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Fabulous Ads- Part 1

Posted by Yashika Totlani Khanna on 11:51 AM in , ,
Every now and then, while flipping through channels on that idiot box, we stumble upon ads that simply stand out of the bunch. They incarcerate all our attention, hands down. So this is a tribute to some recent ads that have successfully managed to etch themselves onto our memories for the years to come…
Coca Cola: Thande ka tadka!

Brand: Coca Cola
Agency: McCann Erickson
Tag Line: Thande ka tadka
Description: Aamir Khan enters a restaurant with a red and swollen face, eyes hardly open, donning ‘touristish’ apparels, with a camera around his neck. The owner thinks he’s a foreigner and decided to fleece him. He adds two extra ‘0’s beside the price of everything on the menu. Aamir writes his order on a paper and is forced to get it himself after nobody understands him. As he begins gorging on his ‘thanda samosa’ and ‘thanda pakora’, i.e. coke with samosa and pakora, he starts talking in hindi, much to the surprise and disappointment of the waiters and the opportunistic restaurant owner (who are now surrounding and gawking at him like fools). He leaves them zapped by telling them that he is not a foreigner, but a photographer mauled by honeybees while shooting.


My Take: The humour quotient was high and the power idea gave the brand a new positioning. It definitely struck a chord with the masses and had me rolling with laughter for a considerable amount of time… I almost missed the pepsi commercial, courtesy: the tears of laughter that blurred my vision, which aired a few minutes after I saw this ad for the very first time. Aamir reinforced his prowess at dexterity yet again, assuming the garb of a supposed-Japanese tourist. The average viewer would never have discerned the twist in the yarn unless told! Coca Cola, as always, showcased great marketing wizardry so far as winning the ‘localization’ war is concerned. The bond between Coca Cola and its ubiquitous trump card ‘Thanda’ remains intact. Cola’s trademark: maintaining flavor with élan.

Surf Excel: Daag achche hain!



Brand: Surf Excel
Agency: Lowe
Tag Line: Daag achche hain!
Description: Brother and sister are returning home from school. Backdrop: rain-soaked grounds with a cloudy ambience. Sister accidentally steps into water puddle and soils herself. The adorable face cringes with disgust and we see her at the verge of tears. Protective/loving brother throws bag aside and starts ‘punching’ water puddle (semi-consciously splashing more dirt on his sister’s uniform and soiling his own clothes in the process!), repeatedly asking ‘it’ to apologize to his sister for the ‘misconduct’… All this, while the sister chants “Aur maro, aur maro…” from his side. Both of them finally convinced that the puddle has been trashed enough and had apologized, go home happily The million dollar smile is back on the sister’s face. The screen is filled with colorful splashes, and a ‘daag achche hain’ slogan playing in the backdrop.


My Take: Surf Excel had done something unthinkable again. While all other detergent powders were basking in the glory of how good their product was at removing stains…Surf hit dirt with the glorification of dirt! Haven’t we heard of out-of-the-box thinking and other such jargons at B-schools? Well, this was just an instance where it was put into use! The ad took my breath away and I was mesmerized by the innocence that those two kids afforded the ad! It was clutter-free unlike other detergent powder ads, which kept comparing the superiority of their product by their less-effective (???) counterparts. A thematic ad that successfully launched the brand philosophy, surf excel had proved to be the last word in detergent advertisement again: both in terms of product offering and communiqué. The ad commands a high recall value with consummate ease. The responses speak volumes… the commercial took the product image to greater heights. Sheer tenacity. One word sum-up: Innovative.

Ford Fusion: The no-nonsense car!

