THIRSTY AND LUSTING
Advertiser: PepsiCo India
Baseline: Iiske saamne sab kuch pheeka pad jaega
Agency: JWT
4Ps B&M Take: Summers are here and so are the soft drink ads. Mango drink from the Pepsico stable is back yet again with brand ambassador and Bollywood hottie Katrina Kaif… with more of the same. The only thing is that this time they seem to taking Coke’s Maaza head on in a competitive taste challenge. To be fair, Katrina is her usual ravishing and sensuous self in this latest promotional endeavour. The storyboard is pretty simple. There’s Kaif, another woman and a man walking with picnic baskets into a forest area. The ladies blindfold the man and urge him to taste and pick between Slice and another ‘Mango drink’. He decides to go with Slice. Towards the end, Katrina of course gurgles the drink with the orgasmic sensuousness visible in previous slice ads. The advert ends with a line that says, “Iske samne sab pheeka padh jaayega”. First, let’s tell you what works for this one. First, Katrina Kaif. And second, the funky soundtrack used in the ad – a remix version of popular Bollywood song ‘Haal kaisa hai janab ka’. But the huge downside of this and comes from lack of clarity about the ‘taste challenge’. It took us two views of the TVCs to finally understand the twist to the usual Slice tale of Katrina smelling and picking mangoes. Besides, rival Frooti also launched its summer TVCs around the same time. Frooti for the first time brings Shahrukh Khan on board and an endearing storyboard about adults morphing into kids. As another media review of the two ads puts it: Frooti’s ad makes you lust for the product, while Slice makes you lust for the ambassador. Now, that’s what we say is calling a spade a spade.
NO MURDER MYSTERY THIS
Advertiser: Goibibo.com
Baseline: No dhoka, only bharosa
Agency: ITSA Brand Innovations
4Ps B&M Take: Hmmm… While Mentos’s whodunit scores because of its high focus on keeping the fun imagery of the brand intact… Goibibo.com kind of loses the plot midway. A travel portal’s advert is expected to showcase hip n’ happening locales, ease of commuting, terrific travel experiences, with a few consumer endorsements thrown in. But in a bid to do things differently, Goibibo.com does none of the above. So the latest advertisement’s storyboard has a hospital room with a man lying prone on the operation table, with three king-sized knives stabbed into his back. Hey… but the man (who should have been dead) speaks, telling the story of his ‘three’ backstabs to the good doctor. He was first backstabbed when his airline cancelled his booking and did not refund him; the next backstab story is of a four star room he booked which turned out to not be worth even a single star; and finally…the third backstab, which occurred when the bus he booked – did not arrive after even three hours of its scheduled arrival. The doctor finally advices him that to stop getting backstabbed he must long on to Goibibo.com where there is ‘No Dhoka, Only Bharosa.’ Lame, right? Yeah, we thought so too. You want to do things differently, then you better go the whole hog guys! The insight that consumers of travel portals are looking for a reliable travel planner is old hat and often been used by a number of brands in the category. A killer ad and innovative marketing insight is about telling a different story and not telling the same story differently.
BURN THAT CAR!
Advertiser: Renault Fluence
Baseline: Status Redefined
Agency: NA
4Ps B&M Take: Your car has run out of petrol… you are stranded on a highway and looking for someone to give you a lift to a nearest fuel station. A gleaming saloon a.k.a. the Renault Fluence comes along, gives you that much coveted ride and you finally have the fuel to get your car going. But instead you pour the fuel all over your car and set it on fire. Why? Because the ride in the new Fluence from Renault’s stable convinced you that the saloon was so much better than the four-wheeler you have/had been driving. That just about sums up the latest ad spot for the new face-lifted Renault Fluence. Now we have problems with the basic premise of this storyboard. First, our man who burnt down his drive – is still stranded on the highway (the Renault Fluence has driven away dude, who do you expect to get to your destination?); and second, if you are stupid enough to not tank up on fuel before hitting the highway… your judgement on a car’s superiority is certainly not one that we would look forward to. Oh, and we hear that the advert actually shows off an older model of the car – and not the new face-lifted version that has been launched globally. Guess, India has a wait in store for the new saloon to hit its shores. Are competitors in the sedan C+ segment space listening?
