Print Media is dead - Nope - It is alive and kicking - Next level Flipkart interactive Rubbable first page ad in THE HINDUSTAN TIMES

Print, they say, is dead. They snicker, "Who reads newspapers?" Reading is so boring, man. Everyone seems to be on the digital gravy train. Everything is online, including a country - Tuvalu. Tuvalu is furiously trying to become the first virtual online country. 

But popular beliefs, myths, and hearsay have no standing in real life. The Indian Newspaper Society (INS), the central organization of newspapers and periodicals in the country, said its member publications recorded an 11% rise in ad revenue for calendar 2023 at ₹16,472.40 crore, compared to ₹14,892.34 crore in 2022. 

Print is still a big draw, and its primary advantage is its credibility. Readers still believe in the printed word, and somewhere there is a grudging admiration for journalists and the editorial fairness and impartiality. Newspapers are still respected, and people working there are seen as part of a trained professional team. 

This is in stark contrast with the Wild West of social media, where anyone can be a digital creator. All one needs is a mobile phone. There is no training, qualifications, degrees, or communication skills needed, and best of all, no editing and censorship. One can do as one feels. The first page of a newspaper still has an irresistible appeal and still grabs instant attention. 

Headlines always make news, and they stay as headlines for a day, unlike digital media, where headlines can change in a matter of minutes. It was refreshing to see Flipkart and The Hindustan Times try out a new innovative print media advertising campaign. 

Last Sunday Hindustan Times newspaper readers woke up to an intriguing headline. The front page had a picture in which the milk was splashed liberally. The headline said, "Doodh ka Doodh aur Paani ka Paani Ho Jayega (meaning don't worry; everything will be as clear as clear water)”. 

The Advertisement also said, "Rub some water on the split milk and see what happens"! On rubbing or wiping the split milk with water or with a soft tissue, the message magically appeared: "Flipkart MINUTES—Everything in minutes, Toh Tension Mat lo. Khyunki Sab 10 minutes mey Replace ho jayeega (don't take tension; everything will be replaced within ten minutes)". 

The pitch was for the super-fast 10-minute delivery service from Flipkart. It was a wonderful attempt by all three parties: Flipkart, its advertising agency, and the Hindustan Times. They hit a bull's eye, garnered huge eyeballs and curiosity, and created a buzz on social media. It was a very innovative and creative interactive print advertisement that stays in the mind.

Thunder Strikes again - A perfect Match between Thums Up and Allu Arjun's Pushpa's 2!!!

“Thunder striking soon,” the latest campaign of Thums Up, has a twist. One needs to see it twice to understand what it is conveying. Show it to a Caucasian American, and he would be nonplussed. He would understand it as a promo, but it would not make any sense to him.

But for Indians and Indians throughout the world, it makes perfect sense. Thums Up has partnered with Allu Arjun; the Thums Up teaser is for the much-awaited movie Pushpa 2.

Does it make sense? You bet it does. For Allu Arjun, who is endorsing Thums Up, it is free publicity for his movie. For Thums Up, the teaser gets tremendous eyeballs, and the image that Allu Arjun portrays in the movie matches the positioning tack that Thums Up has consistently used.

The positioning is that of a macho man who wants the strongest cola in the market. And even better if that strong man borders on the line between lawfulness and lawlessness. That is Sona Pe Suhaga (That is the icing on the cake). The present generation wants to be a rebel—with a cause or without. A perfect marriage between the brand, its positioning, the brand ambassador, his on-screen image, and movie promotion.

Common Sense is not common, Thums Up Should have done this 30 years ago.

Common sense is not common. This we Hyderabadis knew for generations. So much so that Coca-Cola had five zones, North, South, East West and, Hyderabad. 

After a heavy Biryani nothing like a nice "Thanda Toofan". It is not a cool drink it is Tumps Up. Pity that Ramesh Chauhan sold the brand to CocaCòla. It would have given a run for the money both for Coke and Pepsi. 

