I first heard about the Build A Dream Car initiative through an article in afaqs. Apparently, the banner ads were present across several online brands: a banner ad titled ‘Build a dream car’ is live across various websites, including Zigwheels.com, Carwale.com, Linkedin.com, Moneycontrol.com, as well as the Google content network. It felt strange to know about a digital campaign through a press release sorts – or maybe the targeting was bang on, since I am not an auto enthusiast…
About 3 weeks ago I tweeted about the London Long Copy Challenge – the award to celebrate the artistry behind long copy. In these days of visual-led communication it is nice to see such an effort. My growing years in advertising were at an agency which was considered king of the print medium and that’s perhaps the reason for my love for the print medium. ‘No one has the time to read so much copy’…
Much has been written about how the iPad is likely to revolutionize the publishing industry. I have tried out the iPad versions & Apps of Wired, Readers Digest, MacLife, People, Fortune, WSJ, FT and Newsweek. While some have simply provided a digital version of their magazines, those that use the features of the iPad well and imbue an element of interactivity in their Apps seem to evoke the ‘wow’ reaction. Some of the features in…
This happens rarely in Indian advertising – an ad film was premiered in London amidst a bevy of celebrities. The film – for Kerala Tourism and directed by Prakash Varma of Nirvana Films is ‘aimed at a global audience of experience seekers’ says Dr. V Venu, Secretary of Kerala Tourism. I was waiting for something to happen as I sat through the film…something big, something interesting. But that was not to be. Maybe I am…
I had to buy a new mouse for my wife’s laptop and ended up buying the Logitech Mini. At Rs.640/- (approx $14) it was a good bargain. And it looked pretty good, what with India tricolours and all. The problem started with the simple task of opening the pack. Frankly, I didn’t know where to start and an ordinary pair of scissors was of no use when I tried to cut it open. After several…
I’ve seen tonnes of campaigns on ad blogs like Ads of the World where a concept is executed across 4 or 5 ads, as part of a campaign. Some of them require just one ad to drive home the point, but end up having more than one execution – like this one for Okuma or this one for Hiltl. This campaign for Chef Boyardee caught my simply because while it conveyed a single thought -…
Alright, the new Cadburys Shubh Aarambh commercials are getting talked about. As a concept, I liked it better than ‘pehli tareekh’, the previous one. While there is an air of positivity around payday and the concept allows for huge visibility every month, it could lead to fatigue – how often can you hear about payday & CDM? Like everyone else, I quite liked the bus stop ad – it’s sweet, watchable and all that. The…
The 3rd Anniversary Issue of Campaign India hasn’t reached me yet, but I browsed through some pages of the electronic version of the magazine. One of the features asked a few of the industry professionals to talk about what they ‘like, dislike and hate in Indian adland’. I haven’t read views from all the contributors – just a few of them – but what we bemoan about the industry is the serious stuff: lack of…
If you were to ask someone to name a few classic British print ads, quite likely that The Economist, Volkswagen Polo, Chivas Regal, Sainsburys would feature in that list. Many of those were developed when print was king. Things have changed quite a bit of late- the most talked about recent work from UK would include the T-Mobile flash dance in Liverpool, the Cadburys Gorilla advert, the Awareness Test for Transport for London and so…