VIP Skybags and their attack on black

You must have noticed the new ad campaign for VIP skybags featuring John Abraham to mark its foray into the Backpack segment. I was asked to weigh in on the campaign and the segment.

The new Skybags campaign

I believe that categories like watches, vehicles, clothes and women's bags have all undergone change and have become products that are used to make a statement, and backpacks are no different, as I mentioned in a campaign profile on Afaqs.

You can read the whole article and my other thoughts on the segment here.  

How the cookie crumbles: Oreo's new brand ambassadors

“Celebrity endorsements in India are much more than in any other country, and this is perhaps to my mind another such example of that. Oreo is a widely-advertised brand and is recognised by almost everyone. Its acceptance is more than any other brand, so maybe they want to build on it and distance themselves from everybody else.”

Read more on my assessment of hiring Ranbir Kapoor and Karthi as brand ambassadors for Oreo in this piece on Exchange4media.

‘Our shy achiever from Indira Nagar'

Rahul Dravid is like a bank — silently, unobtrusively accumulating — and yet unlike a bank, he has a heart and good old-fashioned values.

Rahul Dravid has perhaps had more column centimetres and television space accorded to him over the last few days than during his long and distinguished playing career. In many ways he is not the ideal subject for a journalist seeking a headline or a sensation. He has never used an aluminium bat or dropped his trousers on a cricket ground, shown two-finger salute to the crowd or tackled a streaker. He has just made runs — a mountain of them in every part of the world, often when most of his more-celebrated teammates failed. He is like a bank — silently, unobtrusively accumulating — and yet unlike a bank, he has a heart and values that set him apart from the average IPL contract-seeking bloke. He has old-fashioned values — “the greatest motivation is playing for your country,” he would say when coaxed. I have interacted with him on a few occasions and wish to share those special moments. Let me start with an incident involving Dravid about which I heard from my colleague.

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Is the celebrity a brand or a product?

Why do brands seek celebrities? They do that because celebrities stand for something; they are different from the herd and create instant awareness for their products. And that is not all. This is cricket World Cup time and each time your celebrity scores a four, snatches a wicket or pulls off a sensational catch, you are preening yourself on your choice. Unfortunately in the Indian context there is another imponderable reality for sponsors. They have absolutely no control over what the celebrity does. Of course while they may not have to worry too much about their celebrity getting into a controversy (unless of course they have signed on the spin king) they have a larger headache and let me try to address this. The biggest problem is that celebrities do not have control over their own destinies and lives but belong to sports management companies to whom they are mere ‘products’ to be managed, packaged and sold aggressively for a profit- brand and celebrity fit be damned. With Dhoni endorsing no less than 25 brands that I can recall and Sachin (or his sports management company) trying hard not to be left behind we have the current captain and the former captain featuring as brand ambassadors of more brands than they really should be doing. Of course the celebrity management companies are probably laughing all the way to the bank, but are the sponsors really happy or looking over their shoulders at every new brand endorsement that their own celebrity is so cheerfully signing.

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