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4Brandwich

6Guerilla marketing

8F.R.I.E.N.D.S - A personal brnading break through

10The Red lipstick

12Cornitos Nachos Crisps - A perfect anytime anywhere snack

13Google by Google

14Maggi! Maggi! Maggi!

15Nokia

16The Unfair play of Advertising

17Are women more brand loyal than men?

18TATA Nano - Trying to hard to be awe-some!

20Bom Chicka Wahwah

22The Myth of White

23Does you brand represents you?

25can AMV save Blackberry from RIP? or is it too late?

28Photos from last year

29Our Posters

32Members

CONTENTS

We feel privileged to be part of this first issue of ‘Adrenaline’, the advertising magazine in 2014. The aim of the magazine is to build an ‘advertising’ food for thought. Adrenaline magazine is an abbreviation of the thought process of Admire team. Through the magazine, the Admire team shall touch upon some interesting aspects of advertising and branding. The magazine shall bring forth some interesting moves in the industry which would not only be informative but also thought provoking. We have an article whose ideas were in simialr lines with later statements of one of the biggest businessman in India, Mr. Ratan Tata.The introductory article identifies the Creative Guerilla Marketing being used for products like Lifebuoy and KFC. The article puts forth the effects that guerrilla marketing can easily manifest, than other campaigns. The other article helps to recognize the aspects of personal branding with the help of world famous series ‘F.R.I.E.N.D.S.’. The statements with regards to personal branding are very self inspiring to any marketer. The Red Lipstick article is a message to every individual who market themselves everywhere but forget to meet the most important person of their life, who is they themselves. The Corni-tos article will talk about the initial phase of advertising and marketing of a new product. How Google has been able to convince the people of India with its use, by their latest ad of Baldev and Yusuf meeting after a long time. You will have a nice time reading about Maggi’s reposi-tioning ideas and the Nokia Microsoft deal. Stay Unfair Stay Beautiful is an article about break-ing the stereotype, effectively delivering its content about beauty. How brand loyalty can easily be distinguished between men and women has been explained beautifully in the next article.The Nano article which clearly identified the need to reposition the product way before being officially announced by Tata Motors themselves. The Myth of White seems to contradict the announced ‘fairness for men’ propaganda. The last article discusses about life saving Blackberry from the phase it is facing today.We all hope that you would find the articles with a sense of renaissance from the cliché brand of articles. We would love to hear from you about any suggestions or improvements which can be done to help improve the reader’s involvement.

Think. What is it that leads a well established brand to come into a relationship with anoth-er one? Is the downfall of a brand is the only reason for the mergers? Or is there something more to the story? Probably by now many ex-cited neurons in your brain must have started to process and transmit electronic signals fig-uring out the major mergers and acquisitions you have come across. M&A have been a part and parcel of the cor-porate world since long time. And believe me the world has seen it all: the good, the bad and the ugly. THE UGLY. If it’s about the ugliest merger in the history of all times, it has to be AOL-Time Warner merger. An epic merger, where one of the biggest media content companies was to merge with one of the largest distribu-tors of internet content. Now this was some-thing that could have rocked the world. But merely by signing two pieces of paper does not make a deal hit. The purpose and inten-tions play major antecedents. It was observed

that neither Gerald “Jerry” Levin, Chairman of Time Warner nor Steve Case, Chairman of AOL knew much about each other’s busi-ness families. They were not well acquainted with the details of the ventures they were try-ing to intrude in. Case, trying to be the Big Daddy of AOL-Time Warner, used his larger market value to maintain an upper hand and was tagged as the Chairman whereas Levin was tagged as the Chief Executive Incharge of Operations. This decision led to a major ego clash between the two. With each passing year, their friction became visibly clear when they started blowing the trumpet of their conflicts in public forums. And finally the relationship which started in 2000 came to a split in March 2009. This 9 year old couple’s unfruitful sepa-ration brought down the titans down to Earth with a crash.THE BAD. One of the not so ugly but still bad mergers that I could of think of was the Quaker-Snapple marriage. Snapple, famous for its exotic juices and ice teas was seen as a brand with tremendous opportunities but un-fortunately it did not materialize and did not grow at the rate it was anticipated. It was clear that Quaker Chairman William D. Smithburg expected Snapple to be a success like their previous venture Gatorade-making it one of the highest selling sports drink. If given a thought, it was not really a bad deal, but bad timing. Till the time it came into action, there

was a great market growth and nation’s thirst for such drinks became more overstated. Also, new products introduced by huge rivals such as Coca Cola and PepsiCo Inc. made this merger a flop show.

The problems dragged down the total performance of Chi-cago-based Quaker, which had sales of $5.2 billion, and Quaker’s stock price badly trailed the overall stock mar-ket. Closing one of the worst flops in corporate-merger history, Quaker Oats Co. agreed to sell Snapple Bever-age Corp. to Triarc Cos. for $300 million; only 27 months after Quaker spent $1.7 billion to buy the maker of trendy drinks.

