In the wake of some dodgy work being rewarded at Cannes, the old debate about scam ads has cropped up again. It is no secret that many agencies (barring a handful) actively seek to create work meant for awards. Such work has the following common characteristics: a likely social good cause, a relatively unknown association or group as ‘client’, a theme which will appeal to a jury made up mostly of westerners (who are likely…
I have a soft corner for good old print advertising, perhaps because my growing-up years in advertising were spent in an era when print ruled the roost. So, despite the industry’s penchant for using the latest technology and new-age platforms I always look out for print work in ad festivals. Herewith a few which caught my eye in the 2016 Cannes Lions festival (all images via Ads of the World and Adeevee). 1. Persil ‘Dirt…
Between bookmarked sites, Twitter and RSS feeds which showcase advertising, I come across many new creative ideas every week. As with advertising in real life, only a handful are memorable. Here are my picks for the week ending 24th June, 2016: Samsung Gear, Tesco mobile and more. Samsung: The Chant Sports-based themes lend themselves well to high-energy, goose-flesh inducing ads. A new ad from Samsung based on Margret Rumat Rumar Hassan, the 19-year-old 400-meter runner…
If you worked in an ad agency in the early 90s, like I did, you are sure to have come across the pigeon holes allotted to language translators. The way it worked was the text of a print ad, radio or TV script will be first conceived by an English copywriter. Based on the media plan, the print out of the text will then be placed in each pigeon hole allotted to various languages: Hindi,…
Between bookmarked sites, Twitter and RSS feeds which showcase advertising, I come across many new creative ideas every week. As with advertising in real life, only a handful are memorable. Here are my picks for the week ending 17th June, 2016: Dunkin’ Donuts, Cisco, and more. Dunkin’ Donuts: The World’s Fastest Dunkin’ Run The communication objective was to announce the launch of a new mobile app which allows on-the-go ordering. The benefit? The loyalty programme…
At the recently concluded WWDC, Apple executives alluded to how Apple Watch users are addicted to completing the activity rings before the end of the day. watchOS 3 will even a new face showcasing the day’s activity rings. As an Apple Watch user I can vouch for the veracity in the claim that users are motivated to complete these rings. Looked at in isolation, they are just three concentric circles, aren’t the? No big deal.…
Every Apple event follows a set pattern when it comes to media coverage: – First, speculation and rumours about what will be announced with some leaked images if there are hardware announcements expected – post the event, a report card of what was announced. The analysis will rarely be balanced with Apple fan sites going over the top while non-Apple fan sites will trash everything – list of features which were copied from elsewhere will…
Between bookmarked sites, Twitter and RSS feeds which showcase advertising, I come across many new creative ideas every week. As with advertising in real life, only a handful are memorable. Here are my picks for the week ending 10th June, 2016: Air Canada, Gillette and more. Air Canada: Test Drive Canada A lot of Americans said, ‘If Trump wins, I am moving to Canada’, jokingly or otherwise. There’s even a site monitoring Twitter mentions for…
The list of trending hashtags on Twitter is meant to be reflect what the Twitterati (or the world at large) is talking about. Very often events which create a buzz in real life are reflected on Twitter too: live sports or entertainment events, natural disasters, big political events come to mind. So when we see trends of such on Twitter it seems natural, real and a true reflection of what is occupying the hearts &…