The point is why wait for so long. This ad should have been released twenty years ago.

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. 

peyTM - Sweat Pants - Fake products that imitate famous brands - Any thing goes!

Very interesting, one of my colleagues is wearing trousers with the brand name Peytm. Classic case of fake/Spurious brands that imitate famous brands and the audacity of Indian manufacturers to get away with such practices! 

The funniest part is that Paytm is an E-wallet company and is not a clothing brand. But in a world full of clutter, Paytm is a clutter cutter and it has a huge recall. And there are enough predatory vultures to take care of any opportunity to get a free promotional ride.

Comments: 

Raghavendra Raghavender Matam: And it's Sweat too!

Anil Ramesh: PeyTm sweat is copycat's sugar syrup, Raghavendra Raghavender Matam!

Vijay Arjun Veeravalli: But Did he buy checking the brand name on that. I don't think so.

Sharma Ji Ka Samosa - Eat it and have a instant Orgasm - strange product Promotion

East was always mysterious and especially India was known as the land of Kamasutra. This is being encashed by a Swiss restaurant that is selling "Sharma Ji ka Samosa" which is promising a (mental) Orgasm. The cost is 780/- rupees.

Akshay Kumar goes back on Vimal Pan Masala ad campaign - Surrogate Advertising!

 April 21st 

Classic case of having the cake and eating it too. 

What Bloody Hypocrisy! First, the 50+ actor endorses the tobacco-based product ("I don't know that it has tobacco!?"). 

Then his fans howl in protest and to avoid the backlash pesto says that he will withdraw and will not endorse any such products in the future.

He also says that the endorsement money will be given for a "WORTHY CAUSE". 

At the bottom of the same post, it says the brand will continue to air the advertisement.

When will we realize that our reel heroes are not real heroes? They have feet of clay that will melt at the first instance.

Comments: 

Niketha Nigam: The product doesn't have tobacco but this brand majorly deals in pan masala products. They are just doing surrogate advertising. Casting 3 top most expensive actors for selling elaichi 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Raj Sampat: I m doing business of Vimal pan masala, first of all Vimal is not tobacco, so cut out miss confession of the product...

Anil Ramesh: Surrogate advertising Raj Sampat like Niketa Nigam said. Surrogate advertising itself is a dubious way of promoting a product.

Raj Sampat: Anil Ramesh on the packet itself they have written pan masala

Anil Ramesh: Raj Sampat, check this out.

When former James Bond star Pierce Brosnan faced flak last year for appearing in an advertisement for Pan Bahar, a mouth freshener, a spokesperson for the manufacturer argued that the outrage was the result of “public misconception” since he explained, the company didn’t “produce either gutka or pan masala.”

Ashok and Co, the company that produces Pan Bahar, does manufacture pan masala. It only doesn’t add tobacco to the sachet, because state governments started banning all food products containing tobacco after new regulations were framed in this regard in 2011.

While it is true that the actor was only endorsing a mouth freshener, the ‘misconception’, seems to be less a fault of the public and more a deliberate strategy by companies like Ashok and Co, who use tobacco-less products to market and sell tobacco products. Welcome to the world of surrogate advertisements – where the product being advertised is only a front for selling another product, usually a banned one.

Those manufacturing smokeless tobacco products have been resorting to this strategy for a long time now. So when you see Ajay Devgn promoting Vimal Pan Masala or Priyanka Chopra promoting Rajnigandha Pearls, both of which don’t have tobacco or nicotine, you must understand that they are not just selling pearls, they are selling something else too – a brand name that’s also associated with tobacco-containing products. It is a strategy used by most companies, done with the aim to sidestep laws that restrict the manufacture, sale, and advertising of these products.

In 2003, for example, the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA) banned all direct or indirect advertisements of any tobacco products, except at the point of sale, storage, or manufacturing. A study conducted soon after found that the “annual cost of advertisement of plain Pan Parag on two television channels alone is 3.8 times its annual sale value.”

