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!

Owners acting as Celebrity endorsers for their own companies – Smart or Over Smart!

Most students of marketing remember what their teachers and advertising books have ingrained - "half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is; I don't know which half.".

This thought-provoking insight is credited to John Wanamaker (1838-1922), the department store magnate. 

Very true John Wanamaker, we all resonate and sympathize with you. You said it almost two hundred years ago and the chickens have come home to roost. 

chickens have come home to roost', means that the bad things that someone has done in the past have come back to bite or haunt the individual. The bad deeds that one may commit in one's lifetime are compared with chickens.

Most companies spend a lot of money on advertising and then lament the fact that it is not effective and after the over-spend and overkill, stop spending money on promotions, altogether - killing the messenger who brought in the bad news. 

The trigger for this post is JSR Group SUNCITY, a real estate company in Hyderabad that carpet-bombed the Telugu TV channels with its Vinayaka Chavithi greeting and beseeching prospective customers to buy its plots at the earliest. The celebrity endorser pitching for JSR SUN CITY is none other than the Managing Director, Dr. Jadapalli Narayana himself. 

This is where things become puzzling, we have heard of the 80-20 Principle popularly called Pareto's law. But most are ignorant of 85% -15%. 

The advertising professionals would have heard and practised it too! Out of the hundred rupees a company spends on advertising, 85% goes to the promotional media, and 15% goes to the advertising agency as advertising fees or the advertising commission. 

That is why advertising professionals are called 15% men. Let me hasten to add that 15% is not sacrosanct. Depending on the situation and the media, the percentage might go up or down. Still, generally, for print and broadcast media (television and radio) the 15% agency commission holds good. 

Some companies try to save money by short-charging the agencies by releasing the advertisements or advertisement campaigns themselves. This practice is not encouraged, and most reputed media houses refuse to accept advertisements directly from the companies. Still, in these changing times, this is practised in breach and not as an exception. 

The company can theoretically save 15% by releasing advertisements on its own or by setting up an in-house agency to save that 15% and make the campaign that much more cost-effective. 

Do you want to save 15% of hard-earned money on the promotional campaign and pat yourself on the back about being a shrewd businessman or would you ponder that for saving 15%, 85% of the rest of the promotional campaign cost has been compromised? 

What is more important - saving 15% cost or trying to make the 85% more productive and seeing that it brings in the needed awareness/attention and results! This tricky issue is what I want you to think and ponder over! 

Another way some company owners try to save money is by becoming celebrity endorsers themselves. Some do it to save money, and some do it for narcissistic reasons (the owners are in love with themselves). The reasoning is, that if celebrities appear in promotions and advertisements, why don't we become endorsers and hog all the limelight. 

The most famous founder who became a celebrity endorser for his own company is Colonel Sanders of KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken). Colonel Sanders's face still appears in the KFC logo. Such is his popularity! 

One of the first proponents of this theory in India was MDH spices Owner 'Mahashay Dharampal Gulati, who regularly appears in MDH advertisements, both in the print version and in Television commercials. No doubt MDH's products are popular, and the recall of the old man might be good. Is the recall good because of the repeated exposure, or is it because he is perceived as an old man who promotes the product? Is he seen as a patriarch, an expert cook/chef or an expert rooting for spices!  

The second owner who has become famous for promoting his own company is Mr. Kiran Kumar (Gundu garu) of Lalitha Jewellers. Most readers might argue that Mr. Kiran Kumar is well-known and recognizable, just like any celebrity. 

Is he popular on his own merit of using an owner–celebrity concept being a brilliant coup, or is it the tack of honesty and fair prices that have touched a chord among the viewers and readers? Mr. Kiran Kumar becoming a celebrity might be a by-product of a brilliant positioning strategy. 

Would an Allu Arjun, Anuksha or Ramya Krishna prove to be even more popular and bring in even more moolah? Celebrity endorsements work on the concept that they bring in immediate awareness and quick sales. Did Lalitha Jewellers miss a trick by spending money on popularising the celebrity "Mr Kiran Kumar"? A point for further research. 

In most cases, the promoters get influenced by their company's success and try to ride roughshod over the agencies. It does not matter whether the agency is an in-house agency or a regular agency. The promoters have the last laugh. After all, it is their money to blow! Most agencies succumb after some feeble attempt to dissuade the owners. They know which side of their bread is buttered! Once the agency is malleable, the owners have the whole field to themselves. 

The owners try to project themselves as celebrity endorsers and try out all things, including trying to be macho men. The owner promoters who come to mind immediately are Y. Rajeev Reddy and Mr Saravana of the Saravana group. 

Y. Rajeev Reddy, the owner of Country Club and Amrutha Castle poses in all sorts of photographs including paragliding and parasailing. He is indeed an all-rounder! 

Another owner convinced that he is the best endorser is the owner of the Saravana group, Mr. Saravana himself. 