THE GOOD.Monsters Inc. , Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Up, Toy Story, Cars and the list goes on. Probably the best of animated movies one could ever cherish. This delightful experi-ence could only be materialized when two of the “best in their verticals” came together to cook a wholesome meal of fun, entertainment and joy. Disney, the largest media conglomer-ate in the world in terms of revenue, acquired Pixar, an American computer animation film studio led by Apple head Steve Jobs in 2006. Disney was quite clear with its goals. It had always been a top ranker in its publicity and

marketing but had slightly a tough time when it came to animation. Analysts said this deal was more important to Disney than to Pixar. The timing of the deal was also perfect be-cause Disney’s one after the other failures and

their first full computer animat-ed Chicken Little was not able to generate expected amount of revenue. For Disney, the acqui-sition gave it ownership of the world’s most famous computer animation studio and its talent, with whom it had teamed up to create blockbusters since the 1990s. So what is it that made this coupling a hit and makes it

one of the best mergers of all time? How come everything just fell into the right place? The trump card was, using each other’s strengths to the fullest. And moreover, neither of them felt insecure of their own identity. Where Disney was interested in having high quality anima-tion support, on the other hand Pixar longed for the publicity and marketing of Disney. Its Value creating acquisition as opposed to value destroying, which is the most observed case when we talk about acquisitions, is one of the best answers I could think of. Probably that’s why ‘it takes two to tango’ holds true here.

-Juhi Arora

On a fine Monday morning, he wakes up to the smell of freshly made Parathas and home-made butter, gets out of his bed and starts getting ready for the office. He comes out of the bedroom suited up, all set for work, sits in front of the television eagerly waiting for the breakfast, switches on the television and ........“Kya aap Close up karte….” click; changes the channel “Garnier, Take ca….” click “Vajra-danti Vajradanti…..” click, click, click……. “Na sar jhuka hai kabhi…….”. switches off the television in frustration and picks up the newspaper, his eyes still bolted to the kitchen entrance. He starts reading the newspa-per, trying to figure out the actual news among the clutter of adver-tisements. “Tring Tring” “Tring Tring” his Phone rang, that’s his boss and he wants him in the office ASAP, he gets out of his house still longing for those Parathas and asks the driver to start the car. In a hurry that he is already in, gets stuck in traffic, gets out of the car in order to figure out what is the traffic all about and suddenly he sees a couple of people distributing food on the footpath. He walks up to them and someone hands over a Roti to

him. Irritated and about to throw it away he notices something was written on it, unfolds it to find a heat stamp saying “Lifebuoy se Haath dhoye kya ??” and instead of getting irritated at yet another advertisement he is pleasantly surprised, because he has never seen anything like that before. He keeps that Roti with him to show it to everyone he knows.

This is the power of GUERRILLA MARKET-ING, even in a world full of advertisements, Guerrilla marketing possesses the power to at-

tract the attention of the beholder and approach him when he

is least expecting it, in the most effective and cre-

ative way and at least cost. This is one very important feature of Guerrilla Marketing i.e. it compensates investment with time, effort and cre-

ativity. The above ex-ample is in fact similar

to what lifebuoy actually did in ‘Kumbh Mela’, they

heat stamped each Roti with the above mentioned message and

yielded tremendous results.

Guerrilla Marketing has 4 key ingredients or building blocks which it is based on, like Guerrilla Marketing is necessarily a dialog i.e.

a two way communication with the consum-ers for example, the handles on the main door of a famous sports bar in London were shaped and designed as that of a beer mug so that ev-ery time someone opens or closes the door it allures him to have some beer. Another key in-gredient of Guerrilla Marketing is that it is all about the customer, Jay Conrad Levinson, the man behind the whole concept Guerrilla Mar-keting says that the customer is not interested in whatever you want to say about your com-pany that is why Guerrilla Marketing brings the customer in the limelight for example, a slimming center in Germany decided to go guerrilla for their new 2 week weight loss pro-gram and placed a sun board in a food court which had the name of the company, details of the program and a crooked mirror which showed everyone slimmer so that every time someone looks into the mirror he/ she feels like getting into shape.

As the concept of Guerrilla Marketing is somewhat influenced by Guerrilla warfare one attribute that both, guerrilla marketing and guerrilla warfare share is that in both the forms individuals are targeted i.e. in Guer-

rilla Marketing the campaigns are designed such that they target individuals with high level of customization for example, India To-day magazine as a guerrilla style promotional campaign sent across personalized copies for their long term subscribers so as to encourage them to renew their subscriptions. The fourth building block for guerrilla marketing is joint marketing effort with the competitors for ex-ample, KFC and Taco bell in a lot of places have established their restaurants in the same building and even have joint menus at a lot of places so that they can have advantage of each other’s customer base.

Apart from all this one more thing that a guer-rilla marketer needs to understand is that all of the above said and done but being a guerril-la means to be as creative as possible and not limiting yourself to any boundaries so get out there and go Bananas……

-Rishabh Wahi

A PERSONAL BRANDING BREAKTHROUGHThere are two types of people in this world. First, the ordinary boring ones and second, the ones that grew up watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S as a significant part of their being. If there’s one show that has the capability to get you hooked and school you on personal branding, alongside tickling your funny bone, just has to be F.R.I.E.N.D.S.

All the characters of the show are just awesome! Here’s a breakdown to the different things you can learn from each character and suit them to fabricate your personal brand.

