I recently came across a post on Twitter which shared a response from a digital agency to a comment (complaining about the agency’s ‘toxic’ work culture) posted by its ex-employee on Glassdoor. The official response from the agency justified late nights, working on weekends and even giving up on personal life as normal – almost an expected thing to do to survive and get ahead in the advertising business. I happened to go through a…
Over the last few days, couple of ads from a deodorant brand Layer’r Shot caused widespread outrage (and rightly so) in India. Both the ads are anchored on cheap word play around the brand name and lewd. In one ad, four men at a department store aisle look in the direction of a woman and ask, “Hum char, aur ye sirf ek? Toh Shot kaun lega?” (‘There’s four of us and just one of it? Who will take…
Advertising, by definition, is meant to grab people’s attention. If a campaign goes un-noticed, it’s just waste of money. In that context, what has come to be known as ‘shockvertising’ – the attempt to deliberately shock or even offend people into noticing (and discussing) an ad has come into vogue. It is certainly not a new phenomenon. A common example of such an approach is the ‘United Colors of Benetton’ campaign featuring images which were…
A social media post caused a diplomatic incident recently after a severe social media backlash over a social media post from Hyundai’s dealer in Pakistan. A #BoycottHyundai hashtag also trended in India. As many Twitter users began tagging the official handle, the social media team at Hyundai India protected their tweets and apparently also blocked a few users to boot. The official statement released initially wasn’t much of a clarification and spoke how the company…
In terms of user base, Twitter is relatively smaller than other popular social media platforms. But it share of visibility and media attention is much bigger as was evident recently. Twitter’s billboard campaign got people talking about for its simple, striking creativity and showcasing its buzz-creating ability. This and other creative ideas form part of my weekly compilation. Twitter: Tweet it into existence There’s something about Twitter that encourages instant, spontaneous sharing of one’s views…
I wrote a long post about the basics of marketing communications and the recent controversies around festive ads in India – particularly those of FabIndia and Fem. Last year too, Diwali ads faced social media backlash. The media discussions on this issue continue. I came across a segment featuring adman Bharat Dabholkar in a news channel video discussing the recent ad controversies. I agree with him on a a few things while disagreeing on others.…
The fundamentals of marketing communications is believed to be the same, be it in the traditional media world or the ‘new’ digital world. Bill Bernbach, ad legend and founder of DDB said famously: ‘it is fashionable to talk about changing man. A communicator must be concerned with unchanging man, with his obsessive drive to survive, to be admired, to succeed, to love, to take care of his own’. Such motivations are not going to change…
It is festive season now in India and mass media is full of ads from retail, jewellery and fashion brands. Some of the ads which featured protagonists in traditional Indian wear but without a bindi on the forehead faced criticism on Twitter (where else?) and some even tagged the brand handles. The question, ‘does art imitate life or life imitates art?’ is perhaps a difficult one to answer. In this context, advertising & marketing folks…
I set up current domain name and blog in 2009. But at least a couple of years prior to that I was started blogging. It was in 2008 (I think), that I had set out to manage two blogs – one on advertising and the other on all things Apple. Back then the Mac-PC wars were common on the web and maybe it was my inherent desire to ‘defend’ Apple that triggered this thought. The…
Every week, I attempt to share a compilation of clutter-breaking creative ads and occasionally some commentary on the business of advertising. As many have noted, a majority of the ads out there go un-noticed, so managing to break the clutter is actually a big deal. This week’s compilation includes compelling TV spots from DIRECTV, Samsung and Deliveroo among others. DIRECTV Stream: get your TV together ‘Best of both worlds’ is a common theme in advertising and leads to…