Were they running the company into loss then? Not really, if the tobacco-containing Pan Parag made up for the remaining expenses on advertising on Pan Parag and generated profits on top of that. “This indicates that the Pan Parag pan masala advertisements are a surrogate for the tobacco product (gutka) the company manufactures under the same brand name,” the researchers had to conclude in the study, which gave sufficient leeway to the company.

What seems to have come to the aid of manufacturers is another law that has really helped them sidestep the previously stated laws. The amended cable television network rules allow the usage of the brand name and logo of a tobacco product, subject to a few conditions, provided the product being sold does not contain tobacco. This has been used ingeniously by the manufacturers of the tobacco-containing pan masala or gutkha.

For instance, according to its own website, the pan masala Ashok and Co manufacturers went through three phases – selling pan masala without tobacco until 1988, then with tobacco, and after 2011, again without tobacco. However, the brand names for the pan masala — ‘Begum’, ‘Natkhat’, ‘Wah’, and ‘Dilruba’ — continued to be the same.

If the manufacturer could get the brand name stuck in the consumers’ minds, at a shop, they only had to choose whether the pan masala they wanted was with or without tobacco. If they chose a pan masala with tobacco, the nicotine in it would do the rest of the trick. Even if they were driven to the shop to buy a tobaccoless product, advertising tobacco at the shop itself wasn’t banned. The manufacturers had ensured that advertisements continued to reach consumers. But the Food Safety and Standards (Prohibition & Restrictions on Sales) Regulations, 2011, banned any food products containing tobacco and nicotine from markets, effectively banning even the production of tobacco-containing pan masala and gutkha. Any allegations, as the spokesperson for Ashok and Co would say, of surrogate advertisements would be meaningless if manufacturers couldn’t make the product that they are accused of surreptitiously marketing. Except, just like manufacturers found a way to work around the 2003 ban on advertisements, they have found a way to circumvent the 2011 manufacturing ban.

Only about a fortnight before Brosnan landed in the Pan Bahar controversy, the Supreme Court had revisited a submission by the health ministry that explained how the 2011 regulations were being flouted. The ministry had informed the court that “manufacturers are selling pan masala (without tobacco) with flavoured chewing tobacco in separate sachets”, which are often “sold together by the same vendors from the same premises.”

The spokesperson for Ashok & Co had told the BBC at the time of the controversy that they had chosen Brosnan because he is “suave, cool and a master-blender.” There couldn’t a better PR statement. The pan masala manufacturers’ plan of selling twin gutkha packs to be mixed as one, and advertising it through a tobaccoless product of the same brand name, requires a lot of mix-up or mixing. It is a master blender of a plan.

These surrogate advertisements too are then a health risk because every fifth adult uses smokeless tobacco in India, and perhaps more are gravitating towards it due to celebrity endorsement. A WHO monograph in fact argues that more than half of oral cancers are caused by smokeless tobacco. The clandestine production and sale of these products is something that perhaps only the government can stop – a process that for now is being gradually pushed forward through litigation and might need rules that are framed in a better manner. However, that this process does happen is something a casual visit to your local cigarette and paan shop will easily reveal.

If celebrities still endorse these products, it shows that they don’t mind being part of this cunning and dangerous trade. They can’t plead ignorance. Brosnan at least took a stand against Ashok and Co after facing criticism, but that didn’t stop the company from using the advertisement. When the Delhi government wrote to a bunch of actors that today participate in such surrogate advertising of smokeless tobacco, only Sunny Leone cared to reply and agreed to not endorse the products. For others, a little moolah is all it takes to endanger lives.