ROCK A SIGNATURE STYLE: RACHEL GREENENothing screams ‘fashion’ like Rachel Greene. And we agree. She’s exorbitantly quirky on the inside and that’s exactly what reflects on the outside. Everything she did on the show became a trend, be it fashionable clothes or funky hairdos.Our personal brand should be just that: Per-sonal and nuke. It can be anything lead-

ing from an awesome logo to a killer colour scheme. There should be something intrinsi-cally ‘you’ about your brand.

FORGE A TRULY EPIC CATCHPHRASE: JOEY TRIBBIANIEven the most avid viewers of F.R.I.E.N.D.S

have heard Joey go all ‘How you doin?’ Whenever someone ut-ters the same the first thing that crosses our minds is Joey and how he uses this catchphrase to woo women around him. Women and food were competing throughout, as to what was Joey’s first love?Who are you? What inspires you?

What do you want? Selling yourself as an indi-vidual requires a truly epic tagline that chron-icles around all that you are as an individual.

ESPOUSE YOUR STRENGTHS: MONICA GELLERFood was Monica’s weakness (Evident from flashbacks of her High School days). The day she met Chandler(her other weakness), she

decided to get rid of all the extra pounds and grew up to be a prodigious chef since she’d heard him say she made delicious macaroni!Single out your strengths and breed on them. Nurture what you know you are good at and get noticed for it by using your strengths to your benefit. Also, make it a point to aid oth-ers through your strengths.

BE POSITIVE AND INSPIRE PEOPLE: PHEOBE BUFFAYThe most optimistic person on the show or on television for that matter has to indefinitely be Phoebe Buffay. Her positivity is infectious. In spite of having an appalling past, she manages to believe that something good is in store for her and encourages people around her to believe the same.Nobody likes to be judged. It is one of the biggest fears people have, being judged and criticized by other peo-ple and also by themselves. Overcome your problems by having a positive outlook towards them. Be your own hero!

BE MINDFUL TO YOUR ACTIONS: ROSS GELLERHe married the wrong woman. He took the wrong name at the altar and is an epitome of disastrous marriages. Imagine Ross piercing his fingers into his forehead and scream: U-N-A-G-I. It is the state of complete awareness, not only of what you have, but also of what you are and what you do. Take complete responsibility of whatever you say or do. Celebrate your accomplishments but own up to your mistakes as well. Rectify

on acknowledging a faux pas and find yourself more credible in your

colleague’s eyes than someone who never commits mis-

takes.

CHALLENGE YOUR-SELF TO BE BETTER: CHANDLER BINGAlongside cracking you up every time he opened

his mouth, Chandler Bing is fiercely competitive and

stubborn. Remember when he started to smoke in the show

again and was adamant to continue it in spite of his friends begging him to stop, after which he challenged himself and ended up quitting the cancer stick for the better? He challenged himself and succeeded.

Once you are a clover, you need to continue being a success. Unfortunately, success doesn’t come to those who sit at home munching po-tato chips but to those who make their busi-ness smarter, increase value and challenge themselves to be better.

These tips could be used by you to be a cus-tomary brand in yourself. Good Luck!

-Priyanshi Shah

It was supposed to be an ordinary day in Ve-dika’s life. She would have never thought that she would be meeting her old friend at a book store that will change her course of life.

While looking through those pile of books, her eyes caught an attention on a gleaming book named “beauty of a women” a beauti-fully designed book cover with fancy models fascinated her towards it. While turning the pages she fancied with some lustrous red lips, deep black eyes and suddenly she ogled on a plate that was reflecting her dull and wrinkled appear-ance, untouched by any kind of kohl, mas-cara or lipstick which she was gazing in the magazine. She abjured looking beautiful ever since her father died.

Suddenly a hand reached out her shoulder and uttered “V…vedika!” At once she got distracted from the image of hers to a girl with bold red frame, pretty looking face and black clipped hairs. She couldn’t recognize

her best friend from school days, Nandita. She couldn’t believe that it was her school friend who used to be a simple untouched with ar-tificial artefact’s, is now no less than a model. They sat over a coffee and talked for hours and suddenly a question by Nandita made the conversation hushed “what happened to you Vedika, what have you done to yourself, what happened to that girl who used to look beautiful even when she goes off to sleep ?”

Vedika utter silence turned the conversa-tion into remorse. The respon-

sibility she has been burned after her father’s death has

taken a toll in her life, she hardly remember when was the last time she looked herself in the mirror. She forgot to love herself, she forgot being beautiful. When she looked at nandita’s

face it reminded her of her college days where

she could carry even the loudest of makeups, she used

to walk through those corridor’s as if it was her ramp and she the goddess of

show stopper deity flaunting her dark hairs, bold lipstick and used to memerised everyone

with her dark magical eyes. It never seem that she was the same girl back from college.

After a while when they were about to leave the cafe, nandi-ta just uttered one sentence that, “when tonight you’ll look into your mirror you should try to find someone who used to love herself and loved to pamper herself no mat-ter what world thought or did”.

It was already midnight; she sat on her bed leaning towards the wall as she was tired with all her daily work. Suddenly her cell phone rang with a text message saying “what does the mirror says?” She immediately went in front of her mirror table and looked at herself gingerly, her blemished skin, wrinkled eyes, dark cir-cles pigmented face. She profusely cried to see her like this; suddenly she saw her mother’s treasure box that glimmered into her eyes. She opened the box, and there she saw a red

lipstick. It reminded her of the time when she used to stare at her mother while she is putting

on the dark red lipstick and dreamt to put it on then. She twisted the lipstick

a red colour stick popped out and slowly she rolled over

her lips with light strokes up and down. She slight-ly moved backward and again saw her in the mirror and she smiled like a child. You know why? because she knew

now how to love herself all over again.

