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.
Sachin Tendulkar, who hit his hundredth hundred last week, is our country's contribution to the world of legendary brands.
The 16th of March was a day filled with tremendous possibilities. India's Finance Minister was presenting his Budget to a fairly sceptical country which had witnessed the petty drama surrounding a good Railway budget just then, and Sachin Tendulkar was having another go at his elusive hundredth century as he had done on quite a few heartbreaking occasions last year. The Finance Minister delivered a damp squib even as he quoted Shakespeare. Sachin Tendulkar reached his milestone late that afternoon several hours after the Budget presentation and India collectively released its breath.
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.
David Ogilvy the advertising legend wanted that rare breed for his advertising agency “gentlemen with brains”. The greatest gentleman that ever trod the cricket field – Rahul Dravid called it quits from all forms of cricket at a farewell press conference at Bangalore on Friday. Even as encomiums pour in from all and sundry from different parts of the world, I thought I would write a few words about Dravid the cricketer and the person. His deeds on the cricket field have been well recorded. The nickname “the wall” was earned after years of playing some of the finest bowlers in the world in every cricketing country in the world and even as Indians earned the justifiable nickname of “lions at home and lambs abroad” Rahul Dravid stood head and shoulders above his more celebrated and written about colleagues – as he simply batted better abroad. More than his batting was his selfless attitude of team first, something that individual record obsessed Indians never fully understood. When he first declared the Indian innings with a desire to win a cricket match when Sachin was short of his century (though he was truly dawdling at the crease), Dravid copped a lot of criticism. But he soldiered on – always taken for granted, never truly appreciated to the extent that he should have been.
Make place for the necessary along with the exotic and the luxurious. - Photo: SATISH H.
Brands should not forget customers' basic needs in their zeal to delight with unique services.
As marketers we are always wondering how to give our customers an experience they will not forget. More critically, if we can get our customers to talk to their friends about their experience, or better still, go online and tell the whole world about the brand, then we can certainly reward ourselves with a drink! The reality, however, is that either because customers are getting more demanding by the day (or minute) or because we are constantly struggling to get our service act right, experiences like this seem to be a rarity.
Brand-comm being awarded as a partner for its PR support at CavinKare Awards!
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Maruti Suzuki: Appealing to the consumer in a savings-conscious market.
Often, an ad that seems less imaginative but more direct has a better chance of making an impact than more sophisticated ones.
In 1987 when I bought my first car (Oh God, there he goes again, you're thinking) the task was simple. There were basically two cars in the market, the Premier Padmini and the Ambassador. I remember the management guru of those days, Sharu Rangnekar, telling us that the Ambassador made you feel close to God because everyone who got into the car invariably exclaimed “Oh God!” and I did not want to feel so close to God then as I was already experiencing similar emotions when my wife was at the wheel!
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.
