Brilliant Advertisement - Hats off Colgate Visible White - An Absolute Man biting a Dog!!

I often tell the students that it is not news when a dog bites a man. It is news when the Man bites the dog. Do something that makes people wake up from their social media-induced slumber and take notice. 

We are swarmed and bombarded by messages resulting in overexposure.  Most of us are jaded and are no longer stimulated adequately by media and promotional messages. 

So how to cut the clutter, especially in Print Media?  Print media is no longer the darling of the masses. The readership is dwindling and many advertisers are questioning its legitimacy and relevance. 

Print media still has a huge charm. Print media is seen as more reliable, and more responsible and it has the advantage of featuring an advertisement that can linger for a longer period and make a long-lasting impression. 

The precise reason why Colgate's visible white campaign chose print media. Check out the advertisement. at first glance, the ad looks innocuous but at a second glance, it looks as if the Colgate Visible ad is occupying the bottom part of the paper ( Like a solus or a single ad). 

But then we scan down and read the caption "Visible White  Saamne Aaye, toh Achhe Achhe Daant Chupayien (Meaning that even famous people hide their teeth when they come face to face with Colgate White or a person brushing their teeth with Colgate Visible white}. 

For a microsecond we are nonplussed. We don't get it and the people featured in the News items catch our attention. The movie watcher, The couple on a Goa trip, the Girl with the VR device, the author at the book launch, and the traveler to a foreign country are all "HIDING THEIR TEETH". 

Then it hits us. THE ENTIRE PAGE WAS AN ADVERTISEMENT. The ad drove us from itself to the so-called "New Items" Presented in the regular newspaper format. 

This is a brilliant concept. Well thought out and superbly executed. The next page also has an ad of Colgate Visible white.   

CENTURY PLY ad in The Economic Times - Good Promotion or Bad!!!

It's intriguing to see the CENTURY PLY advertisement placed in the Economic Times, India's leading business daily, particularly as it coincides with the Sensex reaching 75,000! Whether the timing was deliberate or coincidental remains uncertain. 

What adds to the curiosity is that the model featured is Pratik Gandhi, renowned for his work in Gujarati theatre and cinema. He gained widespread acclaim for his portrayal of Harshad Mehta in the Sony LIV series "Scam 1992" (2020), where he depicted the controversial figure of Harshad Mehta.

Harshad Mehta's character is subject to much debate - was he a hero or a villain? While some may justify his actions, many view him as a criminal who manipulated the system for personal gain, resulting in significant losses for investors and even suicides.

CENTURY PLY advertises itself as a sound investment for the future, yet the choice of Pratik Gandhi, associated with portraying Harshad Mehta, raises eyebrows due to the latter's tainted legacy in financial markets. The question arises: Does such advertising generate positive or negative publicity? Perhaps most readers may not even recognize Pratik Gandhi, let alone associate him positively or negatively.

One could argue that CENTURY PLY should have chosen a more recognizable face, especially from the financial sector, for such an advertisement. Moreover, the decision to place the advertisement in the Economic Times, a finance and investment-focused publication, raises questions about its target audience. 

Perhaps it would have been more fitting to place the advertisement in a general interest newspaper like the Times of India. The readership profiles of The Economic Times and Times of India differ significantly, suggesting a potential mismatch in targeting the desired audience for the advertisement.

Old Lady of Boribunder – The enduring 175 old brand – Times of India

 

“Who is the old lady of Boribunder?” This has been one of my favorite quiz questions. The answer which most people fail to give is – It is the “Times of India”. TOI as it is popularly called is celebrating its 175 years of existence as a brand.  

In a era where brands come and go it is very hearty to see a brand that too from the media celebrating 175 years. Times of India was launched as The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce in 1838.

It was the same year in which Queen Victoria — later proclaimed Empress of India — was formally crowned, and Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, who’s "Vande Mataram" became the rallying cry for freedom from the Raj, was born.

TOI has grown from a single edition of a few thousand copies to some 50 editions with a circulation of close to five million — the largest in the world for any English newspaper. This speaks of TOI’s ability to judge and adapt to the ever-changing mood of the chaotic, contradictory and creative country, India.

Which big brand in India (and how many globally) can claim to have been around 175 years ago and grown the way the same way as The Times of India? The secret, TOI claims lies in being contemporary and relevant.  The "Old Lady of Boribunder" remains young at heart, nimble on her feet, and razor-sharp.  

One another brand that has become popular the same way as TOI has been the common man Cartoon drawn by R. K. Laxman the brother of the world famous R. K. Narayanan in the Times of India. The common man of TOI started by Laxman has become a cultural icon and in many ways represents the travails and the problems faced by the real common man of India.

 

Alive App - Innovation in Print Media - Times of India shows the way

 

 

 

Things are changing and so are the customers. Keeping the changing times and keeping in view of possibility of dwindling readers and reduced advertising revenue Times of India has hit upon a novel idea. To attract the young and restless Times of India launched a new application called Alive.
 
Alive would let the reader view videos, photos, and polls related to a news item  just by pointing the app at a newspaper item with Alive logo. This app is available for Android, iPhone, BlackBerry and Nokia Symbian Smartphones and would offer a captivating experience for the users than just reading a newspaper.

The app has crossed 250,000 downloads on the launch day, leading to 300,000 augmentation views on a single day. Augmentation view is a view where the reader would have seen the news on the physical newspaper and would have tracked the same from his Alive app. The readers can also head to aliveapp.in from their mobile phone to download the app.

Benefits of Alive app

Transforms text, image, symbols, patterns or objects into a virtual experience

View videos and picture gallery of the actual news items in the newspaper

Voice your opinion immediately and make the newspaper more interactive;

Make the best use of two media that is the reliability and credibility of the newspaper and the multimedia capacity of the internet with moving pictures sound and animation.

Keep track of the story as it develops and not a static news item as in a traditional newspaper

Share the newspaper news item on the go

View history of the news items you have viewed

Save the multimedia content for future viewing