We as a women forget to love our self because we are driven by

situations. We think we find happiness to love others but the fact is that we must love our self to learn how to love others. That’s why cosmetic industry are making efforts to come up with anti-aging cream, skin regenerist, lip-stick, blushers etc not just merely to sell their product but as a reminder that we need to love our self.

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Cornitos Nachos Crisps, a new brand, has entered the highly competitive Indian snack-food market which is a battle ground of ti-tans with giant players like Frito Lays, Bingo, Kurkure already grabbing the lion’s share. The company offered a unique snack food in the form of Nachos Crisps, which is almost non-existent in the Indian market as potato chips and finger sticks dominate the fragmented sector. Nachos Crisps are the flagship brand of GreenDot Health Foods Ltd and is available in two different ranges. The Exciting Range is available in six flavours like Lime and Mint, Cheese and Herbs, Tomato Mexicana, Sizzling Jalapeno, Sea Salt and Tikka Masala. Whereas the premium range of cornitos consists of International flavours like Sweet Thai Chilli.One of the most striking features of this brand is the packaging. It seems a lot of work has been put in behind making the packaging stand out in stores. Since snack foods fall in the category of impulse goods, the packaging holds utmost importance. Cornitos has really differentiated itself on the packaging front by using bright and vibrant colours which is ad-vantageous for a product in this category and also gives it a nice Indian feel. The product is available in 60g pouch pack priced at Rs. 30, a 150g pouch pack priced at Rs. 75. It is also available in canisters priced as a 50g can for Rs. 50, 140g can for Rs. 125/- and 150g fam-ily pack priced at Rs. 85. Therefore, it is com-

petitively priced against a normal potato chips pack.Cornitos has the tagline of “a perfect anytime, anywhere snack” and like Lays it is also posi-tioned as a convenient snack. The advertise-ment seems interesting, but the brand lags be-hind on the marketing front as its advertising and promotional strategy seems to be on the lagging side. It needs to have a steady continu-ous stream of advertising campaigns to drive the sales up especially in this particular product type. If the brand wants to increase its market

share then it has to compete on all fronts with the major players who have deep

pockets. With week promotions and a new and inefficient distribution network the road ahead for cornitos doesn’t look too bright.

In order to increase sales and market share Cornitos has a tough battle ahead

with the existing stalwart’s in the market. Also with the Indian snack food market now moving back towards traditional snacks (like sev bhujia, namkeen etc) Cornitos would have to deal with a twin challenge in the market. But all isn’t doom and gloom for the brand as the Indian snack food market is so large that every player can carve out its own niche.The brand has a “catchy” name, different prod-uct qualities, excellent packaging and a com-petitive price therefore it would be interesting to see how Cornitos takes on the Industry gi-ants.

-Varun Banga

CORNITOS NACHOS CRISPS –A PERFECT ANYTIME ANYWHERE SNACK!

“If it doesn’t move you, you’ve got a heart of stone”, wrote Beena Sanwar a Pakistani jour-nalist and part of the Aman ki Asha (hope for peace) initiative that promotes peace between Pakistan and India, on her blog.Opening youtube for fun and coming across a ‘hatke’ advertisement is something I like, which is exactly something that happened re-cently.New Ad by Google struck my emotional chord , something you don’t expect an ad of a search engine would do.The advertisement based on the theme ‘REUNION’ shows how two grandchildren across the boundaries re-unite two childhood friends who were sepa-rated ever since the 1947 partition.

The ad brings out the essence of a search en-gine beautifully depicting how one can find anything and anyone under the sky by google’s assistance.The next thing is experimentation ,they have taken a really risky theme which has a lot of sensitivity attached to it. But still they they managed to touch the right sweet spot ,without hurting any sentiments.Reachability is something which google has played on, at the same time conveying the message that , when the feeling to find some-thing or someone is strong and you have something as usual as google to your disposal . No boundaries can bind you, hence Mother Google unites two friends effortlessly.So as Baldev I am googling my Yusuf today, are you? -Pooja Agnihotri

I bet you, there isn’t anyone reading this ar-ticle who haven’t had maggi in his or her life-time. It’s been some 26 years now since its inception and Maggi still rules the roost. Go anywhere..be it an MNC’s office canteen or a top Business School, your eyes will inevitably catch hold of the yellow red counters steam-ing with hot and slurp-ilicious maggi. What can we attribute this consistent fan following to?? Is it because of lack of potential competi-tors who can come up with similar products? No, that’s not the case even. ITC’s Yippee ,Top Ramen from Nissin Foods of Japan are also part of the race and have been doing considerably well. Then what makes maggi still hold the Lion’s share in the market? The reason, not being the lack of similar product but being the lack of the product which can take away the early mover advantage, that maggi has been enjoying since long. The click was, definitely Mag-gi is an easier and much lesser time consuming snacking idea as compared to the other Indian home-made snacks like Poha, Poori Sabji, etc. Maggi helped them save not only their time, energy but most importantly, saved them from their ever moody children’s continuous pestering. It was fun as well, the long doodly noodles! As a result, during that 10 years gap before Nissin could step forward in Indian market, Maggi was a household name and was in the kitchen of almost every lower middle, middle and up-per middle class family. The taste of maggi has become a part of everyone’s life. Now talking about the Television commercials of Maggi, those have always been very clear and distinc-tive about their idea of the segment of market that they were targeting. Realizing the connect with children, they created all their ads keep-ing children and their mothers in concern. With taglines like “Mummy Bhook Lagi”, “Bas 2 Minute” created a personal connect between the brand and the consumers. Their ads at the beginning were never endorsed by any celeb-rities but was portrayed as a very much home-ly product which helped the Indian Moms

