Red Label Tea’s Advertisement: Same Old Stereotypes in New Packaging

Brooke Bond Red Label Tea's latest advertisement attempts to promote its "five Ayurvedic herbs" proposition through a humorous neighbourhood setting. A young woman moves into a new apartment and three elderly men, one after another, approach her with forwarded WhatsApp remedies involving Ashwagandha, Tulsi and honey. Finally, an elderly woman enters the scene, smiles, and offers a cup of Red Label Tea with five Ayurvedic herbs. Everyone laughs and harmony is restored.

However, the advertisement is disturbing at several levels. The three elderly men are portrayed in a manner that makes them appear intrusive rather than caring. Their body language and tone make the interaction seem awkward and somewhat ridiculous. Instead of appearing paternal or neighbourly, they come across as caricatures. One also wonders how they managed to get the young woman's WhatsApp number in the first place, a question the ad conveniently ignores.

Watching the commercial reminded me of the 1982 Hindi film Shaukeen, where three ageing men, played by Ashok Kumar, Utpal Dutt and A.K. Hangal, become infatuated with a much younger woman portrayed by Rati Agnihotri. Forty-four years later, have we really moved beyond such stereotypes?

Perhaps the ad's creators intended harmless humour. Yet, once again, the woman becomes the object around which male attention revolves. Even the elderly woman in the advertisement appears to endorse the behaviour rather than question it.

A gender reversal might have made the idea more interesting. Imagine three elderly women fussing over a young male tenant with forwarded health tips. Would our supposedly progressive society accept it? Probably not. The double standards are evident.

Ironically, the "forwarding" angle itself reflects a stereotype. Many people associate elderly WhatsApp users with endless forwards, jokes and health remedies. Rather than challenging clichés, the advertisement merely updates old stereotypes with a digital twist.

Advertising is at its best when it surprises us with fresh insights. Recycling dated stereotypes  and wrapping them in contemporary settings may generate a smile, but it hardly represents creative progress. Come on, advertising. Wake up and serve us some truly new ideas.

Keywords: Red Label Tea ad, Brooke Bond Red Label advertisement, controversial ads India, gender stereotypes in advertising, WhatsApp forwards, Shaukeen movie reference, objectification in ads, marketing critique

#RedLabelTea #BrookeBondRedLabel #RedLabel #TeaAdvertising #IndianAdvertising #AdCritique #MarketingMusings #BrandCommunication #ConsumerBehaviour #GenderStereotypes #AdvertisingInsights #CreativeStrategy #WhatsAppCulture #AyurvedicTea #BrandStorytelling #MarketingThoughts #AdReview #AdvertisingTrends #SocialCommentary #TeaBrands

KKR or RR, the sponsor shadows the team! A case study of Brand Confusion!

Featured is the jersey of Rajasthan Royals. But no… look again. It’s actually the jersey of Kolkata Knight Riders. And yet, what hits you first? RR. Loud. Clear. Unmissable. That’s the point. In a high-speed, attention-deficit environment like the IPL, people don’t read they recognize. And recognition is built on shortcuts. In cricketing shorthand, RR = Rajasthan Royals. No second thoughts. No decoding required.

 Now enter this jersey. KKR walks in wearing its iconic purple. The crest is there. The identity exists. But right at the top, dominating visual attention, sits “RR” courtesy of sponsor RR Kabel. To the casual viewer, the brain doesn’t process sponsorship hierarchies or brand ownership. It simply maps what it already knows. And what it knows is this: RR belongs to Rajasthan Royals.

A sponsor has unintentionally hijacked a team’s mental space. From RR Kabel’s point of view, this is brilliant. Their brand is front and prominent, bold and memorable. In fact, they’re benefiting from an existing IPL association without paying for that specific team identity. That’s not just visibility that’s cognitive leverage.

What about KKR? Somewhere between sponsorship revenue and jersey design approvals, a basic question was missed: What will the viewer actually see in 2 seconds on screen? This is not a design problem. It’s not even a marketing problem.

This is a product thinking failure. Because a jersey is not fabric. It is a product of identity. And identity operates on:

• Visual hierarchy
• Instant recall
• Cognitive clarity

When those are compromised, the product fails—no matter how strong the sponsorship deal is. This is where large organizations often slip. Decisions happen in silos. Sponsorship teams chase revenue. Branding teams focus on aesthetics. Execution teams ensure delivery. But very few step back and ask:

 “Does this make sense to the consumer?” Common sense says: Don’t let another team’s identity dominate yours on your own jersey. But common sense, as always, is not common. And that’s the lesson.

