Cadbury And Spotify advertisements, Common sense is not common!

 First posted on Facebook on 12th December 2020. 

The latest advertisement for Cadbury Chocolate left me bemused. The chocolates for the grown-ups!

At 18 one is supposed the be grown up. The 47-year-old Aishwarya Rai is the model! At this rate at 60, she will be an adult and middle-aged at 85!

Find the Bollywood obsession with age or rather trying to hide their real age quite silly.

We have Anil Kapoor 63 years old and Nagarjuna 61-year-old playing 40-45-year-old father's role in Spotify ads. Quite fascinating.

The worst part of the charade was 61-year-old Nagarjuna calling Gangavva who at 58 is four years younger than him avva!

Observation - The best way to learn!

 First Posted on Facebook on November 28th, 2020

Snap clicked at Miyapur Metro Station

The child is the father of the man. Being simple is the most complex thing in life. I keep telling students and don't know how much is internalized.

Some of the gratest things are very simple and many a times those simple things are taken for granted.

One thing I propogate and practice is the art of observations. Observe, learn and get inspired. After all imitation is best form of flattery!

I think I am a great observer when it comes to matters dealing with marketing. Another person with a keen eye to obseve and comment is Dr. Madhusudan Kota who for reasons only known to himself has become social media shy!

I came across this wonderful product, what is this product and why is the Marketer/ marketing teacher in me, so excited? First person to give a logical answer will be acknowledged.

Clue: 1913 is not time. The time is 1745 now!

Okay closing the game now, Bhaskar Nandula Chaithanya Muppavarapu Saibaba Sathyanarayanan, Kedar Kedareshwar and Rajeev Ranjan came up with excellent answers. Incidentally two of them are my colleagues and the other three are my students of Siva Sivani Institute of Management.

I really don't blame anyone for not getting exactly what I have in my mind because, I am sure that you don't use metro as frequently as I do (even in the prevailing pandemic times).

The biggest pain point is getting scanned and initially it was scary to get a forehead scan. Later it became a back of the hand affair.

A brilliant marketer married marketing with mandated action by combining footfall analysis with temperature scanning. What a great concept! 1913 is the number of travellers who have used Miyapur metro service today from the morning

I am not done, why not a small dash of sanitiser once the scan is done and why not a small printout with the temperature!

Why can't the printout carry a small ad of Dettol or any other company and why not use the LED panel to advertise health related services like diagnostic centres, sky is the limit!

Think on friends, every problem could be a curtain and a marketing opportunity might be lurking behind it.

Usually footfall analysis details are secretive and any one with analytical brain can get valuable data by simply visiting metro stations at the end of the day. Students could even get data on am hourly basis, so much free gyan!

India Vs Australia Cricket series

First Posted on Facebook on 26th November 2020.

I started teaching way back in 1997 and my first assignment was with CBIT, Hyderabad. At that time, I performed pantomime in the class when I wanted to explain advertisements for my session in Marketing, especially in my sessions of Integrated Marketing Communications. Advertisements at that time were difficult to bring to the class and were not available like they are now, on tap on YouTube.

Of course, the students liked my pantomime and always remarked that the sessions were memorable. Marketing teachers nowadays are lucky. They can bring in the latest advertisements thanks to YouTube and can make the sessions that much more interesting.

I just saw the India Vs Australia cricket tour promotion and frankly, it was overboard and unnecessarily jingoistic. The advertisements stick out like a sore thumb and the chest-thumping machismo that the advertisement depicts is in stark contrast to what the series is all about.

The series is being seen as a thank you gift from the BCCI to Cricket Australia. Cricket Australia conveniently postponed the T20mworld cricket cup and the cancellation/postponement led to BCCI holding the cash-rich IPL in UAE.

So instead of the thanks what do the Australian cricket board get? A chest-thumping overboard advertisements which even dragged in the Covid – 19 fighters to promote the series. Talk about crash cheesiness! And the advantage of YouTube is that one can browse and try to see how the Australian media is projecting the same cricket series in Australia.

Even though I could not get my hand on any advertisements that talk about the forthcoming India Vs Australia cricket series, I could get my hands on a pretty funny advertisement. It features Veeru paaji (Veerendra Shewag) and Mathew Hayden.

I don't want to spoil the fun. Watch India vs Australia advertisements of Sony Six first and watch the Veeru paaji and Mathew Hayden advertisements later. You will be tickled pink!

First watch this advertisement  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrLAqDCA2t4

Then watch this advertisement

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rfM3T6b2nA

kellog Becomes Desi - The power of Market place!

First posted on Facebook on November 23rd, 2020

What a joke - Amma cheti (mother's recipe) Upma. Really Kellogg! This smacks of opportunism. And at a level, deeply thought-provoking too.

Kellogg came to India, chest-thumping and with a lot of swagger. They had conquered the world and India was supposed to be another notch on their gun, a conquest to be savoured.

Kellogg the market leader of breakfast food in the world thought that they would capture India just as easily as they conquered the US and Europe. Yes, the bland breakfast habits of the Europeans and the Americans were easy to break.

Basking in confidence Kellog made grand plans, it pooh-poohed the Indian breakfast menu. The promotion was clear "your breakfast is not good, not healthy, not nutritious and the positioning was 'ME ONLY"!

The Indian homemaker did not like the assault on their sanctum santorium -the kitchen. They royally snubbed the MNC!

Eating humble pie, Kellogg tried out Indian versions of the cornflakes and changed to a reconciliatory "ME TOO" positioning. Eat whatever you want but please eat Kellogg too!

Even that does not seem to have worked. So if you can't fight them, join them seems to be Kellogg's motto.

They have started selling Indian breakfast items and have zeroed in on the humble upma. Now the positioning is "Try me along with many others".

This is surprising. With all its efforts Kellogg would have created a hard-core loyal customer base (niche maybe).

There is a danger that even that customer base might shy away from Kellog. They bought Kellogg as it is an aspirational product. And Kellogg is selling Upma now. Appears Kellog is caught between a stone and a hard place.

Would amma believe that Kellogg makes better umpa than herself! I doubt it. Now Kellogg has to slug it out with Maggi, Yuppie noodles, MTR, Bambino, and even the humble cart seller at every street corner! What a fall Kellogg!

Right advertisement at a wrong time!

 Posted on Facebook on 10th November, the day the IPL finals was played 

Right advertisement at the wrong time. It is the IPL final and Rohit Sharma the captain of Mumbai Indians is telling Shreyas Iyer who captains Delhi Capitals "Don't go by past performances (watch from 30 to 35 seconds) " and the DC's captain seems to happily agree.

The advertisement is rib ticking funny as Rohi sees,s to be telling Shreyas that he (Shreyas Iyer) should not go by the previous performance of Mumbai Indians in the 2019 IPL finals. Mumbai Indians had won the 2019 IPL trophy.

He would love to prove Rohit correct for once, ROFL!