Mr. Saravana is so convinced of his good looks and acting prowess that he is acting in a Tamil feature film. Talk of a part-time passion becoming a regular profession! Mr Padmasingh Isaac, the owner of Aachi Masala, also falls in the same mould. He regularly appears in print and television advertisements for Aachi Masala.   

Another owner who is very fond of appearing in his own promotional campaigns is Mr. Harikrishnan Vasanth Kumar of the Vasanth & Co electronics group, the largest retail home appliances chain in Tamil Nadu. 

Mr. Vasanth Kumar appears in all his store advertisements. Generally, electronic store advertisements are practical and feature products and unbelievable discounts on offer. Vasanth electronics advertisements are different. They all feature a beaming Vasanth clad in a three-piece suit. 

Most Tamilians might be familiar with the three-piece-clad Mr Vasanth appearing in the advertisements. A visitor to Chennai might be puzzled as to what the three-piece-wearing model is doing in an advertisement targeting lower-middle-class and middle-class customers. 

As illogical as Roger Binny appearing as a celebrity for a cigarette brand, No-1 in the eighties. Cricket lovers would have caught the mismatch. The number one bowler at that time was Kapil Dev and not Roger Binny. Cricket lovers remember Roger Binny for his exploits in the 1983 Prudential World Cup. The tag of number one was with Kapil Dev. Roger Binny and number one was "Yeh bhaat kuch hajam nahi hota (this point is somehow not digestible)". 

Interesting concept – Owners as celebrity endorsers, food for thought. (My profuse thanks to Dr Madhusudan Kota for helping me with the research part and suggesting many company owner's names and the relevant promotional campaigns). 

Saddam Hussein Vs Hyper Aadi, storm in a tea-cup or indication of a bigger Malaise?

Saddam Hussein and Hyper Aadi 

Before readers conclude that this is about politics, let me clarify. It is about two comedians who are on the rise in Telugu television. Saddam Hussein who became famous with Patas and who is right now doing skits in Zee TV’s Adirindi and Hyper Aadi a famous actor from the popular comedy show Jabardasth.

For all its warts and ugliness, there is no denying the massive popularity of Jabardasth. People scorn, ridicule and feign ignorance. Still, the TRP ratings and the views on Youtube.com prove that indeed Zabardasth is the ultimate comedy show. The content? Let us leave it at that! We get the comedy we deserve, touché!

Show business, especially movies and television are full of long struggles and uncertainty. The stars who made it big after going through struggles, pain, agony, despair, rejections, self-doubts, tribulations are scarred for life. 

Externally they exhibit the signs of success; fashionable clothes, flashy cars, dream houses, lavish lifestyles but internally battle a demon that eats their vitals – insecurity. 

Insecurity affects different people differently. Some become completely withdrawn like Sobhan Babu, the yesteryear Telugu hero who was a recluse once the day’s shoot got over, to party animals like many other actors who party as if the world will end the same night!

But most artistes turn inward and become narcissistic. They start believing that they are supreme and that they can't do anything wrong. This false sense of “I am the greatest” and severe belly gazing can lead to many complications. Sample what our famous Telugu comedians have done.

Brahmanandam, M.S.Narayana, Brahmaji, Gautham Raju, are all popular Telugu comedians who came up the ladder of success, the hard way. But that did not prevent them from launching their sons as heroes in a lavish manner. And Darwin’s theory kicked in – Survival of the fittest. Only the best of the species will survive, in any field. 

The star sons of the famous comedians could not rise up to the competition and have faded out ingloriously or still struggling to find a toe hold in the slippery and elusive Telugu film industry. Yes, many stars sons struggle on and on, for many years. 

But they have the blessings of their fathers, (famous heroes themselves), film producers, distributors, studio owners flush with money. These influential people in the film industry can sustain flop after flop and keep bombarding the audience with repeated films.

With repetitiveness and with familiarity grown with repeated exposure, some of these average actors too survive and are accepted in the film industry. 

But the famous Telugu comedians are not that lucky. They produce a film or two with their sons and then retire licking their wounds and repenting in private. What strikes me as most puzzling is their attitude. When they have come up the hard way, why is that they expect that their children will have it smooth and easy?

I think it is the inherent weakness of the system. Most comedians who came up the hard way are excellent actors and are seasoned like good wine. They see average, mediocre and not very good looking heroes who stammer, struggle and are unable to emote. Many a time, it is the comedians who walk away with the applause and get the appreciation from the filmgoers. 

Check Youtube.com. The comedy actor’s film clippings are more popular than those of the film heroes themselves. And in many cases, the most popular heroes' film clips have the comedians acting alongside. This popularity breeds overconfidence, an inflated ego and a feeling that ‘I am invincible”. Allured by this sense of invincibility the comedians launch their sons irrespective of their looks, acting skills or passion into the world of films and burn their hands and lose their hard-earned money and reputation.

Raghu Babu  

Rao Ramesh

There are a couple of exceptions. Giri Babu’s son Raghu Babu and Rao Gopala Rao’s son Rao Ramesh have succeeded. But the differences are glaring. Both of them are not film heroes, and their fathers have not launched them. They came up the hard way and the grind shows. The hard reality is, the road to the top is only through a struggle. 