Deepesh Agarwal: I believe one can’t undermine the power of a binding contract I believe sir (the actual reason why the ad won’t be taken down). I am not sure what he was thinking “ok I’ll endorse Vimal elaichi (not a to tobacco) and the public won’t notice the pseudo marketing”? I am mean grow up Akshay as I am not sure what you were thinking that Indian citizens are so innocent that they won’t realize what you are really trying to do here? It doesn’t matter if it is elaichi and not tobacco. At the end, the true test is how the advertisement is perceived by the general public. At least Ajay Devgan (still not a great example though) endorses Vimal knowing fully well the reputational risks (a lot of memes are already there) unlike this double standard and hypocrite guy!

Finding money on the Street - Plain lucky or is there a twist in the tail?

April 14th 

There are reports in the media that people are finding money thrown on the roads of Hyderabad. 

Most rush in to collect Rs 2000, Rs 500, and Rs 100/- bills. On examination, the currency proves to be worthless. They are simply a snare to pull in people. It is a marketing gimmick. 

My two-bits: 

1) Bit one, can a currency of a country even if it is not real currency be thrown on the roads so callously?   It somehow does not appear to be right. And what if there is a stampede thinking it is real money, who is responsible?

2) Bit two, what about the possibility of accidents in the melee to pick up notes? What about the traffic jams it can cause?

Appears to be a brilliant marketing coup at the first instance but shows desperateness!

Brilliant TATA Punch Kaziranga series Ad campaign - Right on the Button

In contrast to what CRED did, the campaign of TATA is brilliant. 

TATA unveiled their new car "TATA Punch Kaziranga series" during IPL 2022.  

The campaign has a TATA Punch display in all the stadiums where the IPL matches are played. 

A hoarding shaped like a rhinoceros emerges from the car. 

Any batsman hitting the car or the hoarding featuring the rhinoceros directly and TATA would donate Rs 5,00,000/- to the Kaziranga National park. 

Why Kaziranga? It is the home of the famous Indian one-horned Rhinoceros.

Way to go TATA, brilliant thought process! 

Heart attack Grill – Anti- Marketing at its best!

 

In the world that we live in everything is available on a tap. Information is so much in excess that people are jaded and experiences are no longer treasured. Attention spans are incredibly low and are down to 8 seconds for the Generation Z.

 

So, what should a marketer do? Normal Marketing will not work. What customers want is a shock, that too a 1000-volt shock, that should jolt them, almost to death!

 

Almost on cue we have Heart attack Grill, a restaurant from Los Vegas, USA. Jon Basso the owner has created a controversy and built a restaurant around and named it Heart attack Grill. Savour some of the unusual things that happen at Heart Attack Grill that would pop our eye-balls out of their sockets,

 

1)          Name itself a big shocker Heart Attack Grill – Challenges the customers!

 

2)     The normal offering is a 9,982 Quadruple Bypass burger (almost 4 days calorie requirement for an average man) and French fries cooked in fat, Jon Basso himself says "Don't come here every day of the week; it'll kill you,'" How many owners dare say “don’t come every day to my business/shop””.

3)         The Owner calls himself a doctor, all male employees are called doctors and all female employees are called nurses who dress seductively and appear to be girls out of an adult magazine. The restaurant ambience is that of an hospital!

4)            All the customers have to wear a hospital gown before they start eating food. 

5)            Customers are called patients.

6)            The nurses are loved and are a huge attraction for the customers.

 

7)            Any one not finishing the food is spanked on the back side with a wooden paddle by the “nurses”.

8)       Payments are strictly cash only. (What is the guarantee that the customer would survive the meal. What if he/she dies before the cheque is realized).

 

9)       Patrons weighing more than 350 pounds (160 kgs) eat free! They have to stand on a weighing scale that flashes their weight on a huge screen!

 

10)       Heart Attack Grill’s tag line is "taste worth dying for," 

 

11)    Nothing healthy is allowed, no lettuce on the Grill's burgers. No Diet Coke, only full-sugared soda is sold.

 

12)    The nurses wheel out "patients" who are able to down a Quadruple Bypass Burger to their car in a wheelchair.

 

13)        Diners find themselves surrounded by posters that glorify obesity.

 

14)        An oversized pill bottle dangles above the bar where the “doctor” mixes drinks and pours beer.

