Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest
Advertiser: Cadburys 5 Star
Baseline: No hard fillings
Agency: Ogilvy India
4Ps B&M Take: Dumb, dumber, and dumbest… the three variants of the emotion are simply to underline our complete inability to understand the logic, the connection and the raison d’être for this TV commercial to have aired. Either we are the dumb ones for not latching on to the big idea or there is a gap in the communication somewhere. What does a potato and the myriad curries that it can dish out have in common with a chocolate? Or for that matter what kind of a relationship does the bitter gourd share with the sweet chocolate? None that we can think of, at least. Anyway, so the TVC storyboard goes like this. There is a humble potato on the kitchen counter – all peeled and ready to be sliced and diced into a curry of some sort. On another counter there sits a lonely bitter gourd. Oh and then the potato starts talking (seriously?). Anyhow, so the potato begins to list out all the delicacies that can be prepared with it and suddenly there is the sound of crying that fills on-screen space. Yes, it is indeed the bitter gourd upset that none of the delicacies mention her. Taken aback by the crying, the potato immediately backtracks – saying he was going to list out the bitter gourd dishes next. Suddenly, just before the TVC ends, a 5 Star appears next to the bitter gourd, with the potato telling the lonely veggie that ‘no hard feelings’ sort of an apology from the one to the other. No reinforcing of the brand identity or establishing the brand credo. In fact, one does not even realise it’s a 5 Star advert for the first 50 seconds – then the last 3 seconds shove the brand in as an afterthought to the storyboard. Do you still blame us for calling this one for the dumb and dumber?
A Big Thumbs Down
Advertiser: KamaSutra condoms
Baseline: Big boys play with big tools
Agency: Happy Creative Services
4Ps B&M Take: If there were any prizes for how to make a condom ad with zero vulgarity – this one could surely stake a capital claim to it. But if there were a prize on how to create an ad that will go way over the heads of many in the target audience – this one deserves that too. Reminiscent of those early Bollywood days when the meeting of two sunflowers equaled consummating love or marriage, the first ad in this three-TVC campaign has a series of hands fitting screws (ahem…), bulbs inserting bulbs into a socket, pumping gas into a machine, and everything else one can think of, only the crescendo growing louder with every passing second. The ad finally ends with the bulb being lit up and promoting the hardware condoms. The second ad also swears by the same logic to reinforce the ‘hardware’ image, only difference is that instead of four sets of hands on display along the TVC, this one has four men on display. Each of the men playing with the usual boy toys, one with a drilling machine, another with a lawn mower, a third with a saw and a forth with a big hammer. The end voiceover goes: Big boys play with big tools… and goes on to promote MTV and Kamasutra’s big head condoms for bigger heads. Now while the heart of this ad seems to be in the right place and targets the MTV generation – what it does miss is the female touch. If sex were just a male thing, this ad would have been a sure shot winner. Unfortunately, the females have a say too. A big ‘thumbs down’ to this macho avatar!
This ain’t fresh!
Advertiser: Flipkart.com
Baseline: India’s biggest online sale is here
Agency: Happy Creative Services
4Ps B&M Take: The TVC shows a pony-tailed little girl in a sari. While talking to her husband over the phone she asks him in her authoritative voice, “Sanjay vapas kab aaoge? Diwali ki shopping baaki hain na?” The camera then pans over a living room littered with half open Flipkart boxes. The voice-over: India’s biggest online sale is coming. Be prepared. We loved the Flipkart.com ads once upon a time. But if you flog a thoroughbred horse one too many times, even that has a tendency to start underperforming for you at the races. And that pretty much sums up the story of Flipkart.com and its overuse of the kids as adults formula. The ads per se are okay in as much as they communicate the dates of Flipkart.com’s annual Diwali Sale. But beyond that nothing. The ‘kids as adults’ formula strips the ad of any newness or freshness and secondly the commercial fails in its key task of appraising existing and potential consumers about the reasons that they need to visit the online shopping site viz. special offers, bargain deals and interesting buys for the festive season. A killer ad and innovative marketing insight is about telling a different story and not telling the same story differently.
