American Tourister- Survive Mumbai,Survive the World

Contract positions American Tourister, the premium luggage brand as one that can survive the toughest journeys; a weapon against surviving what the big, bad city can throw at travelers.

Objective:

According to Sudip Ghose, marketing director, American Tourister, they were looking to target ‘mass with class’. The idea was to establish American Tourister as the luggage that can withstand the most rugged conditions. Their objective was in being able to convey the toughness, without losing the brand’s international, premium appeal.

The Insight:

American Tourister consumers travel overseas at least once a year, on holiday, however, they aren't exactly seasoned travellers, but are just beginning to explore the world. Keeping this in mind, we dug deep into the 'beginner' international traveller's psyche. What emerged was that destinations around the world can be a challenging place for the 'beginner' international traveller.Every destination is unique in itself and there is a lot that can happen - and catch you unawares. Mumbai for instance, can overwhelm you with its crowds, LA has no public transport system to speak of, New Yorkers can be rude... and so on. It's in these instances when you need the reliability of an American Tourister by your side - so that your luggage can withstand whatever the world throws at you, so to speak. It was from this point that the idea evolved and the line 'Survive Mumbai, Survive the World' took shape.

Point of Communication+Utility=Winning Formula

With mobile phones becoming the major medium of business and personal communication, charging the mobile has become easier through public charging services. Apart from public mobile chargers already available in coffee shops, malls and multiplexes. Now, they make a debut in Meru Cabs, the radio taxi service present in a few cities.

Atin Promotions and Advertising has developed the technology and offers the ‘backlit cell phone charging units’ inside Meru Cabs as a new advertising medium as well. The conceptualization, designing, manufacturing and installation of the chargers were done in-house by the company.

It involves the coming together of two basic needs

1.)charging units for people on the move and
2.)branding for telecom players/others

The backlit mobile chargers were launched towards the end of September in 550 Meru Cabs in Hyderabad. They will be introduced in Meru Cabs across Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru in November. For the space provided, Meru Cabs makes a fixed amount from Atin Promotions.

The units carry chargers for all popular mobiles, with five docks that allow charging for all major models of Nokia, Samsung, LG, Blackberry and Motorola.

Meru Cab Company incorporated the Customer feedback about services like a mobile charger, in-cab entertainment and magazines etc.

First Mover Advantage:

For advertising, the mobile phone charger station has a LED light box advertising display.Vodafone has come on-board to explore this medium and has taken up 350 cabs in Hyderabad. and is likely to go for Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru.


Costings:

approximately Rs 650 per charger (cab) per month. The advertiser also has to take up a minimum of 250 cabs per city. Thus, if a marketer chooses to advertise on the minimum number of cabs, the cost would be about Rs 1.62 lakh per month.

Besides these mobile charger docks, Meru also offers exterior wrapping of its cabs, including doors and rooftop, and also seatbacks inside the cabs.

Kudos to Atin Promotions and Advertising for offering clients innovative mediums at airports, including conveyor belt branding, Jet Airways bus grab handles, airport coach wraps, backlit medians, promotional kiosks, AccuRide AdBikes, Look Walker, digital video screens, e-ticketing counters, standing backlits and scrollers.

Aadhar Association- Campaign Against Female Foeticide (Contract Advertising)

CLICK on the Poster to have an enlarged view.

I believe this is really a great poster ad created by Contract. The layout is traditionally simple. Black typeface against white background, simple font, step-by-step pointers and the direct yet subtle use of words is truly engaging.

The copy is painfully disturbing and dutifully compells the reader to ponder for the cause. The gravity of problem is made blatantly clear by a simple ad. No wonder its a hands down winner!

Contract has won a gold in Clio 2009 for this work in the Poster – Single category. In 2008, this campaign had proved to be a multiple award winner, winning a gold in the Press Lion category in Cannes 2008, a bronze in Adfest 2008 as well as winning a couple of Bullets in the YoungGuns Awards 2008, apart from featuring in the 2008 edition of The Work.

Creative Euphemism

The Economic slowdown has seeped into TV advertising, and we’re not just talking budget cuts here, we are talking about communication across categories which is exploring this current slowdown and leveraging it to strike a cord with the audience.

Ads such as Havells & Airtel are a case in point. Thier advertising blitzkrieg which we often witness during IPL matches showcases the slowdown theme in their creative idea – something topical for consumers to identify with.

Havells- Shock Laga!

Ad 1: One ad has chatting employees going into a shock (with their hairs standing on end) when a peon puts up a notice of ‘No Increment’ on the notice board. The next sequence is that of a duo in a coffee shop getting shocked when a newscaster on a TV set nearby announces the news of a market crash.The third sequence highlights the essence of slowdown - cars being replaced by cycles, and cycle peddlers riding down in a shocked daze as the VO concludes that one has already received a shock with the ‘recession’, but to avoid receiving an electric shock, one ought to use Havells.

