Sprite with Sania

Super Sir! Fantastic Ad. No one uses a brand ambassador so effectively.
What I liked about the Ad :
1. The central character of this Ad is an ordinary teenager, not brand ambassador(Sania).
2. The Ad is consistent with the theme that Sprite buzaye only pyaas - baki sab bakwaas. A new phrase is also coined Sprite kare no chamatkar - bas pyaas buzaye yaar.
3. Sania does not say anything about the product.
4. Humour. Nice, simple and straight.

All in all, good consistent Ad. Good to see it during Indo-Pak cricket matches.

Mentos - Hair-cut

Mentos have always produced excellent Ads. "Ye Ravi ka farz ... ", "College class mein entry.." were pleasure to sore eyes and sore mind. This one too is nicely drafted and well executed.

A barber is shown as a college going student, which many would argue as incorrect. But hey, though they are asking you 'dimaag ki batti jalao', it does not mean that you should do it immediately. A nice change.

Dobara mat poochna and Dimaag ki batti jalao have really become buzzwords now. I (and many others) use it every now and then. And people understand that. I think this is small victory for the Advertisers and the brand.

Halls Mint-fresh

A thin guy is walking down the street. Suddenly this guy falls back. Intentionally. Again, while walking in the library, while walking down the stairs, this guy falls on his back suddenly and intentionally. After 3-4 times, he jumps back on his legs. Practice makes man perfect. But what kind of practice is this?

Then this guy gets out of somewhere, and exhales freely. A girl(all adjectives apply to her) gets so much attracted that she knocks the guy down. That was what he was practicing for!

Nice idea. Decent execution. Good acting by that funny / intelligent looking guy. All in all, thumbs up!

Naukri.com - H A R I - S A D U

They have done it again. After a couple of nice ads (with their knockout punchline - Guess who has heard of us offlate) they have come up with another great one.

Its not easy to make an Ad on the same line again and again. But they surely seem to have a nack of doing one. The demanding boss is on phone. Irritated with a phone call on telling his own name, he hands the telephone to a junior. The junior uses the bosses name as abbreviation. He says on phone "H-for Hitler A-for Arrogant R- for ruthless I - for ...annnn Idiot""S - for shameless .. " and so on. No better way to quit the job (Whenever I do, I would try to use this idea :) ).

Nice acting by the junior. He really deserves every bit of credit. Almost-perfect Ad, I say.

Nice and watchable. Gives the message clearly.

Orbit - Chewing Gum

You may not remember the name of the gum, but you will surely remember the Ad. (And after reading this article, you will also remember the Name of chewing gum)

A vet is sitting besider a cow (with brown teeth... cow, not doctor). In a very very vernacular accent (Marathi) he introduces himself. Then he gives the chewing gum to the cow. After chewing orbit gum, her teeth become sparkling white. (Wow!!) Now, our hero argues that if the gum works on animal, it has to work on human being, after all, man is also a social animal. (Analogy).

I loved it. Everybody hated it. I still loved it. Now everybody loves it. Great Ad!!!! At first sight, you get to know that this ad is going to be idiotic. And you get more than you expect. Heavy influence of vernacular language, an honest look on his face, foolish analogy, and visual effect. You cannot think of anything better (or worse).

If one thinks hard, this is an intelligent Ad (Irony, anyone?). The USP of the product is conveyed to the end user clearly. Teeth become sparkling white after chewing this gum. This is all what they want to tell us. We got it. We smiled at this ad. That's all they wanted, right?

Lux - Chocolate

I like chocolates. Really. So? Should I bathe with a chocolate? Firstly, why did HLL come up with such a product is a mystery for me. Are all other "aroma's" and "fragrances" over? Or is it that people are tired of bathing only by "Milk-cream" so they want chocolate as an addition.

Children between 7-10 dont drink plain milk. Therefore moms add chocolate powder in them. Teenage and twenty-something girls dont bathe with plain milk-soap, therefore the companies think of giving them chocolate-milk bath. Soapy, someone said? Bourne-vita, I say.(Some explaination urgently needed.)

Now Kareena appears only clad with chocolate all over(except face, why was it left out?). Sensuous ? No. Gaudy? For me, yes.

Celebrate 75 years of stardom with something better. Cut chocolate cake instead.

Pepsi Cafe-Chino

Concept - New product into market. No competetor. Cola + Coffee mixture. Creation of a new market segment. Already have a celebrity in Kareena(or Kareina or something else... why do these celebrities keep changing their names? ) endorsing Pepsi. Roped in current hot property Priyanka Chopra.

Too hot to handle? Not really. Too cool? Not at all.

The Ad starts with a bald "coffee"-coloured guy wearing "cola" colored goggles. First impression of Cola + Coffee mixture? You bet! The background is white and the guy is playing a white piano. Why I dont know. The jingle is not worth humming (I dont even remember it now!).

Then suddenly our celebrities start dancing. They say, bahar se kadak or andar se soft.... or something. Who cares what. Kareena is wearing coffee colored costume. Priyanka is wearing Cola colored one. So they say that cola is kadak and coffee is mulayam. Is this 5 star Ad or what?

Zulfi Syed (with long zulfein) must be happy that Kareena kissed him. Nothing much.

All in all, bakwaas Ad. No impact of product / celebrity / brand. You wont even remember after a while, which was the product which Kareena and Priyanka were dancing for. But if you can remember the bald man at the beginningof the Ad, you will certainly remember that the Ad was for Cafe-chino. Why did they waste money on Kareena and PRiyanka?

