Interesting developments in the snack world – an international company with a distinctly Indian brand name, Kurkure, recently went desi. Now it’s Bingo’s turn to flip the argument. The hallmark, even expectation of a Bingo commercial is it’s zaniness. Which IMHO, is distinctly watered down in the latest avatar – for International Cream & Onion. The smart part about it is the branding – I think it’s a sour cream & onion flavour (slurp, my favourite was the Pringles brand) which is neatly packaged as ‘international’. But the gag – a local loser masquerading as a slick NRI – is from the 70s and 80s movies and the moment he gifts Bingo the story is over. Think Rajendranath or Mehmood fooling his would-be-father in law. The ad is likely to be popular and gets home the vilayati message –when you have someone blaring it over a loudspeaker, you can’t go wrong.
Also did you notice the proliferation of the brand name in the TVC? The brand name & variant is mentioned at least 4 times. Branded memorability, anyone? Compare it with the earlier ads. Question: if all the first set of commercials (Vango Pongo, Glad Bangles) did not exist and if this were to be the first commercial someone sees of the Bingo brand, would it score as highly on likeability?
2 Comments
I think the idea has gone wrong somewhere. The brand is torn between talking about the brand and harping on the flavour. And in that fight, they have tried to take the middle path which makes the communication very mediocre when you compare it to the zany ads we saw for the Bingo launch.
After the village folk realised realised that the Bingo is an Indian brand, the next step I was expecting to be that, the flavour is so international that they believe Bingo to be imported which would have etched the communication of ‘truly international flavour’. Rather the ad tries to concentrate on the brand ‘Bingo’ and totally loses out on the ‘flavour’ aspect. Also the ad fails majorly on the comic timing, which is very important when it comes to humourous commercials.
If you are asking the question whether or not I would like this commercial in the absence of the earlier ones, I would say ‘just another TVC’….and with minimal entertainment value.
Tis a far cry from the ‘glad bangles’ one.