In Marketing and  in life, If your core identity is overshadowed by what surrounds it, you may have optimized for visibility… but you’ve lost ownership. And once identity is diluted, recall follows.

Keywords: Product Management blog, brand identity in sports, IPL marketing strategy, sponsorship branding mistakes, consumer perception marketing, visual branding errors, KKR jersey analysis, Rajasthan Royals branding, sports marketing case study, brand recall psychology, logo visibility impact, marketing insights IPL

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Vespa Scooter - Positioning Strategy

                                           Vespa Scooter The Ultimate in Positioning

What does Vespa mean in Italian? Most students don’t give the correct answer. Vespa in Italian means a wasp. An insect that can string and get away fast.

That was what the original Vespa was, a nippy beast that aimed and ruled the world of scooters. Made by the Iconic Piaggio & Company Vespa the scooter was elegant and designed as a unisex transport option for men and women. The dead giveaway is the design that allows women especially women who wear skirts and sarees to easily mount the vehicle and drive it.

The brand started to popularize itself as a style icon after Audrey Hepburn side saddled Gregory Pecks Vespa in the movie Roman Holiday. This resulted in catapulting the sales to over 1,00,000 in that year.

So, the initial ads had mostly women proclaiming their allegiance and singing paeons of glory about its ease of usage. Later it slowly started showing both men and women using it with the positioning tack being a twosome vehicle. Later on, it became a family vehicle.

When Vespa was introduced in India Bajaj faced a peculiar problem. Not many women rode scooters (in fact in the initial stages women were not driving any mechanical contraption except the bicycle).

Bajaj quickly changed tracks and projected Bajaj as the ultimate vehicle for the “Indian Man”. The motorcycle was for the rugged Indian and the Bajaj Vespa was the sophisticated urban equivalent driven by the man of the house and the wide and children demurely sat behind him.

The promotion was so spot on that Indian men took the persuasion seriously to the heart. And the product supported their beliefs. Bajaj Vespa was heavy, quite cumbersome, had unwieldy gears and it was not easy to master. And the master stroke. Bajaj scooter must be bent and shaken vigorously everyday morning for it to start. Something that only the akkada trained female wrestlers’ Indian women wrestlers could attempt. It was not for normal women. 

Thus, the unisex positioning was completely abandoned. First, it was Kinetic Honda that took the position and in later years it was Hero Activa that completely dominated this mind space. 

Today the unisex choice for scooters is firmly the Hero Activa and in that category, Bajaj has no product offering either in the male scooter category or in the unisex category.

Of course, Bajaj Chetak is trying to come back in an electric version and it remains to see if its ploy succeeds. 

Watchman advertisement of Star sports for Dream 11, IPL 2020, glamorizing poverty?

 

The latest advertisement for Star Sports is puzzling, to say the least. I sympathize with Star Sports for all its tension about the conduct of IPL and the delay but the latest advertisement seems to have been executed in haste.

The advertisement features a watchman of an apartment block. He is shown being ill-treated by the residents. Why? No one knows! The watchman is shown talking to his family on his mobile. He tells them, “It is five months since I have seen you and it is not possible for me to come”. The Covid-19 pandemic is suddenly brought into the picture.

A good Samaritan notices all this and arranges for a Star Sports connection, LED projector and a set of speakers for the watchman, Mr. Alok. Alok is about to have his meagre dinner and the entire apartment block suddenly is abuzz with activity. The residents have suddenly become very friendly and start screaming “Alok, Alok”.

Alok watches the Dream 11, IPL 2020 on his newly gifted entertainment set and thanks the apartment block owners with profuse tears in his eyes. How very filmy! And how very crass! 

Poverty is a harsh reality and we need to respect it and it should not be used to create an unnatural feeling of bonhomie and try to score cute advertising points! The advertisement is as refreshing as yesterday's morning coffee, warmed and served hot albeit with sparkling eyes!  

It looks as if Star Sports is making fun of the poor watchman. Why don’t we understand the person, the poor watchman? Is it worth spending 20 to 25 thousand rupees just to promote a vulgarly dressed up commercial product? Would it not have been better to give the watchman the money collected? He might have bigger problems to solve and watching cricket might be the last thing in his priorities.

Come on Star Sports, have a life. We know that cricket is fun but it is not the only thing in life. And the internal bickering is on. Ten sports which is telecasting the England Vs Australia is already proclaiming that its series “England vs Australia is the asli (real) thing” and hinting that IPL is just pyjama cricket. Pyjama cricket was what puritans referred to the cricket series started by Kerry Packer. The world series started by Kerry Packer later led to the popularity of ODI cricket which later gave birth to the T20 cricket!