pacify their kids snacking demands every day. One thing that is common in every Maggi ad is that the Moms are wearing Yellow, the Maggi color. Maggi, in a different variety also came up with processed vegetables in it which prom-ises the diet equal to 3 chapattis. The Televi-sion commercial of Maggi atta noodles helped it gain market not only targeting kids but also other members of a nutrition conscious family. The latest television commercial of maggi was the one featuring Amitabh Bachchan. So now the question that arises is what made Maggi feature a celebrity of Amitabh Bacchan’s stat-

ure to market a 5 rupee maggi packet n not even the normal one? The

answer was rural India. Nestle actually changed its brand mar-keting and followed HUL and other Companies who’ve en-tered into rural India to tap the untapped potential of ru-ral India and thus came up with this ad.They used such a personality in their ads who

is the people of the masses, the ultimate influencer of bollywood

and has a huge fan following both in rural as well as urban areas. With

increasing Television Commercials’ creativity, we can hope to see many other interesting yet crisp ads of Maggi in the days to come.

-Tina Dasgupta

MAGGI! MAGGI! MAGGI!

In today’s scenario, we see plenty of Ads. Those ads are mostly product-centric & fascinating one and it fits with company’s advertise-ment strategy. Where no one wants to take a risk with their com-pany’s reputation and they shouldn’t be, so they can fire a bullet with a gun put on a freighted shoulder, so if a product fails its strokes at the im-age of the respective brand but not the respective company directly. Earlier, we mostly saw ads which promoted Microsoft & Nokia with taglines like “Be What’s Next” and “Connecting People” respectively but as per the current market both the companies seems a little with passive. We can see that Mi-crosoft after acquiring 150+ companies only shows its Windows ads af-ter repositioning its image with different features like Windows8, Skype & songs like “Kyu Darta Hai Tu Yaar Mujhpe Daw Laga”. Will it work for Microsoft further? After the acquisition of Nokia, it would be amazing to see what the next strategy of Mi-crosoft’s ads is because first time it is coming with “Devices & Services” concept. Where

Nokia takes help of brand ambassador like Badshah Khan & Piggy Chops in India on the other hand none of the Bollywood celeb-

rity is endorsing the Microsoft. If we go through the posi-tioning strategy of both the brands then we’ll find on one hand Microsoft posi-tions itself as “Mar-ket Leader” where Nokia positions itself as “Amazing Every-day” and here is the missing DNA. They would have to review on their strategies so they can do well to-gether.As Nokia has lost

its luster, at this time it would really gone be the tough time for Microsoft to reposition the brand Nokia along with making a clear path for its windows ecosystem. It has to go with a

new SWOT strategy which now certainly is not an easy task for Microsoft after Nokia’s eclipse. If Microsoft fails to do so then it would really be a difficult timee for the company. Last but not the least, we were successful in finding both the mysterious per-

sons who joined their hands in every Nokia’s ad, yes, they are none other than Mr. Ballmer & Mr. Elop.

-Ankit Mishra

The 7 day fairer skin challenge, the promis-ing shade cards and the not so fair girls sitting in front of the mirror

applying fairness creams and suddenly turning into snow white has been an old but yet an effective way of attracting Indi-an men and women towards fairness creams.Indians are obsessed with fairness is evident from the way these creams do a brisk business in the country. With the increasing popularity of these ‘magic products’, we bring forth the unfair play of advertising.With fairness market booming with youngsters, crazy to unleash their whiter avatar, wonder if anyone stopped to think of its side effects? A report by WHO warns about the common ingredient in skin lightning products , Mercury, that can lead to adverse effects like kid-ney damage , fungal infections and periph-eral neuropathy. Despite the serious warnings, 61% of Indian dermatological market consists of skin lightning products. But somehow fair-ness creams are capable of attracting the target customers and convince them effectively.If fairness products ad are to be believed, most people don’t get a job or find a suitable spouse without being fair. The direct linkage that they draw between success / beauty and fairness has taken a toll on many. It has resulted in loss of

self esteem and self value for those with darker skin color and certainly a substantial gain of fairness product industry.The question arises: Is it not a form of rac-ism being practiced in the country? With big names like Sharukh Khan, Shahid Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra, John Abraham and Deepika Padukone promising fairer and beautiful skin to be the ticket to glamour has left a negative impact on dark skin toned people . Going by the current trends, tall and dark seems to be no more a compliment. Now men too have fallen in the trap ‘fair skin and suc-cessful stories’. Recently a petition named ‘dark

is beautiful’ was filed against Sharukh Khan on AUG 21, 2013 for endors-

ing a fairness brand, ‘Fair n Hand-some’, a product of Emami . The petitioners have objected to the ad’s message that portrays fairness

as a ladder to success. The dark is beautiful campaign aims at chang-

ing the mindset of people that color is no base of judgement. Campaign has also gener-ated support from actor and activist Nandita Das.

