Thursday, June 28, 2007

Below the line and below the belt...the P&G vs Lever saga....

An optometrist was instructing a new employee on how to charge a customer:

"As you are fitting his glasses, if he asks how much they cost, you say '$75.' ...


If his eyes don't flutter, say, 'For the frames. The lenses will be $50.'...

If his eyes still don't flutter, you add ...'Each.'

Its about how u say it...properly said, you can do it!!!!!

Tide has created India's Longest Clothesline to illustrate the superior value that Tide offers consumers. A first ever, Tide India's longest clothesline ran around the famous Necklace Road on the perimeter of the historical Hussein Sagar Lake...... says a news item, which I ran a cross, this morning.....

I have got amused ever since I saw this in NDTV profit some days back and was interested by the developments. Not that I am afraid that "The end of advertising as we know it" is atlast happening, but am amazed by the scale at which it is..... It has entered the records as a unique Limca Book Record but it also has raised the level ,tone and the importance of the 'below the line promotion' stuff as they call it. Arc Worldwide, Leo Burnett’s integrated marketing division have done it excellently well and with an ease that made others awestruck. Celebrity Homemaker and Actor Ramya Krishnan, as they describe the endorser , appeared in the streets along with the Tide team and scores of onlookers and could pull a large crowd who gathered to see more of the film star and her spotlessly white attire and less of course of the packet of tide and "how much" one packet can wash....

Ms. Vidya Murthy, Brand Manager, Home and Personal Care, P&G India said, "Our Consumer Research indicated that the homemaker's primary concern is her family's well-being, and thus she believes that one of the ways she can contribute to the family is by making the most of her budget. She wants maximal value from her brands and the Tide India's Longest Clothesline is proof of the economic efficiency that Tide offers."


Very true, even though its not much a great revelation... we all knew it long back right???? still Ms Murthy is genuine compared to what the endorser had to say......

Ramya Krishnan said, "The Tide India's Longest Clothesline brings to life what I as a consumer experience everyday. As a homemaker, I find Tide a great fit for my budget. I urge homemakers across Andhra Pradesh to experience the great savings by using Tide daily."

Oh !!! come on Ramyaji...You seriously think that we are gonna beleive that? Where you and the average home maker...?
Still the attempt is simply stupendous and the charm that its has created is all marvellous...


Below the line, well thought about and executed is all about getting more for spending less !!!
And what is the competition doing?

Well they are not simply hanging their fate in the clothline and getting dried off.. INFACT the whole thing started with Lowe lintas and Surf excel taking the now famous time tested Dhabba walla route campaign...Yes the same Dhabba walas, who formed a case in Harward on Logistics , whom the Prince of wales came and marvelled at, whom Sumantra Ghoshal is supposed to have asked Fedex to learn a lesson or two from, and whom in the past, radio mirchi and ICICI bank among others have creatively used in their below the line promotion efforts....


Branded table mats which said... ‘Kuch Khana, Kuch Girana… Surf Excel Hai Na' , an extention of the‘Jaise Bhi Daag Ho… Surf Excel Hai Na' campaign, which they had unleashed in response to Tide's attempts to position itself as the only stain remover kinda..... this time they had the RK Laxman touch, the cartoonist made the pics for the mat and signed on it, so that it would be hard for you to throw it away and for a sum of 1.50 rupees per mat the dhabbawalla was all too willing to deliver it to the lunch rooms where staining do happen quite often........

Its heartening to me to see this street fight.... because it is creativity, it simply is innovation and innovation brings challenges..to reach more people and more eyeballs and stay there and percolate into the brains.... Marketing communication is supposed to do it and supposed to do it first..... The problem that today we have, is that, its all addressing the eyes and nothing for the brains... the next generation, will end up, I am afraid with bean sized brains and baloon sized eyes, looking like antellopes......

Well done my beloved industry !!!! simply superb.....!!!


Tail piece :-"If you don't get noticed, you don't have anything. You just have to be noticed, but the art is in getting noticed naturally, without screaming or without tricks."
- Leo Burnett, quoted in Denis Higgins, The Art of Writing Advertising: Conversations with Masters of the Craft (1990), Lincolnwood, IL: NTC Business Books, p. 26.












6 comments:

What am i? said...

hmmm..well do agree with the fact that its how you say it..but what seems to be a delight to your eyeballs may not be for your brains,a classic example is how surf was launched in dubai and the hoarding was like a dirty cloth dipped in surf and when taken out it shines like pearly white.. but arabic being read the other way around...people percieved it in n rather sloppy way..as to ...the neat cloth being dipped in surf and it comes out dirty...the saga of advertising had proved right and wrong in different cases..so i guess we should not be commenting that poeple around are glaucoma patients who jus sees with their eyes and then prelocate it into their brain later...

Vivek Nair said...

I feel the idea is good...but the money involved to do such an activity...is not in proportion to the no. of eyeballs you hit....i feel...the same idea could have been executed across the city in bits and pieces....so that entire hyd would speak abt it....nobody knows abt it now.....
Anyhow…. A clutter break act….

Anonymous said...

Oh yes !!!
'its is clutter breaking and reaching to the curiousity of people. but disagreeing to what dheep says here it is a good act. Arabs may read from right to left but that does not mean that they are averse to new ideas. People are tired of conventional methods and WE SHOULD comment on the moneys that traditional agencies waste on traditional advertising and in the name of creativity. Dheep is into a traditional agency i guess and that explains the disdain that is being expressed in the comment. Creatives and others in the agency as we know it by and large( i repeat) by and large, resist change and it is simple. Now but the clients want result and that is it. And anyways its a bold new attempt and it has to go on. Congrats adformula team for raking in such issues .Hope to see more soon....

Anonymous said...

It is a welcome change no doubt but to accuse the ad agency community as lethargic lazy buffalos who resist change is unfair and pathetic to say the least.The problem as I see it is the dearth of talents and nothing more important than that. How can the industry attract and retain new and young talents is the question...

Sreejit Swamy said...

Hiii Sir... Heard a lot about you from my bro who used to be a student of yours... been to your blog... And its great... almost seem to an online encyclopedia on advertising.... great going sir, I now have a blog that i can visit often... Btw I'd love to invite you to visit my blog too.. sreejitswamy.blogspot.com... and leave ur valuable comments there...

What am i? said...

ijaz with the arab example,wat iwanted to point out is not that change is not acceptable,wat i wanted to say that change is acceptable and this maybe a change but still there is a lack of talent in the industry..!! and as matter of fact i guess working in a traditional or real flabbergasting agency does not make the change i guess,wat makes the change is how u think.Lying in water for a long while does not make you a fish , you might get wrinkles but wrinkles stay with your skin..........the only statement that i wanted to bring in is that creativity is lagging in the industry and change does not mean a change for the sake of it.

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