Hero Honda Achiever

Okay .... A new bike Ad... A male model.... unclean shave ... macho personality... shirt revealing the chest and torso .... going on his bike on a road from nowhere to nowhere .... that's the "down - trodden" "path" for all the bike advertisers.

So, what's new here? Eagle. Eagle? Why Eagle? So the new brand ambassador for Hero Honda is an eagle. They've ditched Hrithik Roshan for an eagle.

He sets off on his bike. It flies higher and faster. The estranged couple finally meets. The eagle sits on his shoulder (or arm..whatever). He is an achiever. Huh?

All in all. Waste of time and money and a penalty to the finger. Use of remote necessary.

Kajol - Tata Indicom to Marie

Kajol was my favourite actor during her pinacle in Indian film industry. And now she's gonna be back! She is going to be seen in a movie "Fanaa" (or they may spell it "Fannaaaaaaa" ... or something else). But before hitting the big screen, she's already appearing on small screens. Last heard, she had endorsed 5 brands.

Her first comeback ad was whirlpool. She was seen with her husband for the first time in any ad. Though the ad was pretty ordinary, Kajol breathed life into that ad. Her image (now after her marraige and a child) was aptly used by the admakers. They knew Kajol was now seen as a home-maker, which was the target audience(and decision maker in bying a new fridge :) ) of the brand.

The Tata Indicom ad was simple, straight and effective. Again, she was shown along with Ajay. The ad had extreme responses. Some of them liked it and some of them hated it. The presence of Japanese / Korean characters in one of the ads was amusing for some. But whatever be the ad, the number of connections of Tata Indicom have shot up after this campaign. They love Kajol.

The point of all this cajoling(or Kajol-ing) was her new "Anti-Marie Bureau" campaign. Leave aside the intention of Parle to enter the Marie-business, Kajol rocks that ad. She appears from the roof-top, spies through surveillance cameras, and trashes the marie buscuits and marie-users too. :)

Ad Rankings - 2005

My Ad Rankings for 2005

1. Times of India Ad. The Ad in which the grandfather is happy that his grandson is selected for the Indian hockey team.
2. Daag Achche hain : Surf Excel Ad. Superbly executed.
3. Feels like God : Bajaj Avenger.
4. Asian Paints. (kaat - kaat... dar mat ... main hoon na ... bas kaat :-) )


Worst Ad.

The one with SRK in bathtub, LUX.

Surprisingly, SBI

When I first saw the Ad, it was easy to guess what the background for this Ad might be. A market research for people's perception about the bank, which yielded wrong results. Bank asks the Ad agency to make "Facts" blatant. That was exactly how it was. SBI conducted a market research by asking common people questions like "Which is the biggest bank in India?, Which bank has highest number of ATMs?, etc". To their shock, the respondents answered ICICI bank. This shock led to "Surprisingly SBI" campaign.

OK, enough of background, lets get to the real stuff. I have seen the ads of "Chamanlal Chimpu" (or whatever), "Eating chillies" and "Hair removing".

Chamanlal was a good ad. Nice humour involved. Feel Good Ad with a good punch in message. Engrossed me as it was the first of SBI Ads. But somehow I felt that the Ad was not as healthy as it should have been. Everybody has a perception that ICICI has the largest number of ATMs in India, though it is "Surprisingly, SBI".

Go fida - Ford Fiesta

Let me start with Bluff Master. Abhishek Bachchan had a fairly good year in 2005 (The best one of his career). Ford selected him as brand ambassador for their new product Fiesta. Good strategic thinking, methinks. I was curious about how actually are they going to utilize Abhishek Bachchan. As a cool dude, as a superstar (or superstar's superson), or whether they would actually separate the character in Advertisements from Abhishek Bachchan.

The Ad starts off well. Junior B is sleeping in the night. Suddenly at 1.00 the alarm rings. He goes to the dealer and asks him for his brand new car. He argues, that its the next day as promised and its 1.00 o'clock. The dealer is happily surprised and says his collegue that he is fida over the car. Nice idea.

But implementation is really screwed off. They have not been able to implement a simple and nice idea well. The viewer is unclear about the idea for most of the Ad. And few of my family members and friends did not understand the motive of the Ad at all! Secondly, its a Car Ad. For God's sake focus on the Car. The car is only seen once in the showroom and once on the road. I have actually seen the Fiesta and I can say that its not just the outer looks and the sparkling pink-cum-violet (which for me is a ridiculous color if you want to own your car) color which Ford would have liked to focus on. Fiesta has nicer interiors than the competetors (Indica-Esteem-Icon-City-Accent). No focus on that. Also, the car is not strikingly good looking or even radical. So, the Ad maker should have thought of it.

All in all, a nice and simple idea that Abhishek cannot wait till 1.00 o clock in the after noon and rushes to showroom at 1.00 0 clock in the night instead appears nice only as concept. The admakers are confused about what they need to showcase - Abhishek or Fiesta. And they have ended up showcasing nothing. Also, the punchlines from Ford are getting worse. From Josh Machine for Icon to Go Fida for Fiesta.

Hinglish may not work always! And may not capture the sentiments of youth everytime!

Why not me ?

Just read in Economic Times today about the reviews of advertisements you see nowadays by AD pundits. I have been reading those for a while now. What I read is not very different from what I personally feel. So why not me? So what the newspapers give them money and blogspot wont give me any money? At least I can publish my thoughts. If you can make bad advertisements, we can badly criticise that. Right?

Just Kiddin... This's gonna be a forum for my AD reviews.

-Tushar