Such advertisements to some extent contrib-ute in increasing the prejudice about brown skin .What we need to see is the beauty be-yond color and appreciate it.

-Arushi Jolly

We have ‘Value’ driven customers in India, they won’t mind spending 60,000 for a smart phone but would be reluctant to buy some very cost effective but suspicious product.Tata Nano – The much hyped ‘Lakhtaki-ya’ car, which gained popularity all over the world even before its launch, could not go up the charts no matter how much buzz it cre-ated. There are many speculations regarding its low sales numbers (20% of the total pro-duction capacity), some of them being, the time lapse between the announcement and the actual delivery of the car or the fact that it was not a ‘safe drive’. These reasons had become so strong in the minds of the consumer even before the launch that even the beau-tiful and emotion evok-ing commercials could not move the people.The early ad cam-paigns of Tata Nano which portrayed a small town girl waiting for her father to get the car and when everyone notices the car keenly, the little gesture of putting kaajal on it was a perfect way to capture the minds of its target market “the lower

middle class” , but it could not compel them to buy it since the existing image of Nano being cheap but not safe was a more overpowering thought for this risk averse target audience, who want pure value for every rupee they spend.It is also said that the car could not match the ‘build up’ that was created during its pre-launch propmotions. Ratan Tata himself said “. . .a promise is a promise” but it is no more a one lakh rupee car when its top model is worth 2,24,000 INR. Tata has also invested in making a 800cc Motor and a diesel engine (with assistance from its new acquisitions) that would suit the Indian economic environ-

ment but at the same time would affect its price even more.

Competing with Hyundai Eon and Maruti Suzuki,

Tata Nano is bound to face problems since these two brands are major players and have been leading market of the middle class seg-

ment for years now. Tata as a brand has always

been a mirror image for heavy commercial vehicles

and the ‘not so safe’ quotient adds to the list of ‘cons’ in Tata Nano.

TATA NANO – Trying Hard to be ‘AWESOME’!!!

Although the company is trying to reposi-tion Nano from being the ‘Cheapest Car’ to the ‘Most Affordable Car’ in the country with its AD cam-paigns drastically shifting from “Khushiyo ki Chaabi “ to “Cel-ebrate Awesomeness”. This step could take its toll over the much liked concept of Tata Nano since it has now entered a segment which has more trusted brandsTo make its place in the minds of the customer it has to come up with advertisements that can compete with ads like the ‘New Drive of India’ from Hyundai eon and ‘Let’s go get the mu-sic’ from Maruti Alto which clearly send their message and are very crisp ads but Nano’s new Ad ‘Celebrate Awesomeness’, has although won the ‘best ad song’ award of 2013, does not clearly send the message, the advertise-ment has used many beautiful colours and in their effort to show too much in a small time frame has clearly sent the core message into “BLURR”. People get so lost in understanding the commercial and linking the dots of people dancing, singing and disappearing that they forget about the basic product. This effort has clearly gone into vain since the advertisement would make no sense to the segment they are targeting, in the commercial there is a part when the girl’s dress gets stuck and she allows it to tear off because she does not want to miss the glimpse of the car, it may be an influential effort but does not link up with the tag line.

It’s easy to play with emotions and sell your product but it’s hard to play mind

games, one needs to have a creative edge for that. Today people think that Nano is less competent and the latest advertisements po-sition it further away from its initial positioning which was

more suitable for it. Placing it in the competition of Maruti’s Alto

and Hyundai’s Eon which are pre-dominantly placed as ‘Good Quality, Better Service, Best Price’ products, is not a feasible option since Nano was and will always remain the ‘Dream Come True’ for people who earlier could not afford the luxury of a car and are not looking for quality, comfort and performance rather, utility. Therefore to sum up we can say that advertising with an ‘Emo-Quotient’ is better approach. In order to come out of this little puddle that Nano has created for itself, it really needs a refreshing and crisp marketing strategy alto-gether. It is sad to see that all the hopes are slowly going downhill for the much await-ed and appreciated concept of Tata Nano. It would be a pleasure for every Indian to see it make its way up the charts because after all this hype, curiosity and waiting no one would want it to be a sad tale.

-Sohil Beniwal

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It’s always said that women are more brand loyal than men. This has been universally ac-cepted by the companies. As stated by Nadia Chauhan, CMO, Parle Agro, “Female custom-ers are more loyal than male customers. For a woman, a brand is a commitment and she hates to break the commitment while man flirts with the brand”.

Various psychological factors influence their behavior when it comes to brand loyalty such as women are more emotional and they de-velop a relationship with a brand. Men, on the other hand, are more concerned about be-ing connected with larger groups of people and orga-nizations instead of having a one to one relationship with the brand. They speak a language of status and po-sitioning unlike women who speak of intimacy and empathy.

The various parameters that influence the brand loyalty are price, quality, social, emo-tional, environmental conditions and health. The differences also lie in their decision mak-ing process. Men want immediate results as their purchasing decision is based on instant needs, whereas women can shop for hours al-together unless they find their choice. So, they are considered more finicky and choosy as

compared to men. Moreover, feminine mind seems more likely to link advertisements to their own environment, which will create a trustworthy feeling towards the brand but men are more practical and give importance to facts and actual data. They also like trying new brands and to fickle with it.

