Jingles have been part of advertising for decades. When done well, they have the potential to create a memory hook for the brand. In India too, jingles have been popular for several decades. Consumers seem to love them – especially those from the 80s and 90s, going by the several nostalgic posts on the web & social media about ‘those were the days for great jingles’. The common characteristic of popular jingles over the years…
Apple has doubled down on promoting privacy on the iPhone for years now. The benefit presented is in contrast to the Google ecosystem where advertising revenue garnered through user’s personal data is the business model. A new ad dramatises the pitfalls of the ‘other’ ecosystem in the context of health data. Privacy on the iPhone: the Waiting Room It’s quite likely that we all must have witnessed an instance of data ‘tracking’ us across the…
An overdose of anything is not good. Does that apply to the amount of what passes of as ‘content’ put out by brands too? The word content can refer to any piece of paid or unpaid creative across platforms: TV commercials, print ads, YouTube videos, Reels & Shorts, social media posts, blogs, WhatsApp campaigns, webinars, videos culled from such events…and so on. ‘A content piece a day’ seems to be the norm. There was a…
Bournvita, is a malted health drink aimed at growing children. In India, mothers of such children have been its core target audience. ‘All round development’ has been the brand’s focus for decades. My earliest memory of the brand is its association with the popular ‘Bournvita Quiz Contest’ on the radio . In the recent past the brand has invested in the campaign idea ‘Tayyari Jeet Ki’ loosely translated as ‘preparation for success’ and created some…
Last weekend, I got a chance to take part in an audio event to discuss ‘The Changing Landscape of branding’. Here are some points which I attempted to elaborate and a few others which struck me as relevant later: Branding: what is it? Over the years, I have heard the term branding being used in different contexts. When a client says ‘branding is weak’ it could mean that they fear that the viewer may not…
A LinkedIn post triggered an interesting conversation on the role of social media for both legacy and (for lack of any other phrase), ‘new-age’ brands. As is obvious now, many brands – both in B2C and B2B, consider social media presence to be mandatory. The common reference in this context are brand activities on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. A brand maybe active in a few or all of the above platforms – depending on…
If we meet someone who speaks well we tend to form a positive opinion of them: we equate articulation with intelligence. It is pretty similar to how we react to likeable ads – subconsciously we transfer this affinity to the brand. Similarly, we admire those who write well. As David Ogilvy said, ‘People who think well, write well’. When it comes to good writing, what gets our attention and keeps us engrossed could be anything…
As consumers, how often have we experienced a situation where we remember elements of an ad (such as a key visual, a character or the story line) but are unable to recall the brand? Some marketers think the solution lies in placing the brand logo on the screen right from the first frame of a TV commercial, having the brand repeated many times in a radio spot or increasing the size of the logo in…
It has become customary for brands to see every occasion (such as Earth Day) or big news event as an opportunity to create ads – mainly social media creatives. Burger King posted a tweet in the context Women’s Day and got into kerfuffle on media. Eventually they retracted the original tweet which said, ‘Women belong in the kitchen’ not before outrage across media. It got me thinking about the need for context in today’s media…
Ad agency professionals and their clients – the marketing folks at enterprises, pretty much know that a majority of the ads are simply ignored by consumers. Now there’s a new phenomenon to worry about: social media outrage. Ad avoidance is a phenomenon not limited to digital advertising where a CTR of minuscule percentages is seen as a good metric. The problem has existed right from the days of traditional media – be it billboards, print…
