses a Wagon R. So it makes sense to cast him as a character rather than as an endorser. (***)
Verdict: To reinstate Wagon R’s position as leader in its segment, it better brought on board a brand ambassador with whom its TG (target group), urban upper middle and middle class families, could connect. A famous face works well for a brand if both are just the right fit for each other. Associating with a personality such as Madhavan will certainly reinforce the brand values of WagonR with the TG at a pan India level. The TVC has well attempted to take WagonR’s undisputed market leadership to the next level i.e., of thought leadership.
Even Gods Can Feel Insecure
May 10th
Tag line: Wealth With Protection Solutions
Client: Birla Sun Life Insurance
Creative Agency: JWT
Exec Creative Director: Tista Sen
Snr Creative Director: Pradyumna Chauhan
Art Director: Shweta Iyer
Director: Nikhil Rao
Production House: Chrome Pictures
Duration: 45 secs
Year: 2009
Story: BSLI made its association with ace cricketers Yuvraj Singh, Virender Sehwag, Suresh Raina and Rohit Sharma as brand ambassadors. The partnership begins with the launch of BSLI’s first campaign for its ‘Wealth with Protection Solutions’ category. Cricketers or sportsmen in general have short careers. The great question mark is always the next match, the next innings, or even the next ball. Their great ascent can all come down crumbling with poor form, injury or competition.
Target Audience Connect: It’s quite thoughtful to use a successful person with a mass appeal & recognition himself to communicate his insecurity. The idea stems from the realization that cricket is a great example of the fact that today’s success could be tomorrow’s failure. The target audience of the ad seems the modern ambitious Indian in the age bracket of around 30-35, who is on the road to progress, is successful, well settled, and probably has kids too. However, these people are also in two minds about whether their success will last. It’s also about the ‘what ifs’. (****)
Message: The objective is to connect with mass India, which is an aspiring bunch of Indians– people who earn their success. Life is uncertain and we should be prepared for any eventuality, this message is heightened even further when we hear it from the very cricketers we admire and emulate. Concept is nicely woven around the fact and skillfully executed. (*****)
Freshness: To achieve the mandate of shaking the TG from their apathy and lead them to action, the message should appear genuine and honest. Whatever the cricketers did on camera, it was very clear from the onset that the attempt does not look like yet another endorsement for them.The Birla Sun Life Insurance campaign is an honest and refreshing take on the realities of life as we know it. The use of cricketers goes beyond just brand endorsement and truthfully echoes an insight everybody identifies with. (***)
Verdict: And the ad only promotes the category with a generic insight. The question of promoting category at the cost of product is irrelevant. The commercial does not answer just one critical question– Why Birla Sun Life over someone else? I just hope it is effective for Birla and not their competition as there is no key differentiator as to why one should choose BSLI. But the theme of the campaign seems robust and somewhere seems to serve its purpose i.e. building recall for BSLI. The commercials, scaring the audience, leave them with a sense of unease, which from an insurance company’s point of view is good news.
Jewellery That Makes You Want To Marry
May 1st
Tag line: The Wedding Jeweler
Client: Tanishq
Creative Agency: Lowe Lintas
Creative Team: NA
Duration: 60 secs
Year: 2010
Story: In India, it is during marriages that people buy jewellery for the bride or for gifting. So, the whole idea behind the campaign is to associate brand Tanishq with marriages. The new campaign for Tanishq’s wedding jewellery shows a father asking his daughter to consider a match. The daughter isn’t interested– that is, till she follows her mother into a Tanishq store and tries out some wedding jewellery.
Idea & Execution: To start with, there’s an idea. And unlike most of its competition, the idea is not a “Let’s use a celebrity”. This film is a great example of the fact that if you start from a lovely insight in the first place and then build on it, you can be pretty sure that it will touch people. And then, of course, it has been handled with a lot of maturity. It’s beautifully scripted. The screenplay is measured and precise. The cast has been carefully chosen and very honestly directed. And the music bathes the moments in the film and doesn’t just sit behind it. (*****)
Emotional Appeal: I loved the ad for its simplistic and realistic portrayal. The casting is very sweet too with Arundhati Nag as the smart I-know-what-can-get-her-to-say-yes mother stands out. And instead of nagging her, she chose a very novel technique to convince her to enter into wedlock. I like this ad for its non-randomness in demonstrating benefits and creating an aspirational value. The staged transformation from a look with no jewellery to one that enhances her looks with every ornament is what comes through as most convincing. Charmed! You might wonder is it jewellery that gets a girl to consider a proposal, I think it’s the promise of that special moment, a moment where she is the bestest. (****)
Freshness: What makes this piece stand apart from other rivals? The idea. It has a soul. Most jewellery adverts I have seen get carried away by the look, feel, the glamour and, of course, Bollywood actresses. Think about the Asmi’s; the Nakshatra’s; the Gitanjali’s; the Gili’s; etc. You don’t even remember in which commercial Sush, Aish, Kat, or Bips starred. It was all about looking as stunning as the star on screen and never about ‘you’ or how ‘you looked’. I don’t remember all the ads currently but most of them never went into the persona of the woman, as this ad did. (*****)
Verdict: It is really tough for a woman to say no to accessories (here jewels) that make her look/feel good! And the makers of this ad have used this idea to market their product effectively. What a beautiful break from the regular, ridiculous jeweller adverts! Also, there was a sense of conspicuousness about the theme of a neo- woman whose family guide them for their personal decisions but give them her own space to decide. This is the first entry to our category of ‘Amazing ads‘.
Biggies’ Bank Heeds to Provide Piggy Banks Too
Apr 23rd
Tag line: Not Just For The Big Boys/ Chhote Bade, Sabke Liye
Client: IDBI
Creative Agency: O&M
Creative Director: Piyush Pandey
Director: Anton Visser (Velocity Films)
Producer: Prenneven Govender
Production House: Tenacity Films (Velocity Films in S Africa)
Duration: 60 secs
Year: 2008
IDBI Bank’s commercial has a few boys playing football in a forest-like setting, when an elephant comes out of the thicket. Scared, the boys run away. It happens the second time too. But this time the big elephant steps aside and slowly draws out a little elephant, which then joins the boys in their games, while the parent watches on. IDBI was considered a big elephant lending to the big boys in the corporate world. But now retail is also a focus area for it. That is why the baby elephant. The bank has been gradually growing its network once it got into retail banking.
IDBI has been in the consumer banking segment for the last four years, and yet it is still known as the bank for large corporate. An immediate shift of perception was important in order to attract SME’s (Small and Medium Enterprises) as well as the regular savings bank customer. The aim behind IDBI Bank’s campaign is to show how the bank, which is known more as a bank specializing in lending to big corporates, is equally concerned about retail customers and is a serious player in the consumer or retail banking space. Hence, the tag line is ‘Not just for the big boys… banking for all’.
The repositioning exercise stays away from the involvement of celebrities as a natural setting and clear storyline makes it easier to relate to and more believable. The USP of the ad is the clear distinction of big and small highlighted through elephants and the target audience is crisply brought out by saying that the bank is now for the common man as well, but in a very light- hearted manner. The super which reads ‘Chhote Badey, Sabke Liye‘ clearly reaches out to the audience and gives out the message that IDBI is a friendly and far more accessible entity.
The biggest challenge of advertising for categories such as banking, finance and insurance is that it’s a parity product. The government ensures that no one can give the public more or less— so there is no product differentiator. Then, with so many brands in the fray, a brand needs good work to stand out. In the case of IDBI, the story of a friendship between this kid and an elephant provides a hook that is so different from other banks.