Yes, the star sons might have a smooth launch, but to sustain the same momentum the grind is unforgiving and equally harsh. So what is needed is to live in the present, be humble and reinvent to remain relevant. One actor who has failed to reinvent and stagnated is Ravi Teja. His antics and loud acting is not cutting any ice with the millennials. They have moved on. This generation is a Vijay Devarakonda generation, and Ravi Teja is blissfully living in the past.

Coming back to the topic, it is reported that Saddam Hussein in an interview has said that his skits on ‘Adirindi’ are viral and that his skits have more views on the YouTube than the skits of Hyper Aadi from Jabardasth. This became a hot topic and the gleeful private YouTube channels have picked the skirmish and turned it into a full-blown confrontation. Saddam vs Hyper Aadi.

Surprisingly both Saddam and Aadi come from humble backgrounds. Both of them are hardworking and should have brushed the matter aside as a minor irritant. But the usually staid and withdrawn Aadi swallowed the bait and jumped into the battle.

In an interview, Aadi reacted angrily to the statement that his skits are less popular than Saddam’s. Aadi contends that Saddam's skits get only 4 to 5 million views whereas his skits garner views of more than 10 million. He goes on to add that one of his skits has garnered a viewership of 50 million, a whopping five crore views.

Narsimha Raju 

Vadi Velu 

This brushed ego is what leads to trouble. Similar egos that have wreaked havoc of many promising careers. Comedian Srilakshmi’s father Amarnath was a good looking Telugu film hero. He spoilt his career by commenting about the famous Telugu duo N.T. Rama Rao and A. Nageshwara Rao who did not take kindly to his comments. And his downfall started from that point. Star Comedian Vadi Velu (Tamil) also faced the same fate due to his remarks about Rajanikanth. Another Telugu hero who suffered the same fate was Narasimha Raju whose comments about the reining Telugu film heroes effectively finished his fledgeling film career.  

So what is the reality? Youtube.com gives statistics on the views. Aadi’s claim that his skits are popular than Saddam’s are valid. Aadi’s skits have been on YouTube for 4 to 5 years. In contrast, Saddam Hussein’s skits from Adirindi are on YouTube only for a few weeks. It is unfair to compare an apple with an orange. Let us compare oranges with oranges. So a comparison has been made between Aadi’s skits and Saddam’s skits over the same period. That is, the skits from the same duration have been compared, and the analysis has been presented in the table below

Table 1

Saddam Hussein Vs Hyper Aadi (YouTube Views for the last Nine weeks*)

Week	Saddam’s Episode telecast date	Total number of views on youTube.com	week	Hyper Aadi’s Episode telecast date	Total number of views on youTube.com
1	19th January  2020	8.5 Million (1)	1	23rd January  2020	3.7
2	26th January  2020	4.5 Million	2	30th January  2020	5.2 (1)
3	2nd February  2020	6.2 Million	3	6th February  2020	7.0 (2)
4	9th February  2020	5.1 Million	4	13th February  2020	5.1 (Tie)
5	16th February  2020	5.0 Million (2)	5	20th February  2020	4.9
6	23rd February  2020	4.6 Million (3)	6	27th February  2020	3.5
7	1st March 2020	5.6 Million (4)	7	5th March 2020	2.2
8	8th March 2020	5.4 Million (5)	8	12th march 2020	3.6
9	15th March 2020	5.1 Million (6)	9	19th march 2020	3.0
	Total Views	50 Million		Total Views	38.2 Million
	Average views per episode	5.56 Million		Average views per episode	4.24 Million

(*Views as on 1100 hours of 26th March 2020. As Adirindi is telecast on Sunday and Jabardasth on Thursday, the Jabardasth episode nearest to Adirindi that is the next Thursday is taken into consideration. Yes, there is a clear window of four days for viewers to watch the latest of Adirindi before they watch the latest Jabardasth show. Still, as the shows are telecast on different dates, this anomaly can’t be avoided).

Analysis: What Saddam Hussein is claiming is correct. He scores better than Hyper Aadi in 6 out of 9 weeks. Aadi scores more than Saddam in only two weeks that is week two and week 3. Week 4 is a tie between Saddam and Aadi with both sharing the honours at 5.1 million views each.

But after the tie in week four, Saddam steadily pulls away with a lead of 1,00,000 views in week 5, increases it to 2.5 million in week 6, 4.8 million in week 7, 4.4 million in week 8 and 6 million in week 9. The numbers don’t lie! On average, 1.32 million more people watch Saddam Hussein’s skits.  

The momentum is with Saddam Hussein and like Psephogists (election predictors) say, the winner takes it all. In the last week that is week nine, Saddam scores three times as many views as Aadi. Hyper Aadi, the writing is on the wall. There is a worthy competitor, and he is slowly but surely occupying your space. It is undeniable. Shape out or ship out!