The best 7 minutes that you are likely to spend if making presentations (or suffering through them) is part of your job. Among the tips doled out in this video, the stand-outs for me (and mentioned in every presentation skills article) are these: Present an outline: even in traditional Hindu prayers (Sandhyavandanam), the starting point is the sankalp – or outlining the details behind the prayer. In presentation lingo, it is ‘say what you are…
This seems like ‘made-for-awards’ – I haven’t seen it in local press – but you must applaud the idea behind the campaign. Amrutanjan’s nasal inhaler is positioned as relief that unclogs your world. The insight is bang on and the creative idea of ‘being underwater’ when suffering a nasal block strikes a chord. The execution is patchy across the ads but comes alive best in this execution. Agency: DDB Mudra, Bangalore, India Creative Director: Joono…
Of late, I have been quite impressed with both the product and the advertising for The Power of Ideas project from The Economic Times, in partnership with Indian Angel Network. The Power of Ideas is ‘an initiative by The Economic Times to encourage anyone and everyone with an idea to realize his entrepreneurial dream. Ideas will be polished and nurtured with personalized guidance from senior mentors before being submitted to the largest group of investors…
Finally, a TV commercial for a macho bike, where the screen time is dominated by women. In a refreshingly new take on bike ads, two sisters fight it out to be the pillion rider in the new Bajaj XCD 135. While one may quibble that the premise of ‘going to great lengths to get it’ is oft used across categories (soft drinks, for one), the execution is gripping. The twist is in the central plot…
This TV commercial for Colgate Max, created by Rediffusion DY&R is doing the rounds of ad blogs. I saw it first on the web – don’t recall having seen it on TV. In most cases, it is being summarily panned. Judge for yourself whether this is a case of ‘December advertising’ and if it deserves all the trashing. All I can say is that the previous effort looks good now. See what others are saying…
Brace yourself for a barrage of ‘This Valentine’s Day’ messages this week. Here’s one such spot, albeit with a twist. The spot was developed for the ECO TO GO program of Ecoagents. ECO TO GO s a grassroots education program which promises to alleviate the massive amounts of packaging from becoming waste. The website has interesting information on plastic: a plastic fork takes over a 1000 years to decompose – yet we only use it…
Google Phone Search has been launched in 2 more Indian cities (Mumbai & Bangalore). Using a ‘combination of advanced speech recognition technology and local experts’ it attempts to make local business information, movie times and real time flight status accessible from any phone. Users can call a toll free number, 1-800-41-999-999 to access information. According to the Google India blog, the speech recognition technology is still not perfect and it may not recognize you at…
Caution: long and rambling post. Much has been written about movie marketing of late. Movies are being marketed like traditional FMCG brands and every aspect of the film – it’s plot, the actors, the characters and props provides fodder for promotional campaigns. Among the US TV shows, the promotion for Trust Me, a series based on the goings on of an advertising agency caught my eye. The show is about two best friends working as…
Sprite continues with it’s non-nonsense platform of ‘Seedhi baat, no bakwas’ with two new commercials. Both are about ‘getting the girl’ in a direct manner avoiding the old tricks. In this one, trying to befriend the girl’s folks can make you the ‘sambhar tambi’. And in this one, you’ll be left baby sitting her dog while our hero gets the queen. The earlier Sprite ad was about being honest and straightforward too. But the character…
The New York Times had a great piece last week about Apple’s advertising success, compared to Microsoft. Among the blog responses to this article, I found this to be a great read. As Ad Contrarian says, ‘you don’t always have to make good advertising to be successful’. Sigh. So true. The crucial reason for Microsoft’s success is that most people ‘had’ to use a Microsoft product – they had no choice. With Apple, people ‘want’…