Gaining customer loyalty is one of the difficult tasks of the company. It can be developed if the comapnies become more customer-cen-tric that is they keep all the requirements of

the customer in mind. For eg- The re-cent success of the

P&G’s campaign “Thank you, Mom” solely focused on wom-en, is the best example of the loyalty concept. Also, keep-ing the loyalty differences of both the genders in mind the promotional strategies should

be implemented with effective messages and channels. Loyalty

is basically developed with years of experience of using a particular prod-

uct or item. Several factors influence loyalty such as lifestyle, sex, environment and others. Companies need to make sure that their busi-nesses are focused on delivering the right mes-sage to the customer to build brand loyalty.

-Urvashi Sharma

Today any one listening to this verse just gets one image in their mind. This brand has a love-hate relationship with most conservative people. I’m not going say guess the brand for you have already guessed it-AXE. As I said this brand has a message that almost all femi-nists passionately detest. Its considered one of the most chauvinistic ads ever to be aired. In-fact one can say there are ladies who associate AXE with Shakti Kapoor !

All said and done its one of the most brutally effective com-mercials getting what every ad is supposed to do for the brand-

1)Catch customers interest2)Retain their interest3Convert that interest into sales

It has dubious distinction of having the most number of controversial ads but it does get all the sales expected from it and more. This is not just in India but in all 60 other countries its sold in. Also it has made such a deep impression among people that many associ-ate the word ‘deo’ with an axe can image first in their minds. On an average most teenagers buy their first deodorant as this! That is not a thing many brands can boast of.

Coming to why it works out, simply lets put it

as, rarely there is anything known as bad pub-licity. More controversial more intrigued are the customers. Also it makes good in the fact that its ads are just on this side of legal and allowed. Many ads follow ‘Neuro Linguistic Programming’ concept, where usage of words that make us relate the image to something we desire or wish to procure. Same applies here, it makes us associate the brand with popular-ity with the opposite sex and envy of others. Critics and consumer watchdogs are calling the gender exploitation inherent in Axe’s se-ries of commercials can offend and entertain in equal measure. These ads are again quite a

move away from the parent compa-ny Unilever’s traditional image-treating the Dove way to the Axe way. As Axe’s approach is widely perceived as a marketing success

everyone knows these ads, wheth-er they like them or not. Nowadays the most common norm used by any deodorant brand is a basically linked with what axe started a long time back. Few kick the ‘bold’ factor

up a notch while others use celebrities to cover up any lack of ‘boldness’. My

thoughts into writing this article were about how a brand has literally made itself a success by sheer ‘oomph’ factor and doing the same over the years and still being in consumers good books.

-Sai Teja

Skin care cosmetics have witnessed a solid growth in the last few years with more than half of the skin care market comprising skin lightening creams.A range of whitening creams have crowded the market and are now even luring men into their web of market-ing .Fair and Lovely be-ing the oldest in the race is now facing tough com-petition from Emami , Garnier, Nivea and Ponds offering fairness products for both men and women.A few days back a fairness cream commercial popped up on my screen while watching something on youtube. The advertisement showed a girl who due to her dark color felt dejected as she wasn’t able to get herself a job and how the cream came to her rescue. She not only got fair, that led to an appointment lettering her hand, but also made her popular. At the end of it I had a good laugh but it also made me think that is it really funny?In a country like India where people are ob-

sessed with fairer complexion and consider it as an imperative crieteria for calling someone beautiful, propagating such a message though

the commercials are justified or not. The USP on which the creams are sold

is not BEAUTY but COLOR, and when you have people

like Sharukh Khan, Karee-na Kapoor, John Abraham who are not just endorsers but influencers, then you do buy both the concept and the product.

Another question is, ‘Should the success really de-

pend on color?’ If you are tal-ented does color really matter? The

products specially beauty and fairness products sell hopes to people by embedding the idea in their minds that fairness is neces-sary for success, this breeds discrimination and moulds their perception. The ultimate choice is still yours whether you choose color or caliber.

- Pooja Agnihotri

THE MYTH OF WHITE

Every customer has something to show through the clothes they wear , the car they drive or from the place they eat . With the in-crease in the living standards, people are more and more willing to spend . They are willing to spend not to be accepted within their aspi-rational groups but also for their self satisfac-tion. There’s a saying ‘no person can like you until you like yourself !’Every person nowadays tries to make himself happy and presentable. Every person wants to get noticed. Gone are those days when ‘simple living and high think-ing’ used to work , people now be-lieve in ‘show your living and hide your thinking!’ This is not just the trend in urban areas, but rural as well . But due to lack of brand knowledge and exposure people are still in learning phase but the metropolitan are way ahead in the rat race .

Marketers generally focus on this need of the people! They first try to segregate their target audience and then focus on the stimuli that might generate the much needed response. Marketing and environmental stimuli enters the consumer’s consciousness and a set of psychological processes combine with certain distinct qualities and characteristic which may lead to the consumer buying decision.Every consumer buys the brand he thinks is a substitute representative of his person-

ality, choice and the social class he’s coming from .People gener-ally tend to ignore the opportunity cost they might incur only because they want to buy a certain specific brand. I am not saying that being brand conscious is wrong even I would buy a brand t shirt from a mall than getting the same in small retail shop , but here the question is WHY ?

