Flogging a dead horse
4Ps B&M Take: Nice but lacks freshness – these four words just about sum up the new campaign from e-commerce major Flipkart.com. After all, how much can you really flog a dead horse? But Flipkart.com seems intent to be doing just that. Bandying about the same tired concept of kids impersonating adult situations can only take you so far. Effective advertising is after all as much about innovation as it is about creativity. There are these series of 15 second-spots with fashionably dressed kids enacting roles of adults and the overriding theme is to promote the Flipkart Fashion Sale, with great offers on great brands. One of the spots is set in a hospital, where a fashionably attired doctor is addressing an equally smartly turned out patient and his kin; another spot is set in an office boardroom… where when the well-dressed boss asks his subordinates to ‘say something’, all they can come up with is ‘nice clothes’. The third 15-seconder is set in a musical unction, where stylishly attired classical singers wow audiences with their ragas, wearing hip tees and bandanas. The final messages, of course all promote the Flipkart fashion sale. Nice concept in its own, but as we said, one to death by the e-commerce major. It is no secret that Flipkart.com has been going through a bit of a rough patch in recent times – and has been in the market for funds. But just a few days ago, the online retailer stitched up another $200 million fund infusion from its current investors. So clearly, a paucity of ad money could not have been the reason behind the more-of-the-same offering. And with global biggie Amazon.com announcing its India foray, Flipkat.com has little option but to raise its stakes in the consumer market.
Magic Move Doesn’t Work
4Ps B&M Take: How can you score on your competition? Any marketing 101 will tell you that it can be done by building a better product and pushing it through crafty and relentless 360 degree advertising. Well, having launched their feature-laden pinnacle FHD phone in India, Spice Mobile has attempted to do exactly that – by loudly rattling off the list of virtues that their latest smartphone possesses. But after extolling the feature-rich new smartphone, they make a big mistake. They suggest that it could just as easily have been a Samsung or Nokia Smartphone. Here’s how the ad goes. It opens on a rainy evening in what appears to be a plush market in a European city, where voice and two white gloved hands in a shiny video kiosk is introducing people to ‘an exciting new smartphone’ which comes laced with a 5.0-inch full-HD display, runs on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, has an 8-megapixel auto focus camera, 8GB of internal storage, blah blah. Then the voice asks the man listening if he can identify the phone. The man’s first guess is Sam… and the second guess is Nok… implying that those are the brands he trusts will have these features. First mistake! Moving on, at hearing its competitor’s names, the inanimate voice comes up with a dismayed sigh and the gloved hands knock him back. Really… you’d slap a prized consumer? Second mistake! And finally, in a market flooded with similar-sounding smartphones, the consumer is more likely to be viewing them as lifestyle statements. But this ad comes across as one for a feature phone rather than a smartphone. So what is the style statement you are offering Mr. gloved hand and Mr. inanimate voice?
Off The Track
4Ps B&M Take: Mahindra has launched its new 110cc Centuro motorcycle and the commercial makes a valiant effort to create the right noise to wow prospective consumers. The ad begins with a shirtless man cutting a tree in the woods. Two pretty damsels spot him, are wowed by his looks and in a bid to tantalize him into chasing them, pick his shirt (which is hanging on a tree nearby) and make off with it in their open-top convertible. The man does get on his motorbike (obviously Centuro) and chases them through rough forest terrain. He eventually catches up with them, and when the girl suggestively offers him his shirt back, he extends his hands, takes out his sunglasses from the shirt, turns and walks back towards his bike. The girls are obviously left nonplussed. Nice story. Even the jingle that runs through the commercial – “It’s great to be me…” – is simply superb. So why does it not feature in our good ads section? Well, because this one does nothing for the brand in question. It could just as well have been a slick ad for a deodorant brand, a menswear brand, an ad for the sunglasses in question or even an ad for the convertible driven by the girls. Given that the bike is packed with features such as LED pilot, an anti-theft alarm, a distance-to-empty meter, among more, the communication could certainly have peddled much more than what it did. The good thing is that the ad is at least getting eyeballs for the brand… Will that translate into conversions, is anybody’s guess.
