Vodafone's advertising for its services on the smart phone sends signals loud and clear that it doesn't care for customers of his age, says our columnist.
The criticism normally levelled against advertising is that it makes us buy things we don't actually need. My family has consistently proven this to be true as we never seem to have place, however large the house is. Several years ago, a cake of Nirma premium soap landed up as part of my mother's shopping list. I asked her why she had bought it and she looked at me strangely and said, “I liked the ad.” That soap remained unopened in her house forever. She often complained to me how backward Bangalore was as some brand of dal which was advertised on Sun TV was not available here. So it is hardly surprising that advertising continues to run in my blood and influence my brand choices. After all, what little success I have got in life is because of advertising!
The IPL's fifth season has registered a fall in total viewership and television ratings for the opening six games in comparison to the 2011 season. This includes a decline in cumulative viewership for the first time in the IPL's five-year history.
The cumulative number of people who tuned in to watch the first six games was 90.1 million, down from 101.77 million last year, according to TAM Sports, a division of Tam Media Research, the leading television ratings agency in India. "Cumulative reach" is the number of individuals who watched a channel/programme for at least one minute. The tournament had managed to increase its audience in each successive season till 2011.
Too much cricket is leading to fatigue, and falling viewership.
Deepavali used to be the highpoint of my childhood. Your importance was directly proportionate to the rubble of crackers in front of your house, and I used to spend several days and nights in anticipation of the cracker bursting, something that today's kids and even adults seem to have given up due to a variety of reasons. I remember, though, that often, thanks to the preceding heavy rain in the city, the crackers that we expected to make the most of fizzled out, much to our chagrin and embarrassment.
I am reminded of this as I see all the build-up to the IPL, whether it is the reams of coverage in daily newspapers, interviews with the Gilchrists and the Lehmanns of the world or news that Sachin Tendulkar has joined the Mumbai Indians training camp. Ads and radio spots are flooding the channels reminding people (as though they needed reminders) about the big event around the corner. What will be the fate of IPL 5, whose first match would have just been aired the night before you read this piece? I wish I knew but I can hazard a few guesses.
Vodafone's advertising for its services on the smart phone sends signals loud and clear that it doesn't care for customers of his age, says our columnist.
