And so the iPad has been announced. And the sun still rises in the east. I was glued to my Macbook, following the various live blogs. I also managed to catch the live television coverage on CNBC’s US feed. The last time a similar thing happened in 2007, during the iPhone launch, I was elated. It was a high. Did I get the same elated feeling this time around? No. Like several tech watchers and…
When you have a hit in your hands, like the Barclays Waterslide commercial, the pressure to go one up with a sequel is huge. Barclaycard and BBH, their agency, have taken this literally and have put a man on a roller coaster ride across New York in their follow up commercial. When you have such a powerful visual device in water slide (which was even converted into a successful iPhone game) and roller coaster, why…
In January 2007, Apple announced the iPhone. Pitched as a breakthrough internet device, it kicked up media & consumer frenzy for a good 6 months. When the iPhone was finally launched in June 2007, the consumer anticipation was so high that people lined up days ahead of the launch to buy it. The pre-launch hype generated millions of dollars of publicity for Apple and the iPhone. Are we seeing history repeat itself with the much-speculated…
This reminded me of the scores of ads from the early ’90s in India when print was still king. The kind of ads made famous by the likes of Trikaya, Enterprise and Ambience. Agency: Neiman Group, Philadelphia, PA, USA. Via: Ads of the World. Rest of the ads are here. An upmarket resort, upscale target audience, quaint little product features, droll humor – just the kind of stuff that made print advertising what it was…
In the early ’90s, agencies hived off their media planning & buying divisions into specialist units. Several of them, with control of billions of dollars in marketing monies, have gone onto become media powerhouses with incredible clout – after all, money is power. In mature & developing media markets, there are media heavyweights who match the creative superstars in terms of stature and influence. The genesis of all this was the desire to set up,…
When it comes to posting videos on YouTube, usually there ain’t much difference between most advertising agencies and the average YouTube user. Both post videos and that’s that. Agencies are expected to be power users and all that but usually they don’t even disable comments but get miffed if about adverse comments on their ad. in this context, Saatchi & Saatchi has created a cool video for National Crime Prevention Council. See the video in…
It’s official. Apple has sent out an invite to the Press on Jan 18th, via email. The invite, with a simple ‘Come see our latest creation’ has confirmed wild rumours about the event and has fuelled even more speculative frenzy. I loved the simplicity and intrigue of the invite. The ‘tease’ of not revealing what the event is about, the suggestive nature of ‘creation’, the use of a color splashes – all seem to have…
Maggi introduced a new kind of snack to India. Kelloggs introduced the cold breakfast to us. And now Britannia has vowed to replace unhealthy snacks with NutriChoice. The memorable TV commercial tapped into the insight that when one’s hungry all one can think of is food. The surround campaign urged people to replace their oily samosa with something healthy. Such arguments usually appeal to the head – you know what you are eating is unhealthy…
A full page ad in The Times of India does not automatically guarantee impact and memorability. Maruti EECO anyone? The one that made an impact recently was the full page ad for Apollo Munich Health Insurance. The promise of a simple health insurance product was brought alive well. From the font of the key number, this appears to be a JWT ad. Now as a late entrant in the already cluttered Insurance category it is…
Of the default applications that come with a Mac (Safari, Mail, iLife, iWork etc.) the one’s I use most every day are Safari and iTunes. I am on Snow Leopard where Appe Mail comes with Exchange 2007 support but I haven’t been able to connect to the office network. So for mail, I prefer Microsoft Entourage simply because of the better Exchange 2007 support. I dabble with iWeb, Keynote, Pages and Garage Band – all…