Brand: Ford Fusion
Agency: JWT
Tag line: The No Nonsense Car
Description: Version 1: Two marketing dudes are trying hard to impress their boss by suggesting to shoot the new Ford Fusion ad in Australia. Unimpressed, the haughty boss explains to them that the customers would buy the car not because of the location but for its features and goes on to talk about the car’s attributes and concludes by giving them a stern order “Give me an ad without any nonsense”. The ad ends with: “The no-nonsense car” tagline, as the crestfallen duo cancels their trip.
Description: Version 2: The same two dudes have another brilliant idea: A long rough road, a chopper, Fusion, a pretty girl criss-crossing her way through the traffic… Stop! The boss is unimpressed again. He halts them mid-way and goes on to tell them about the Fusion’s unmatched features. He again concludes by an arrogant statement: “Drop the girl and the chopper. Keep the car… ummm (thinks) and the road.” The screen is again filled with the Fusion, the tagline scribbled alongside it on the screen. The duo crest-fallen yet again!


My Take: Seems the creative guys couldn’t actually come up with a no-nonsense idea for the commercial and were forced into making an ad out of reality! Jokes apart, the first sentence I blurted out after seeing both these ads was: “Wow! Some ideas!” No brand-ambassadors to inflate the market price, no false claims, no un-necessary jazz and no desperation involved! JWT churned out a clear-cut, blunt commercial. The message in the bottle is clear: the car will get the cash registers ringing with only its distinguished features, barring all other nonsense (a rude reminder for other complacent car makers who, till now, swore by enviable locales!). The beginning of a new era in modern-age car ads? Time will tell all…

I guess that is all I have time for now… Hope you have a wonderful week.






12 Comments

Anonymous says:

The surf excel ad's the probably the best ad i have seen for quite sometime now. The lil charming girl/boy duo brings so much life and zest into the ad. the overall concept is so funny and still so innocent that you can never get tired of watching that ad. It added the kind of desirable breaks sometimes between the matches. And its so close to real life as someone like who has a kiddo sister will vouch having spent so much quality time together.
As for Amir Khan he is prolly the best thing to have happened to indian movies and so the ad had to be good.
and i need to take sometime of my APPARENTLY busy schedule to watch the ford ad.
really interesting pic and euqally interestingly written.


@Arunabh: Yeah man, I can relate to the surf excel ad too... have a kiddo brother to take care of... have spoilt him rotten already! And I'm gonna talk about a few more ads in the days to come... that is if time permits and mood cooperates! You keep visiting!
P.S. Catch the ford ads too... they're quite nice!


I thought the Aamir Khan ad was a bit of an overkill.

Unlike the other brilliant ads, where he takes the coke bottles out of a well, and the one with rimi sen - this was was just plain annoying.

The sound as well as the visuals are irritating. Who wants to see a fantastic actor like aamir in the most constipated role of his career.

But thats just my opinion.


@The cynical consultant: Subjective opinions. I liked the other ads too but what was lacking was the humour... this one took care of that aspect. Anyway, I dont expect everyone to be a fan of crazy/heavy comedy like me... infact Iv observed gentle comedy works best with everyone. Thanks for visiting nonetheless!

Anonymous says:

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Don't know how but my old blog is on your blog roll. Thanks. And, if you're interested my new (and current) blog is here. Wonder how you know me, though. The only common link (and that's a stretch) I could see was Aditi. Hit me back. Would interest me to know how you ran into my blog.


@Fungus: Nice template on wordpress! Yeah, saw your blog on Aditi's list of links ;) Thanks for the new address. Will frequent. Cheers!

Anonymous says:

hi nice those are my favorite ads too and see my blog i am scientist studying +1 class tell u r thought on my blog......


it gives me jitters to know tht u'll be walking besides me in the "CAT" walk.
came across the blog thru cat2007 community...liked the previous post a lot2.
btw whts ICSI?
tc.


n yea do check out dis ad 2...its 1 of my fav ones.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxGisaaLTaw&NR


@Scientist Suresh: Thanks for visiting. Will check up your blog soon.

@Rohan: ICSI is the 'Institute Of Company Secretaries of India'. I'm working towards that as well (Inter). And you also wanna bell the cat in 2007? Ha buddy! See you in my IIM-A class of 2010! Also, whats ur id on orkut? And nice sugar-free ad there! Thanks for the link and keep visiting :)


hmm....good work here good work...
:D..!!


@Exclusively_me: Thanks Prinks! Keep visiting honey :)

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