Missing - a Misleading advertisement

 

My Student's Query

Good afternoon Sir, I have seen this pic on Instagram. Sir is this legal to advertise like this?

Me: Interesting advertisement, if you complain about this ad in ASCI ( Advertising Standards Council of India) and many others like you, me, and us complain it can get banned. Personally, I think The ad is in bad taste and has a very glaring spelling mistake "beautiful".

The USP of the product is not clear and the worst part is the brand name is mentioned in a very small print.

The only way this ad can get famous is for the reason that you have posted "for the wrong reasons".

Remember one howler from a fashion saloon in Bowenpally. It was seductively titled "trigger my passion' making it almost an Axe type of ad.

What did Charvi the fashion shop meant "Trigger my fashion!"

All in all, good observation.

Misleading ad and designed by the company itself and it directly advertised in the newspaper.

This is unethical and the newspaper concerned is not following standard media practices.

Conversation between Me and Sai Matam

Sai Matam: This Q and A would have taught your student than any textbook alone. The real education is to think and apply what you learned!

Dr. M. Anil Ramesh: Yes true, happy to say now at least 10 students do it now in my class!

Dr. M. Anil Ramesh: Out of 126 but it is still a start. A journey of 1000 miles starts with a single step!

Sai Matam: This is an education in the truest sense. You are teaching them to fish

Sai Matam: Common sense is not so common. You can only hope to reach a certain portion of your students. 10% is great.

Sai Matam: Also, your students come from all over - not IIM + where 'A' students are the norm.

Dr. M. Anil Ramesh: Yes, it is like being hit in solar Plexus. They struggled when I used the term the company's profits went southwards. I was quoting a western author!

Sai Matam: Poor reading habits and poor vocabulary

Sai Matam: You have plenty of challenges

Dr. M. Anil Ramesh: Yes

End of conversation

Dirty fight in Beauty business – Everything is Fair (pun intended) in love, war and Business!

I keep telling my students, ad nauseam “business is a war and it is a war without bullets”. Companies want to get business come what may and will use any reason, means, or method to protect their market share. They will fiercely defend themselves against any upstarts who threaten them and their holy grail – market share and profitability. 

Hindustan Unilever has changed the name of its popular “Fair and lovely” brand name to “Glow and Lovely”. So from now onwards Fair and Lovely will become Glow and Lovely and HUL feels that all the damage control has been done and that it has played a stellar role in defending and promoting the ‘black lives matter’ campaign. 

In reality HUL is only trying to minimize the effect of a possible negative backlash and does not want to be accused of racial discrimination. HUL definitely doesn’t want a tag that it popularizes a racial stereotype of beauty being associated with fair skin.  

But the ploy is not convincing HUL! Fair and lovely, Oops Glow and Lovely is a product that has become popular on the assumption that fair is beautiful and dark is ugly. After fuelling the insecurities of crores of customers and reaping rich dividend HUL simply can’t wish the problem away.

The elephant in the room is big, violent, and quite unruly. It simply can’t be silenced with a cosmetic name change. Just by saying Glow and Lovely will not suffice HUL! End of the day call it Fair and Lovely or Glow and Lovey it is finally a skin whitening cream!

The brand’s USP is based on skin whitening promise. Will the Indian consumer believe that glowing is loveliness? The problem does not end here for HUL. Would HUL promote dark skin and go into the conditioning business? If Indians get comfortable with their skin colour, there is no need for Glow and Lovely!

We are already dark and dusky we might not need HUL’s Glow and lovely to make us glow! A clean bath with good old Liril and a vigorous dab of good old talcum powder might suffice.

The problems don’t seem to end for HUL. They have renamed the men’s range of Fair and Lovely as Glow and Handsome and this tactic did not go well with HUL’s rival Emami. Emami with wisdom has already changed its Fair and Handsome brand’s (Emami’s skin whitening cream targeting men) name as Emami Glow and Handsome but have not yet introduced the same into the market. 

When HUL changed the name of its men’s Fair and Lovely to Glow and Handsome, Emami naturally is upset. Glow and Handsome will clash with Emami's Fair and Handsome and similar-sounding names could create confusion in the minds of the consumers. Emami is worried that the confusion in similar names could result in HUL walking away, a winner courtesy its more powerful and comprehensive distribution network.

The distribution muscle of HUL could cannibalize the market and eat into Emami’s market share and upset Emami’s apple cart in men’s skin whitening business. A business where Emami has been a prime mover and a market leader.

HUL has taken Emami to the court of law and contents that it has the right to use the name Glow and handsome and that it has registered the name a long time ago. HUL argues that it has already launched Glow and Handsome and that Emami is only in the testing stage and that it has not formally launched the product. The skirmishes have started and watch this space for more action.

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!