Ad 2: similar sequences, including one in which a real estate dealer proudly puts up a board quoting the offer price for a property. The shock of the slowdown forces him to slash prices up to a point where he even puts up his shop for sale.

Airtel: How Romantic

Ad-

in a recent commercial for its offering ‘My Airtel My Offer’, has the slowdown woven in its creative message. The film opens with actor R Madhavan trying to distract actor Vidya Balan, who is engrossed in a newspaper, with his romantic text messages. Vexed with the downturn, she questions him on why is he is wasting money, when everywhere the slowdown gloom is only getting people to cut back in various ways. With another call to her mobile phone, which she unconsciously attends, Madhavan informs her – Pyaar main cutbacks nahi hone chahiye (There should be no cutbacks in love).

Verdict


Slowdown is a big reality and surely nobody is in the denial mode, however excess use of this topical conversation can be a bit dangerous, you wouldnt want your customers to absorb pessimism outta your communication. Also communication which is sometimes too much on the face (Havells Shock laga tune...is a tad too much for me)is a complete put off.

During the economic downturn, consumers are looking at the best value for whatever they use. If the products are actully adding to the total customer delivered value (by either reducing the cost of by givint additional benefits), they should definately communicate about the same, but subtely...consumers are smart enough to get the message, trying too hard makes them feel dumb! Apart from striking a cord due to the on going scenario, the consumers would sincerely be interested in something that eases their burden.

Lets keep watching who else leverages this Creative Euphemism!

Outdoor Media (Train): On Your Face?

Hype Integracomm is one of the growing OOH (out of home) media companies in India, owning media assets in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune. Hype owns all the media assets that it markets and follows the BOT (build-operate-transfer) model in conjunction with the local governing bodies.

After successfully launching the Smile TV network in western route of local trains in Mumbai,Hype has inked another deal with Railways in the same route to put up designer grab handles in Mumbai’s trains!!!

I get the whole logic, that Mumbai local trains are one of the best consumer touch points, an ideal way to reach the masses with communication messages, after all Railways is the lifeline of this city. About 7.77 million passengers travel daily by train and each train carries about 75,000 passengers daily. The journey time generally varies between 20-100 minutes. Good enough time for advertisers to make their point.

However, my point is, trains in Mumbai are straight out of "Ripleys Believe It Or Not". The sheer numbers are mind-numbing. It wont be a hyperbole if it is stated that life long train journey is a death defying accomplishment! It is just too crowded!Period. I mean in all the chaos & struggle, adding branded grab handles...will it serve the purpose? People who board the trains are for a brief period paralysed and become in almost semi-liqiud state (sweat+ability to take desired shape depending upon how much space one gets!)

Hype's Winning Idea

Grab handles is the medium that is closest to the eyeballs and offers a very high brand recall value!!! Yeah Right!!! It is also closest to ones head, maybe a good hit would make some sense prevail! What about the brand fit? And the least said about the ambience the better!

Apart from this the grab handles bear stark contrast to the rest of the interiors of the train which seem grossly untidy. In terms of look and feel, they are far away from the Metro trains or regular trains which are present in Developed countries.

Another point of contention is that off late trains have been used excessesively for brading activity. Right from external brand wraps to internal posters...branded products and services providers to not-so-known players...everyone has been there and done it! And of course Railway stations are an exmaple of too much in too little space.

Contract

Hype has won a five year contract to put up these handles in the trains run on the western route (WR). While exploring a very innovative advertising medium, this will also bring in hefty revenues for the railways.Each compartment of the trains will have about 125 handles, which is 40 handles more than the current number of metal and wood handles. About 67 trains of WR will have these handles installed over the next couple of months. Hype is investing nearly Rs 10 crore for the entire project.

Hype has also won contracts to install similar handles in trains of central route (CST to Kalyan), BEST buses and has installed these in the local buses in Bengaluru.

Cheaper option

Ad space of each of these designer handles is 7x 3.5 inches on both sides. Advertising on these handles, say for a month for a whole train, could cost an advertiser anywhere between Rs 1.5-2 lakh.The handles have a smart design and give a cheerful, vibrant look to the compartment when they display uniform images of the advertisement on top of these grooves.

Bottomline

Commuters have welcomed these sleek, comfortable handles in the place of the hard iron handles. Response from advertisers has also been good. However, a true win-win situation will emerge only and only if the revenues generated out of these activities are channelised in making railway commuting hygienic,safer and and a pleasurable affair. After all this principle should be a central one for an accountable BOP Model.

Visa Going The India Way...!

Visa will soon launch its global campaign, along with its new global positioning, in India. The campaign went on air in the USA market in the first week of March and will be released in the Indian subcontinent on the day of the festival of colours, Holi (March 11). It is pretty impressive to see That Global Brands are taking keen interests in India an Emerging Market and launching seperate communication strategy for the same

Craft & Media Masters

Visa consolidated its entire creative duties with TBWA and its media duties with OMD on a global level. Following the global consolidation, the first ever global campaign will be released in India simultaneously. The brand’s new positioning line is ‘More people around the world go with Visa’.