 

15)     Their biggest, the octuple bypass burger, has 19,900 calories (almost 10 days calorie requirement for an average man) and contains nearly four pounds of fat -filled meat.

 

16)        Full bottles of wine are served in IV bags, 3.4-ounce shots in pill bottles, and Jello shots in syringes.

 

17)     Two people considered to be spokespeople of the restaurant died due to obesity-related conditions. The first, Blair River, died at the age of 29 in 2011 after a bout with the flu that had become fatal due to his obesity. River is still pictured in many of the restaurant’s advertisements and décor.

 

18)      A second spokesperson, John Alleman died at 52 in 2013 after suffering a heart attack on the premises itself. He ate at the restaurant every day,

 

19)        The ashes of John Alleman and his ashes sit atop the bar, on display.

20)      I am speech less. People are craving for experiences that is out of the world and they are ready to do anything to have that experience including risking their own life whether it is eating at Heart Attack grill or trying out a dish of FUGU fish (a dish that is so dangerous that, one has to sign a document of release before sampling it). Every year more than 100 people die eating the deadly Fugu fish!

The Cloak and Dagger world of OTT platforms!

 

Picture Credit https://pixabay.com/photos/secret-top-stamp-spy-army-3037639/

 

Covid-19 pandemic has triggered the OTT wave in India. What was a trickle, turned into a flood and later into a raging tornado. The OTT penetration which was first thought of and dismissed as an urban city phenomenon took the country by storm. 

OTT has become all-encompassing and threatens the very existence of a deep-rooted film distribution and viewing industry that includes the omnipresent cinema halls or theatres. Many theatres are shutting down and especially single screens will soon be like the Indian tiger, a fast-disappearing species unless special protection status is accorded!

The OTT platforms boost a surfeit of content. The major OTT platforms like NETFLIX, AMAZON PRIME, Disney Hotstar, Sony LIV, ZEE 5, AHA, and many others have so much content that it is mind-boggling and even mind numbing. The content is so much that no viewer can watch even 10% of it, even if he/she were to watch it for the entire day.

Apart from the surfeit of content, no one knows exactly how the OTT platforms operate. Figures of hundreds of crores of rupees are thrown about for getting a movie onboard but no one knows for sure.

There are whispers that most movies are on the platform on a free basis and that the moviemakers are paid according to the number of views just like KDP (Kindle Direct Publish) where the authors get paid according to the number of page reads!

Unlike the movies that are released in theatres, aired by satellite channels, or through YouTube no one knows exactly how many have actually viewed a movie. The only indicator is the IMDB ratings that a movie generates. And with the huge Indian population, IMDB rating can be skewed and can be boosted by encouraging the viewers to give higher ratings. And ratings are not a good indicator as many do not rate a movie and non-raters might even be a majority. Generally, ratings are given by viewers who either have loved the movie or have hated it. The fence-sitters are not really bothered!

The OTT platforms even though driven by technology are loathe to share numbers. I suspect that they do not want to admit that they carry Duds (movies with hardly any viewership). So, the entire viewership issue is swept under the carpet.

It must be disconcerting for the producers, directors, actors, and technicians not to know the exact viewership details of the movie in which they have invested so much money, time, and energy. At least YouTube is transparent and anyone can know the viewership details with a mouse click.

Analytical sites like Social Blade furnish jaw-dropping statistics about videos uploaded on YouTube but are totally silent on content hosted on OTT as there is no data shared in the public domain.

The OTT annual charges are ridiculously low. Maybe the OTT platforms are treating the first few years' subscription charges as invitation pricing. Invitation pricing is a low price that would hook the viewers and once the viewers are hooked and addicted the prices can be jacked up. Time to open up and share information, OTT platforms!!!

Axed, the end of innocence!

Viewers, eye advertisements sceptically. Advertisements are full of exaggerations. One advertisement guru said succulently, “We are always heroes in our own stories”. The positives get glorified and the negatives get swept under the carpet using what else, a Eureka Forbes vacuum cleaner.

