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!

Name sake Competitors or Partners Planning for Market Domination!

Marketers always talk of competitors as being fierce and at each other’s throats. There is a saying "everything is fair in war and love". But is not really true. Most of it is only sparring. Check out what is happening on TV.

India Vs South Africa cricket series is playing out in South Africa and all other sports channels will try to divert our attention to their own programmes. They will show any other cricket match that is as close to India vs South Africa match as possible. Not that the viewers get confused easily, but it is par for the course.

Star Sports and Star Cricket are desperately trying to milk their contract with IPL for the next five years. They already have had prelude for the IPL auctions for 2018 season. They will try to prolong the auction process and the aftermath as much as possible. Trying to milk IPL when the Indian national team is playing does not cut much ice with the audience.  But they have nothing to lose and everything to gain, right!

But the TV channels are not really competitors! When one channel takes a commercial break – check out any other similar channel. All of them will be playing commercials. So as far as getting money from the advertisers all of them are on the same platform or frequency!

Most competition simply, is at the vey basic level and it is to get market share. Most companies maintain some sort of a status quo. When a huge controversy erupted in 2006 about presence of pesticide in Indian soft drinks, both Pepsi and Coca-Cola’s CEOs came on the same platform to address a joint press conference!

Yes, you have read it right! Pepsi and Coke on the same platform. And both companies proudly say in their advertisements that the cola wars are on and that they would not even utter each other’s names!

There was lot of back patting in that press conference and both the CEOs in unison were very magnanimous in declaring that their colas are absolutely safe. They finally hinted not so subtly that it is actually the contaminated ground water of India that is responsible for the pesticide in the colas and not their production process or their ingredients! And we continue to patronize the colas! Caveat Emptor!