The idea has been tweaked a little to suit the Indian consumer. The 60 second ad pegs the various ways in which a consumer relates to the word ‘go’.

The Indian Tadka

In the Indian version of the ad, cricket and Holi have been woven in to impart a regional flavour. Visa was launched in India in 1989. According to Saurav Bhattacharya, marketing director, South Asia, Visa the initial task when Visa entered India was that of informing the prospective Indian consumer about Visa and the facility of plastic money.

Back Then...

It adopted the tagline – 'Visa Power. Go get it' – with cricketer Sachin Tendulkar as its brand ambassador from 1997 to 2003.

The next campaign was about connecting emotionally with the consumer. ‘Mind and Body. Heart and Soul’ was the next big campaign. Musicians Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy, who composed the tune for the campaign, were also the brand ambassadors at the time.

Shifting Focus

Earlier, the idea was to empower the consumer with 'Visa power' and then ‘go’ get what they desired. Now, since the consumer is aware of Visa, the focus has shifted to communicating that he can ‘go’ with it anywhere – be it shopping, marriages, dining or even for a holiday abroad. Accto Uttam Nayak, country manager, South Asia, Visa- The aim now is to convert cash and cheque transactions to electronic payment platforms.He goes on to explain that in order to bring this to effect, Visa will be present at all sites of consumer action to convert those into transactions.

In the Indian version, the print uses Indian nuances such as Indian marriages and eating habits to depict the word 'Go'.

Apart from print and outdoor, Visa will also use the digital platform through websites such as Shaadi.com, Yahoo and Sify.

Finger Lickin Good?

The above picture showcases 2 different specimens of Human Hand, the one on the left shows the median nerves which are responsible for the supply function and determine the growth of the fingers. The hand on the right shows certain area of hand covered in Blue, suggesting area of heightened sensation. When a certain area of the hand (or that matter any part of the body) is continuously made to do certain chores repeatedly, the physical appearance of the same can be altered (Now…now...Don’t let your over fertile imagination work just yet!!!Lolz) Finally someone is paying tribute to Darwinian Thesis of evolution centuries after he proposed it. Mudra (Ahmedabad) has quite cleverly/clichedly used the hyperbole route in its creative execution to build awareness for the brand "Nilon Pickles"

The Ad

The ad shows a young man with a peculiarity: an elongated index finger. The story tracks various life stages of the man as he emerges a winner in several situations because of his strange finger, such as winning a swimming race, fixing a showpiece for his girlfriend or handing her a rose to proclaim his love for her.

The climax explains the protagonist’s secret: he loves Nilon’s Pickle since his childhood and his elongated finger is the result of his licking the pickle off his finger!!!

The shocker!

According to Sanjay Menon, executive creative director, Mudra, the ad is a product of a small testing exercise within the agency to find out how people consume pickle. “Even though a bowl of pickle was kept on the table with a spoon, everyone tasted the pickle with their index finger!This led the team to the creative idea. Definately no brainer there!!!The more general observation that encouraged the creative team to tread in this direction was that when one relishes the food they eat, they tend to lick their fingers so as not to waste even a bit of it. To establish a connect to that fact, Mudra took the exaggerated route of the long index finger.

Creative Leap

finger licking is synonymous to pickle, and pickle is synonymous to Nilon’s...Yawn...Yawn...

Sniff...Sniff...Plagiarism???

One may recall that internationally, Heinz ketchup had created a commercial not too long ago, which had a man undergo an operation to elongate his finger just so that he can dip it in a bottle of Heinz and lick off the last few remnants of the ‘impossibly thick’ ketchup (What and Idea Sirje!). Of course Creative directors will rubbish any similaries (Read: no one would even know about the Hienz Ad...so who cares anyways?) and of course they will be ready to tout that Indians have the upper hand here...licking fingers being our national etiquette!!!

Serious Stuff

The pickle sector is a Rs 1,500 crore market, out of which only Rs 400 crore falls under the organised market segment. Sanghavi claims that Nilon’s has a 20 per cent market share in the organised sector and it aims to increase the market share by 4 per cent in the next five years by alloting a media budget of 10 Crores for 2009.


I Opine...

Personally i feel the insight and execution were good, however the ad does not stand out in terms of treatment.Another point on the positive side is its much relieved departure from showcaseing old grannies or mommies passing on the secret Achar Recepies...But lastly i guess one has to wait and watch id Nilon can fight it out with other established players and more importantly the unorganised segment. Strong brand recall (which they will definately build) shold translate into sales (read:theoratically great communication is aimed at driving better off take afterall)

Lolz!!!

What will people say to shop keeper..
Khariddar : O Bhaiya.. Nimbu ka Achaar dena..
Shopkeeper: Kausa Doon Sarkar..
Khariddar :Aare Bhai.. Woh hi 'Ungali wala achaar:)

NILON'S ACHAAR... ZUBAAN SE DIL MEIN UTAR JAAYE"..."SWAD KA ASAR DIKHE UNGLI PAR".