Does Your Brand Represents You?

Why are we so brand conscious ? Why are we willing to spend so much part of our salary on branded clothes ? Is it the goodwill of the brand or the goodwill we have in our heads of the brand ?Branding is an art , it pictures a world around every customer . It positions the attributes and features of the product alongwith the goodwill in such a way that it appeals the target con-sumer .But nowadays the concept has wid-ened , the companies just not focus on brand building or retain customers but creating an environment where the customers think that the brand they pick will be judged by others and they tend to do the same.

A brand like Nokia, Lux, Pepsi, Airtel etc use Indian manufacturers for production,

it means all the products are produced here but only that tag representing the respective brand leads to tremendous increase in the prices. People generally have a sense of trust , faith in their brand which encourages them to buy these products rather than spending otherwise. This thinking has been build over time, thus convincing people that any brand-ed product is superior to others and will rep-resent their choice, taste and status and thus their Personality! But the end question is “Whether people will still believe this myth?”

-Prachi Sharma

Can AMV save BlackBerry from R.I.P.?Or is it too late?

Whenever I think of the race for

t he best smartphone in today’s world, only two companies come to my mind i.e. Samsung and Apple. And the race is going to get only that much tougher for them with the entry of Microsoft after the acquisition of Nokia. Whenever we talk of mobile phones, another company pops into to my head, the once popular, BlackBer-ry which is a product of Research in Motion (RIM). There was a point of time nearly 7-8 years ago when this brand was considered a ‘Titan’ and nobody could compete with it for market leadership. Experts use to say “people don’t just use BlackBerry; once they’ve discov-ered it, they can’t live without it!” but today there’s a completely different saying which goes around, “Once you use it, you will never think about using it again!”. So what has gone wrong with the brand which revolutionized the Corporate World with a simple concept? The answer is plain and simple it has lost out on Innovation. If we see after the success of their smartphones, RIM have consistently failed to launch products which offer more benefits to the customers apart from BBM

(BlackBerry Messenger). In these same years, it seems that their rivals had been doing it all, they have brought so much to the table with continuous innovation and product enhance-ment.

People say “Expensive Advertisements sells it all!”, I would beg to differ; just by putting mon-ey in advertisements doesn’t make your Ad good. If we see the different BlackBerry Ads that we have come across for so many years, they haven’t had the desired effect even after a lot of money went inside making them. One of the most prominent of those ads was the “We Are the BlackBerry Boys ” which has men in suits dancing and passing on a nice mes-sage but it failed to grab attention of the youth which once upon a time went gaga over the BlackBerry. Then there is the “Love What U Do, Do what U Love” which showed how the phone helps the Generation Y as we call it, in their day to day activities. Only one question was asked to this, “Every Smartphones out there does this right?” So how does it makes your phone different from the Notes, iPhones and Lumia’s which offer the same thing that to better than you. In the end there was the

“Welcome to BlackBerry Family!” campaign, which shows the family connection between BlackBerry users and how they are enjoying it. It was received and conceptualized better than the previous ones but one good ad in three to four years can’t make too big a change for the brand.

On the bright, side af-ter the management overhauls and posi-tions swaps, RIM made a really smart move, when they gave their ad-vertising account to AMV. Now AMV (Abbott Mead Vickers) although not so well known in India, is the biggest ad-vertising agency in the U.K. and is part of the BBDO network, the third largest agency net-work in the world. The Ad Agency has worked with many big companies like Mercedes Benz, BT, Aviva, Guinness, M&M, Starbucks, and Snickers etc. The Most memorable Ad it cre-ated was the “Suffer” Ad for Guinness which was voted as the “Best Ad of all time” by Chan-nel 4 and The Sunday Times. What makes me more interested now is that AMV is known for making bold statements through its TVC’s which at present is a dire need of BlackBerry. It came out with the “There Then There Now” commercial for the New BlackBerry which sparked that old day memories of the old BlackBerry and then the gradual showing of

the transition of the arrival of the new model by saying “I am coming Home”. This has been the best Ad for the brand and managed to cre-

ate buzz about their new phone.

But where the likes of Sam-sung & Apple exist, with

excellent ads which ef-fectively portray how good they are, this ad would seem average and ineffective. But in today’s advertising world where strange

but catchy ads like Hon-ey Bunny & Zumi Zumi

of the famous Zoo Zoos have taken everyone for a roll-

er coaster ride, I think BlackBerry needs something more than average and that opportunity is just around the corner. RIM has taken a 30 second slot in the upcoming super bowl. Now we all know the viewership of the Super Bowl is very high, as per the last year facts in US alone 111.3 million viewers watched it. The successful ad here means a lot for a Brand, the most famous example of a brand doing well using this strategy is the Apple Computer Ad of 1994, which started the Steve Job Era and the rest as we know it is history.

If AMV do it right it can be the “Cometh the Hour, Cometh the AD” for BlackBerry but a goof up again would cost them a whole lot of money and bad publicity which could be the final nail in the coffin for the brand. So will AMV be the Knight in shining amour for BlackBerry or just a part of the long list of bad decisions made by it?

“Let’s Wait and See!!!”

-Aditya Rai

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