What would our mothers do when we soiled our crisp white as white can be, virgin clothes; beat us black and blue to the inch of our lives. They would be breathing fire and destroying anything that comes their way. They would be a tornado, and a tsunami rolled into one.

The saying, “Hell a fury, like a woman scorned” was inspired by an English writer who faced the wrath of his mother, tired of continuously washing his dirty clothes. He penned the saying, “Hell a fury like a woman who has to wash the dirty clothes of her children”! In short, a lady whose children’s clothes are messy knows the pains of getting them back in shape and into the right colour.

But what happens in our advertisements? When the child comes home with dirty clothes, his mother coos, giggles and says with a bright (Colgate) smile, “Daag Accha hai (stain is good)” she looks happy as if her son has just bagged the first rank in IIT examination.

My friend’s wife who sits beside him and suffers the barrage of advertisements, sarcastically commented, “Why not, she gets paid a bomb for saying all that non-sense. Give me that much money, and I will wash all the mohalla’s (neighbourhood) clothes without a murmur”.

Advertisements leave an indelible impression in the minds of the children who can’t distinguish fact from fiction. My friend Murthy remembered an incident when his son was in seventh grade. He was indulging in a conspiratory conversation with his mother. His mother gave an all-knowing smile, and some money changed hands.  

Murthy did not make much of it. But the next day or two his son would go out triumphant like a king and return in the evening miserable and down in the dumps. Curiosity aroused to the point of no return, Murthy confronted his wife and asked, “What is happening? Why is he (his son) behaving in this strange fashion?”.

“I will tell you later”, whispered his wife throwing glances hither and thither. It was a scene out of a James Bond movie. Murthy almost expected her to snap, “Classified information mister. Only on a need to know basis”.

Later in the night, she unravelled the mystery to Murthy. She was at her best, “The cat who had all the cream look’ plastered on her face, “He (our son) is approaching puberty. He wanted to test his masculine charm. The test failed” It was as if the number eleven batsman had hit the fastest bowler in the world for six sixes, in an over!

“What masculine charm? What testing?” Murthy was clutching at straws. Throwing a pitiful glance, his wife explained, speaking slowly as if she was addressing an overgrown imbecile, “He saw the advertisement of AXE perfume and tested it. THAT’S ALL”. The imbecile said, “Je ne Comprends pas” (I don’t understand in French).

“Don’t throw your pathetic French at me”, she snapped, “You claim yourself to be a marketing professional. Don’t you remember the iconic AXE perfume advertisement?”

Wisdom dawned on Murthy. The advertisement that she is talking features a man who sprays himself with liberal doses of AXE perfume. Pesto he is chased by young, curvy, petite, beautiful, cute, young women. They are desperate to have a piece of him (literally, any part of him is okay).

Murthy’s son it seemed, had a similar idea. He sprayed himself with liberal doses of AXE perfume and went out. It dawned slowly on Murthy as to why their dog was looking sick for the last three days and why she would slink to the corner of the room, the minute she saw his son. (Apparently what attracted young women to men was quite a nasty noseful to her).

To cut a long story short, despite wearing the AXE perfume continuously for three days, not one girl, dame, lady, women, madam, lass, filly or any person of feminine gender chased the boy. He was bitterness personified.

“Forget about chasing; they did not even look at me!!!!”, he complained. But you can’t keep a kid down, for long. Murthy’s prodigal son, an eternal book worm, brightened visibly and said, glibly, “But of course there is a silver lining. I am sure I will never get Malaria in my life”. “How is that?” asked his puzzled mother.

“What amma!”, he exclaimed, “The cause of Malaria is FEMALE Anopheles mosquito. And with the amount of AXE perfume on me, I am sure no female species of any kind will bother me” he added melancholically, “For a lifetime”. He left his mother goggling like a goldfish out of the water, completely helpless.